STVWDTD Chapter 23

Like a Real Villainess

The maid who'd become Irin's creature shadowed Diana with unswerving devotion, trailing that pulsing crimson aura wherever her mistress commanded. Wherever Diana had a guardian, there the servant went, bright and blood-red.

It was only the faintest of echoes. But that whisper of a thing did wonders for stirring up the household's collective resentment.

Malice slicked into the spaces Diana occupied like oil spreading across water.

The wrongness started small.

"Wake up! How much longer are you going to sleep?" one of them snapped.

"Lazy, and doing nothing all day," another added. Their voices had turned sharp-edged. The servants who'd treated her with respect—that had changed. The shift moved from attitude to action with the speed of falling dominoes.

"I've brought your washing water."

"Christ, it's cold."

Noel whimpered from where he stood on the bathing step, plunging his small hands into water cold enough to bite. Winter's teeth direct from the North, apparently. Fingertips threatening to ice over.

Then: "Ow, hot—"

Scalding tea poured from water boiled to a violent roil, steam rising in angry billows. Hot enough to blister the roof of his mouth. Noel's fingers went bright red where he'd gripped the cup.

Diana's hand found his, and her expression went utterly still.

She wasn't doing anything. Wasn't saying anything. But the servants—maids and attendants alike—kept at it anyway. Discontentment spilled from them like poison seeping from cracked stone.

"Look at all these dresses."

"And the jewels."

The dressing room overflowed with silks and gems. Servants' tongues clicked in disapproval. Everything had been made for Diana alone.

For a girl we don't even know? That's not luxury. That's waste.

The thought arrived uninvited, and jealousy rushed in behind it like floodwater. Discernment drowned. The Eldest Son's bride-to-be suddenly seemed laughable in comparison.

"Lady Irin doesn't even have half this much."

"Our poor young lady."

"And she's so kind-hearted, isn't she? Lady Irin?"

Servants who lived in different quarters—who never saw Irin—were now singing her praises. Manifesting devotion from sheer proximity to poison.

"She is! So kind. She gave me this." One of the maids lifted a sachet at her waist, radiating pride like she'd been crowned. As if she alone were special. The sachet pulsed—that same sick red bleeding into the air.

"I'm jealous!"

"I wish I served her instead."

"Should we ask the head maid to reassign us?"

"Can I see it?"

"Of course you can—"

The maid froze mid-sentence. They all did. The voices stopped like someone had cut strings.

Following their gaze, Irin's attendant felt her spine lock.

Diana stood in the open dressing room doorway, one arm angled across the frame, regarding them all with interest.

"Why so tense? I won't punish you for taking a break." She tilted her head. "Though it's interesting, isn't it? This focus on Lady Irin."

"I—this isn't—"

"That sachet," Diana said mildly. "I'd like to see it. Just for a moment."

"No. I can't." The maid clutched it to her chest like Diana had actually reached for it. "It's precious to me. Please. Have mercy."

The more the maid cowered, the harder the other servants' eyes went. Axe-sharp.

They looked at Diana like she'd been caught stealing, like she'd done something vicious. That red haze wrapped around them all, thick and choking.

"This is too much!" one of them cried out. "How could you try to take from a servant?"

"That's right! A true noblewoman wouldn't treat us this way!"

"Even if you're the heir's bride-to-be, this is unacceptable!"

The maid started crying—genuine tears that made Diana look like a monster. Like she'd actually hurt someone.

"We're reporting this to the head of household!" One of them turned, and the others followed like a synchronized wave.

"Wait."

The last maid through paused, eyes flying wide.

Diana had moved. One arm was blocking the doorway now, casual, and she was smiling.

"You dropped something precious."

"I—what?"

Diana's eyes flicked downward. The maid looked at her own hands—empty. Completely empty.

She looked down.

The sachet lay on the floor.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"Do you know what would happen if the Duke heard what you all were saying?" Diana's voice was soft, conversational. "I hear in the North, they cut the tongues out of servants who don't know when to keep quiet."

The maid hiccupped, going white as chalk.

"Tongue-cutting."

Hic-cup.

The maid nearly tripped scrambling out of the room. Diana watched her go, and her eyes narrowed to slits.

So they can still feel fear. The thought arrived strange, sharp-edged. I thought careless gossip and stupidity had rotted it out completely. But no. Fear still works fine.

Diana picked up the sachet—not the original. She'd swapped them hours ago, while the servants chattered. The fake was close enough; she'd done good work.

This one reeked of something wrong. It felt like the same sick-red power that had wound through Rodrick's madness, amplifying it. Festering.

She turned it over in her hands. What the hell is this?

The interior revealed stone. Pebbles really, tiny ones no bigger than gaming rocks. Each carved with old script.

'Noel might know.'

"Noel," she called. "Come here. And look—don't touch this."

The boy's eyes went wide the moment he saw it.

"We have to destroy it! This is very bad! Very, very bad!"

He didn't explain. Didn't pause to theorize. His magic simply consumed the sachet, whole—flames eating through fabric and stone until nothing remained. Not even ash.

"Wait, shouldn't we study it first? Figure out what—"

She looked down at her empty palm.

"It's fine!" he chirped.

Right. Sure. Fine.

Diana shrugged. What was done was done. The crisis had passed. Surely.

But the malice kept spreading anyway.