My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

The carriage rolled through the falling night of the Skargardian capital, its wheels muffled over the smoother stone roads that led toward the royal grounds.

The city had changed as they drew closer to the center of power. Ordinary traffic thinned. Streets that should have remained open at this hour had been closed off for the evening, with guards posted at intersections and side roads to direct away anyone without the right name, crest, or invitation. Several of the approaches to the castle had been restricted for the event, reserved only for the nobles expected to attend, so that no unnecessary disturbance could reach the royal grounds.

The Rubenhart carriage was taking one of those routes.

Since the mansion stood in the noble district, not far from the heart of the capital, the journey was shorter than it might have been from any other quarter. Even with the controlled pace of the horses and the traffic of other arriving carriages, it took barely half an hour before the castle grounds came into view.

The nobles ahead of them and behind them needed no explanation once they saw the crest on the side of the carriage.

The Rubenhart emblem carried enough weight on its own.

More than once, another carriage shifted aside to give them passage, not merely out of courtesy, but from the instinctive caution House Rubenhart inspired. The son of Eurich Van Rubenhart was not someone people wanted to inconvenience. Too much of his father lived in the stories told about him already, in the reputation, in the expectation that he remembered every slight and forgave none of them.

Ulrich noticed none of it with any real interest.

His mind remained fixed on the evening ahead and on the danger sitting beneath all its ceremony. The sisters’ introduction to the nobility had already become a secondary concern. Important, yes. Necessary, certainly. But not the true problem anymore.

For one brief moment, as the carriage crossed another checkpoint and moved deeper into the royal district, he considered sending the girls back to the mansion.

The thought came and went quickly.

The one in danger tonight was Kaliantha. The Demons would not be foolish enough to target the sisters directly under his protection, not here, not when doing so would bring his full attention down on them at once. That much he trusted. What he did not trust was the shape violence could take once it began. Panic spread. The crowds moved badly. A failed strike could become a different kind of disaster in seconds. Collateral damage was the sort of risk that cared very little for who had been meant to die and who had not.

And who knew what other people might attempt against the three sisters simply because they were witches.

That was what concerned him.

"Um... Lord Ulrich."

Esther’s voice came soft and careful through the dim interior of the carriage.

Ulrich raised his gaze from the window and looked at her.

She had been sitting with both hands clasped together so tightly in her lap that the blue silk around her wrists had wrinkled. Even now she looked nervous, but she was trying very hard not to show it too openly. When his eyes met hers, she gathered herself and offered him a small, timid smile.

"Do not be concerned," she said. "We will be good."

For the briefest instant, the tension in Ulrich’s expression eased.

Not enough to soften him, not enough for any of the sisters to miss what sat beneath it, but enough that Esther’s effort did not go unanswered.

He gave a slight nod.

She brightened at once, just a little.

A few minutes later, the carriage slowed.

Then it stopped before the high gates on the western side of the castle complex, not the great main entrance meant to overwhelm visitors, but the one closer to the towering Skargardian Keep itself. Beyond the gate rose the white marble structures of the inner royal grounds, pale even in the dark, their height and clean lines catching torchlight in hard gleams.

The halt of the carriage settled inside.

Hendrick and the knights were still there outside in escort, but that changed nothing. Verification was required even here. Every carriage entering this section of the grounds had to be checked before it passed through.

A knight approached.

Then the small curtain by the window was drawn aside from outside, and Ulrich turned his face toward it.

The man overseeing the inspection was none other than Marx Lambert.

That alone said enough about the seriousness of the night. This was not work that should have fallen to the commander of the royal guard personally, not at the gate, not carriage by carriage, but Marx had clearly taken the responsibility onto himself.

"Lord Rubenhart."

Recognition came at once.

There was no mistaking Ulrich for him. The dark crimson hair, the eyes that held the same deep shade, Marx saw all of it in a single glance. For a moment, memory crossed his face. Eurich Van Rubenhart had carried those same colors, those same cold eyes that made men check their words before speaking. Ulrich had not inherited his father’s full hardness yet. He was younger, less worn, less fully hardened by time, but there was already something catching in how composed he looked. Too mature. Too controlled for his age.

Then Marx’s gaze shifted past him.

Across the bench, the three girls sat in blue, red, and dark purple silk.

His eyes widened slightly before he could stop it.

There was no need to ask who they were. No need for names. No need for explanation. These had to be the witches Ulrich had adopted.

For one short, disbelieving beat, Marx simply looked at them.

Ulrich had truly done it.

He had truly brought them.

Not hidden in some distant estate. Not kept away from the capital. Not introduced quietly through rumor before being eased into acceptance. No. He had brought three witches into the very heart of a kingdom that despised witches and seated them in noble silks on the way to a royal event. Adopted or not, titled through him or not, the act still bordered on provocation.

Or insult.

Or both.

While Marx was still staring, Airam’s gaze lifted to meet his.

She sat closest to the window, and the moment she caught the shape of his scrutiny, the look in her eyes changed. It darkened at once, her expression sharpening with plain dislike. She narrowed her eyes at him without any attempt to hide it, cold and hostile enough that even from outside the carriage Marx could feel the warning in it.

Ulrich noticed.

"Is there a problem, Commander?" he asked.

His voice remained calm, but that calm only made the question harder.

Marx dragged his attention back to him. "No, my lord."

