Resetting The Villainess

It started with an invitation.

Written on pale gold parchment and sealed with the crest of the Church.

> Lady Seraphina Valeria,
The Saint wishes to meet with you privately, to discuss reconciliation and peace.
— High Cleric Maeron

Father didn’t like it. Adrian didn’t either.

“It’s a trap,” my brother said flatly.

“I know,” I replied.

“Then why go?”

“Because if I don’t, they’ll think they can frighten me into silence. I’d rather meet the snake before it strikes.”

---

The meeting was held in one of the Church’s smaller cloisters—an enclosed garden heavy with the scent of lilies and incense. It was quiet here, too quiet, and the sky was a dull silver.

Elle was already waiting by the fountain, robed in white, her hair catching the weak sunlight like spun gold.

She smiled when she saw me.

“Lady Seraphina,” she said softly, “you came.”

“I’m curious by nature,” I said, stepping closer. “You sent for me. I assumed this was about the Whisper Glass.”

“Among other things.”

Her eyes were too calm.
I’d seen that kind of calm before—in predators.

She gestured toward the fountain. “Please. Sit.”

I stayed standing.

“I prefer to stay alert,” I said.

Her smile didn’t falter, but it sharpened. “You think I’d harm you?”

“I think you’ve already tried.”

A faint ripple passed through the water in the fountain.

The air grew colder.

Elle’s hands were folded neatly in front of her, but droplets began to lift from the surface of the water behind her—soft, graceful spheres that hovered like glass beads.

“Do you know what it feels like,” she said quietly, “to heal hundreds of people, day after day, and realize they’d all die without you?”

Her voice had changed—no longer melodic, but brittle. “They call me Saint. They bow. They worship. But they would burn me alive the moment I stopped giving them what they wanted.”

The water beads shimmered, twisting into thin strands that coiled around her fingers like living ribbons.

“You built your toy, your little heretical mirror, and suddenly they whisper her name instead of mine.”

She took a step closer.

I tried to move back, but the air was thick with humidity, heavy and suffocating.

The water rose around her like mist turning solid.

“You don’t deserve their eyes, their faith, their love,” she said softly. “You’ve taken enough from me.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the water struck first.

A single strand snapped toward me, fast as a whip.

I barely turned in time. The edge grazed my shoulder—a searing, slicing burn. The impact threw me backward into the fountain’s base.

Pain tore through me, bright and shocking. My vision blurred.

Water magic was supposed to heal, not bleed. But hers wasn’t blue—it glowed faintly red, threaded with light that shouldn’t exist.

She stepped closer, her expression serene, eyes cold. “They think purity means kindness,” she murmured. “They forget purity can burn too.”

Another strike.

I dove aside, slipping on wet stone, the cut in my shoulder screaming. My hands scraped against the marble edge.

She followed, unhurried, her steps soundless. “You’re afraid. Good. It makes you honest.”

“Why—” I coughed, tasting iron, “—why me?”

“Because you weren’t supposed to matter.”

The water around her arm rippled again, forming a blade so thin it hummed. “You were supposed to be the villain in someone else’s story.”

Her words hit harder than the wound.

I stumbled backward, hand groping for anything to defend myself—and my fingers brushed against the pendant on my neck.

Isolde’s pendant.

It pulsed once, faintly, and the air shifted—something old and unseen brushing against my skin like static.

Elle froze, eyes narrowing.

“What is that?” she demanded.

I didn’t answer. I pressed my palm to the pendant, and for a heartbeat, it flared with light—soft, moonlit, familiar.

The water blade wavered. The mist recoiled as if struck by unseen wind.

Elle hissed—actually hissed—and the sound didn’t belong to anything holy.

“You—”

But she didn’t finish.

The pendant’s light surged again, forcing her to step back. Her expression twisted—not in pain, but in fury.

“This isn’t over,” she spat, voice shaking with hatred. “You think the shadows will protect you? Light burns deeper than you know.”

She vanished in a swirl of mist and displaced air, leaving the fountain’s water boiling where she’d stood.

---

For a moment, I couldn’t move.

Blood trickled from my shoulder, bright against the marble. I pressed a hand to it, the pain grounding me.

The pendant’s glow dimmed, as if nothing had happened.

I wanted to scream. To cry. To laugh.

Instead, I whispered to the empty garden, “So this is your true light, Saint Elle.”

And then I stumbled out, half-limping, half-running, the sound of the water’s hiss following me all the way to the gates.

---

The world outside the cloister seemed brighter, crueler. Every sound too sharp. Every breath tasted of salt and copper.

By the time I reached the carriage, the wound had already begun to throb with mana burn — a scar I knew would never quite fade.

I slumped against the seat, trembling.

The first thing I thought wasn’t fear.
It wasn’t even hatred.

It was him.

Auren.

Because for the first time since meeting him, I understood what true danger looked like.
And what it felt like to need someone who could match it.

I pressed a hand against the wound and whispered his name like a prayer I didn’t believe in.

“Auren.”