Too Lazy to be a Villainess novel Chapter 226

Chapter 226: Rust and Truth

[Lavinia’s POV — Imperial Dungeons]

The air grew colder the deeper we descended, torchlight bleeding across the stone walls, shadows bending and stretching like they wanted to whisper secrets to me. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Chains rattled somewhere below. A groan followed—low, broken.

Marshi padded close at my side, tail swishing, eyes glowing faintly in the dark. Sir Haldor’s steps behind me were steady as a drumbeat, the sound of duty wrapped in armor.

The dungeon smelled of rust, mold, and something sharper—pain.

I smirked to myself. How fitting.

When we turned the final corridor, I saw him.

Caelum.

Once my sparring partner, the boy who used to laugh when I missed a strike. Now slumped against iron bars, pale, sweat-slick, poison gnawing at him from the inside.

I stopped just shy of the bars. My voice slid across the silence, calm and sharp as glass.

"Well, well. My old training mate. You look terrible. Should I be offended that you didn’t dress up for me?"

His head lifted slowly, eyes hazy but burning with defiance. Even on death’s doorstep, Caelum managed a weak smirk.

"Still... sharp-tongued... Princess," he rasped, voice cracked from thirst and pain. "Guess some things... never change."

Sir Haldor set the wooden chair down with the ceremonious care of a man placing a relic upon an altar.

"Your Highness."

I sank into it, crossing one ankle over the other, as casual as a cat in a kiln. Chains rasped at Caelum’s knees when he bowed—humility from a man who’d once sparred opposite me in the yard felt almost obscene.

"You’re trembling," I observed, voice low and amused. "Pain suits you, Caelum. It makes your bravado look smaller. Still—credit where it’s due. You kneel like a fighter about to die. That’s honorable in a way."

He gave me a smile that was all cracked porcelain. "Because you won’t harm me, Princess. I know you."

I let the silence stretch, thin and pressurized. "Such confidence. Tell me—what gives you that certainty?"

He strained forward on the irons, stopped by the chain, and leveled me with that old, awful arrogance. "Because you need me."

The word cut like salt. I let my smile thin to a wire. "Need you?" I echoed, tasting it with deliberate contempt. "Oh, Caelum. That’s very quaint of you—to think the world revolves around the little conveniences of your survival."

His eyes flicked to Marshi—golden, unreadable—and the beast’s tail flicked once, bored. Haldor stood like a statue, waiting for the show to end.

"You think you’re indispensable?" I tilted forward, fingers tapping the arm of the chair. "You who slipped poison into my cup like a petty thief. You who sat in my garden and plotted while wearing a friendly smile. Tell me—was your heart big enough to hold an empire, or was it merely full of schemes?"

Caelum’s jaw worked. "You dragged me into your nets. You had me poisoned and hunted. You—"

"You forget your crimes when your throat is dry," I cut him off, letting the words land. "Or maybe you hope to charm me into pity. Old habits die hard." My voice went colder. "You were at my side when the maid poured the cup. You passed her that foreign coin. And you think that’s bravery, how stupid of you caelum."

Then I leaned forward, saying, "You are not a wounded wolf—you are a donkey who fancied a crown."

A heavy silence dropped. Caelum bared his teeth. "It was your father who stole my birthright—Cassius took the throne from Irethene."

I let the accusation roll over me like a bad scent and replied with the slow, surgical calm of someone who has already decided the verdict. "And it was you—and that priest—who attacked the south. You brought fire to my people, Caelum. You carved your path with blood and called it strategy. If Irethene now breathes easier under my rule, perhaps that is because your ’freedom’ was always code for ruin."

He scoffed, spitting the word like poison. "Peaceful? That’s a nice word for a puppet’s lullaby. You rule with cruelty—thinly veiled as order. An empire cannot be ’peaceful’ when its crown is worn by a child of tyranny."

I hummed, almost indulgent. "So that’s your truth. You wanted the throne because you believed you’d do a better job? Because you thought yourself more deserving?"

"What’s wrong with that?" His voice brightened into a brittle edge, suddenly small with fury. "I knew you would never be fit for the throne. Only I deserve it, Princess. You’re a monster... and monsters only bring doom."

. . .

. . .

. . .

SLASH.

"AGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

"AAAGHHHHH!!!!!"

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