Ulrich’s gaze shifted past Marx and toward the other knights spread across the gate.

Marx was clearly not handling the inspections alone. If he had been, the line of carriages would have stretched into the night before half the guests were admitted. Several other members of the royal guard moved from coach to coach with discipline, checking crests, confirming names, peering inside windows, speaking to coachmen, and waving the approved carriages onward.

From a distance, there was nothing wrong with any of them.

They looked like guards doing their duty.

That meant very little.

One of them could already be compromised. One man bought with gold, threatened into obedience, or replaced altogether would be enough. Only one careless verification, one carriage waved through without proper attention, one face trusted when it should not have been, and the wrong people would enter the royal grounds without resistance.

Ulrich stared them for another second, but the result remained the same.

No answer.

No visible sign.

No useful distinction between loyal men and traitors clever enough to wear loyalty well.

"You may pass, my lord," Marx said.

Ulrich brought his eyes back to him.

"I hope," he spoke, "that you are not growing lazy in the way you verify these carriages."

Marx stared at him, caught between surprise and offense. "My lord...?"

Ulrich did not explain himself.

He did not soften the remark either.

Instead, he turned away from the window and gave the coachman the order to proceed. Outside, the command passed along at once. The carriage lurched forward again, moving through the opened gate and into the inner royal grounds.

The moment the curtain fell back into place, Hermione turned toward Airam.

"You were looking at him like you wanted to kill him," she said.

Airam did not look bothered in the slightest. "He stared at us too long."

"Because we are witches," Hermione replied with a sigh. "You will have to get used to that once we’re inside."

Airam offered no apology.

Across from them, Esther had already forgotten the exchange. Her attention was taken by the view outside the carriage window. Her blue eyes had gone wide and bright enough to reflect the torchlight.

"It is so beautiful," she whispered.

The carriage had entered a different world.

The royal grounds opened around them in broad, ordered spaces of white stone, clipped hedges, magic torchlit roads, and towering structures that rose pale against the darkening sky. The palace itself stretched in stately wings and clean symmetry, its marble surfaces catching the last traces of evening and the warm gold of hundreds of lights. Windows glimmered across its vast front like rows of quiet stars. Beyond and beside it stood the Skargardian Keep, slightly apart from the main palace, yet close enough to feel like part of the same heart of power. Its height dominated the western side of the grounds. Its white stone, high towers, and lines made it look less like a residence and more like something built to remind every visitor where authority truly sat.

If Ulrich had to compare it to anything, the layout and grandeur called to mind Buckingham Palace that he had seen once with Faith in his past life, though the Keep itself stood as its own presence, distinct from the palace rather than folded into it.

"Look, big sister, eldest sister," Esther said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice now. "We are entering there."

"Yes, yes," Hermione said with a small laugh, following Esther’s gesture with her own eyes.

Yet strangely enough, for all Esther’s visible wonder, Hermione and Airam did not seem nearly as awed by the sight as they should have been.

They noticed it. They looked. They understood the scale of it. But there was no true shock in either of them, no breathless disbelief, no sense of being overwhelmed by grandeur for the first time. It was the same way they had reacted to the capital itself: attentive, curious, but restrained in a way that felt slightly out of place.

Ulrich’s brows drew together.

Had they seen something like this before?

The thought arrived suddenly enough to hold his attention for a moment. It did not fit the history he knew. From what little the story implied, the sisters had spent their early lives in a coven before Anna-Maria left with them and settled in a quieter village of witches. There was no mention of royal cities, noble courts, or grand capitals. Their past had always been left vague, the sort of detail the original narrative never found worth explaining because the sisters entered it already shaped into their roles.

Even so, the muted nature of Hermione’s and Airam’s reactions left something faintly strange behind.

No answer came.

Before he could follow the thought any further, the carriage slowed again. Knights outside guided it toward the side of the Keep, where other noble carriages were already lined in an orderly row. The Rubenhart carriage was led neatly into place among them and brought to a smooth halt.

A knock sounded against the door.

"My lord, we have arrived," Hendrick said from outside.

Ulrich closed his eyes for the briefest moment.

The unease that had followed him through the journey had to disappear now. Not entirely, because that would have been foolish, but enough that it did not show. He let the tension settle inward, smoothed it over, and restored the composed stillness he wore better than most men wore their own names.

Calm first.

Then action.

The door opened.

Ulrich stepped out onto the royal grounds.

Cool evening air met him at once, touched with the scent of trimmed hedges, stone, carriage leather, and distant torch smoke.

Ahead, the white structures of the Keep rose under the growing night, lit by rows of lamps and guarded by men in royal colors.

Inside the carriage, the sisters hesitated.

Even Airam felt it then, a small unease that moved through her chest before she had time to name it. This was the first step. The first true crossing into the center of the kingdom that would rather see witches dead than seated among nobles in silk.

Ulrich turned slightly, waiting.

Airam was the first to move.

Her face revealed nothing as she gathered the dark folds of her gown and descended from the carriage, stepping onto the royal grounds.

Behind her, Esther remained frozen for a heartbeat longer.

"It will be okay, Esther," Hermione said, reaching for her hand.

Esther looked at her, swallowed, and nodded. "Yes."

Her fingers tightened around Hermione’s in a small squeeze.

Then the two of them stepped down together after Airam, their gowns spilling in blue and red over the carriage step as the four of them finally stood beneath the lights of the Keep.