The Villainess Wants To Retire-Chapter 510: A ghost from the past

SOREN

The last thing I saw was the end of the world. It was Eris, framed by a halo of white-gold destruction, her silhouette a jagged shadow against the blinding fire of her own rage.

She was surrounded by the high, screeching silhouettes of the Syvrak, but she looked more terrifying than any of them. I watched her, my vision blurring with a thick, syrupy heat, and my last conscious thought was a jagged shard of failure.

I’m sorry. Eris, I’m so sorry.

The regret was a physical weight, heavier than the ice-spike that had pierced my ribs. Then the darkness took me, pulling me down into a deep, silent trench where the sound of the battle became a dull, distant hum. I heard a voice, my mother’s voice, calling a name I hadn’t used in a lifetime.

"Ivanya."

It was gentle. It was distant. And then, there was nothing at all.

When my eyes opened, I didn’t see the smoke-choked sky of the capital or the crumbling marble of the palace. I saw light.

It was a soft, rhythmic glow, like the pulse of a subterranean heart. I felt warmth, a strange, cradling heat that seemed to seep into my marrow. I was floating.

My eyes adjusted slowly, blinking against the radiance until the ceiling above me came into focus. It was a cathedral of crystalline ice, soaring into the gloom, dripping with formations that glowed with a pale, ethereal blue-white.

I knew this place. The recognition was immediate and jarring. This was Aenithra’s sanctuary... the hidden grotto in the far North where I had brought Eris to heal.

Wait. What?

Disorientation hit me like a physical blow. I tried to sit up, my mind racing to reconcile the two realities. I remembered the battlefield.

I remembered Vetra’s face, distorted by the hybrid rot. I remembered the cold bite of the impalement and the sight of Eris fighting alone. How could I be here? I was dying. I should be dead.

I looked around, the water lapping softly against my chest. The cave was empty. No nymphs darted through the shadows, no guardians stood watch over the sacred pool. I was alone in a silence so complete it felt unnatural.

"Hello?" I called out.

My voice echoed off the crystalline walls, sounding thin and small. There was no answer. Just the steady, rhythmic drip of water from the ceiling.

I felt a ghost of a sensation in my side, a phantom ache where the tail-spike had torn through me. I looked down, expecting to see the jagged ruin of my torso, but the water was clear.

My skin was smooth, pale, and entirely unmarked. The wound was gone. Not even a scar remained to mark the place where I had been gutted like a fish.

Yet, I still felt a lingering heaviness, a residual exhaustion that made my limbs feel like they were made of lead.

The image of Eris flashed in my mind again, vivid, terrifying, and raw. She was still back there. She was still fighting a war I had started, holding off a horde that wanted to tear her soul apart, while I was... here. Floating in a dream.

The guilt was a crushing, suffocating pressure. I remembered the day I proposed to her. I remembered the weight of her hand in mine and the promise I had made. I had told her I would give her a purpose. I had promised to stand beside her, a partner in the chaos.

And instead, I had left her. I had let her become my shield. She was fighting my battles, facing my nemesis, and I had abandoned her to the fire. It wasn’t what I meant. Never this.

"I have to get out," I hissed, my voice splashing against the silence.

I pushed myself upward, my feet finding the smooth, sandy floor of the pool. The water was waist-deep, warm as a summer’s breath.

I waded toward the shore, my urgency growing with every step. I had to find a way back. I had to get to the capital, to the battle, to the woman who was currently burning her life away to keep me breathing.

"Ivanya."

The voice was soft, coming from the shadows deeper in the cave. I froze mid-step, the water rippling out from my legs in perfect, silver circles. I knew that voice. I had heard it in my dreams for a decade, a ghost of a memory that I had tried to bury under the weight of a crown.

I turned slowly, afraid that if I moved too fast, the vision would shatter.

A figure emerged from the gloom of the crystalline pillars. She walked with a gentle, unhurried grace, her feet barely making a sound on the stone. She looked exactly as I remembered her... the soft lines of her face, the kind eyes that always seemed to see the truth of me, and that small, patient smile that had been my only comfort in the years before the ice took me.

"Mother?" I whispered. My throat felt like it was full of glass. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"My son," she said, her voice widening into a warm, affectionate lilt.

I stood there, trembling in the waist-deep water. "Is that... is that really you?"

"I came because you called for me," she answered simply, stopping at the water’s edge.

"I didn’t—" I started, then stopped. My mind was a whirlpool of conflicting priorities. I wanted to run to her. I wanted to stay in this silent, beautiful place and ask her a thousand questions about the childhood I had lost. But Eris was screaming in the fire.

"I need to go back," I said, my voice breaking. "Please. Show me how to return. Eris is... she’s fighting alone. Because of me. Because I wasn’t strong enough."

My mother... or the image of her... shook her head gently. "Not yet, Ivanya. You are not ready to go back."

"I don’t care about being ready!" I snapped, the frustration boiling over into a sudden, sharp anger. "She needs me! Vetra is destroying everything!"

"Why do you think you couldn’t access your power, Soren?" She used the name the world knew, her gaze probing and calm.

The question caught me off guard. I remembered the wall. The barrier that had sat between my consciousness and the higher stages of the Ice-Born transformation.

No matter how hard I pushed, no matter how much I strained, I had remained stuck at a level that was insufficient for the threat we faced.

"I don’t know," I admitted, my shoulders sagging. "Something was blocking me. Something in the magic."

"Not something," she corrected softly. "Someone. You."