Too Lazy to be a Villainess novel Chapter 232

Chapter 232: The Emperor’s Wrath, The Daughter’s Smile

[Imperial Palace—Throne Room—Later—LAVINIA’S POV]

The hall felt too small for the noise it held—a thousand breaths held and waiting.

Papa sat like a volcano at the center of it all, his crimson cloak a slash of daylight against the throne’s black. I stood at his side, shoulders squared, Marshi’s quiet weight at my feet.

Then Imperial Knights shoved Marquess Everett into the room, chains clanking like a funeral bell, and the court thinned into a tense hush.

Everett’s face was of fear and anger. He went to his knees before us, hands clawing the floor, voice high and frantic. "Your Majesty... I—"

Papa lifted one slow hand and cut him off.

"Osric," he said instead, eyes like twin blades, aimed not at the man on the floor but at the Osric beside him. "What of... Caelum?"

Osric dipped his head, grave. "Captain Haldor made him swallow the poison, Your Majesty. He is dead."

A gust of sound blew through the chamber. Gasps, mutters, a wet, choking silence. Faces paled; mouths shaped the same question.

"What? He’s—dead?"

"He’s dead. So it was true."

"So the Marquess conspired..."

"Such audacity. Such—foolish audacity."

Papa’s eyes rolled slowly over the assembly like twin coins searching for weakness. The chatter died the way a struck bell falls silent.

Then, very deliberately, he turned back to the quivering Marquess.

"Marquess Everett," he said, voice long and soft as a drawn sword. "Your so-called adopted son confessed before all of us. He named names. He named actions. He named you."

Everett’s pleading dissolved into a strangled protest. "No...no, no, Your Majesty, He’s—he’s lying! Your Majesty! He—that wretched—I did not know—I swear on my house—I have been loyal—"

Papa laughed then—not a warm or soft sound, but a low, contemptuous thing that echoed down the stone like a verdict.

"Loyal?" he spat the word with the contempt of one who had seen too many masks peel away. "Such an ironic word, coming from vipers who call themselves nobility."

He rose. Heads bowed as if the air itself had ordered it. He walked forward—measured steps that sounded like judgment—until he stood over Everett and, with one effortless motion, crushed the marquess’s outstretched hand beneath his boot.

CRUNCH!!!

The crack was not loud, but it was absolute.

"You know what, Marquess?" Papa’s voice snapped like a steel wire, tight and cold. "Do you know what else I’ve learned today? Every attack, every poisoning, every attempt to break my line—from the day my daughter was born—every. single. one.—was planned by you."

Everett’s face blanched. He tried to shake his head free; his mouth formed words that came out as whimpers. "No... no, Your Majesty... I—I would never—"

"Then you mean," my father said, leaning in until his breath was paper against the marquess’s ear, "that a dying man lied to us?"

"No, your majesty—" Everett choked.

Papa straightened. His hand lifted, and the command rolled across the room with the simple authority of law.

"Strip him of the title. Seize his lands. Bind his line. No coin for his houses. Publish his crimes."

He looked up at the assembly, slow and cold as a verdict. The imperial heralds moved like shadows, already preparing the paperwork the emperor’s words demanded.

Papa’s voice dropped to a low cruelty, the kind that sits like winter on a man’s tongue. "And when the court opens tomorrow, in the square—execute him tomorrow itself. Let it be a lesson: harm my blood, and the world will watch you burn."

An odd, bright thing glinted at my side—it was not approval but the sharp taste of satisfaction. My fingers tightened, invisible claws under my silk.

Everett’s wails broke the last of the stunned silence—half terror, half denial—and around the hall people began to whisper, speculate, and recalculate alliances with the speed of sharks smelling blood.

Papa’s gaze slid to me for the smallest instant—not with indulgence, but with that exact, cold approval that is richer than praise.

"You did well, Lavinia," he said, his voice like a dark bell on a windless night. "You followed the path. You struck true."

***

[Imperial Palace—Hallway—Later]

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