My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

"Oh. My apologies."

Ulrich stopped.

The speaker had nearly crossed into his path.

When he turned his head, he found Princess Camellia standing only a few steps away, accompanied by two guards.

"Lord Rubenhart," Camellia called softly then.

Ulrich stared at her face.

There had been a change in her expression since he had last looked toward the dance floor. It was slight, contained beneath the poise expected of a royal princess, but present all the same. Her emerald eyes held a more searching light than before.

She had watched him dance with the sisters.

That much was obvious.

Esther’s shy, trembling first steps. Hermione’s embarrassed attempts to keep pace. And, finally, the dance with Airam, which had pulled the attention of half the hall away from their partners and toward the center of the floor.

Camellia had seen all of it.

Ulrich gave her a questioning look in return.

He had noticed her dancing earlier. She should have been surrounded by suitors. As the only princess of Skargardia, newly come of age and already admired throughout the kingdom, every young nobleman in the hall would have wanted the honor of sharing even one dance with her. It did not matter that none of them could reasonably hope to marry her. A dance with Camellia Van Skargardia would still be remembered, repeated, and turned into a small source of prestige before the night was over.

Yet she had withdrawn from the floor.

Perhaps she had grown tired of it. No one in this hall possessed the standing to demand another dance from her, and Camellia did not appear like a girl willing to surrender her own wishes merely to satisfy the expectations gathered around her.

The celebration had been underway for some time already. It would not end soon. There would be speeches later, praise offered to the royal house, formal words marking Camellia’s coming of age, and all the tedious ritual required to make a private birthday into a public declaration of royal strength.

For now, the court was meant to enjoy itself.

Ulrich gave her a brief nod and began to move past her.

"Count Rubenhart."

Camellia called after him before he had taken more than a step.

Ulrich paused and looked back.

"Your Highness," he said, "I believed I could leave them in your care."

There were several reasons he would have preferred it.

Camellia’s presence beside the sisters would have quieted the gossip more effectively than Louise’s could. The princess was close enough to their age that Esther and Hermione seemed drawn to her without hesitation, while even Airam had watched her with interest despite refusing to show warmth. No noble child would dare mock the girls while Camellia stood beside them and more important Camellia’s guards would be by the sisters’s side as well.

Camellia received his words without offense.

"I apologize, Lord Rubenhart," she replied. "My duties require me to greet our guests as well."

Ulrich looked past her, toward the hall.

"I suppose it is difficult to expect them to approach while you are standing beside witches."

His tone carried the same blunt edge it always did. The guard behind Camellia shifted his gaze toward him, though the princess herself did not react.

Ulrich had not meant that Camellia disliked the sisters. Her behavior toward them had already made that clear. She had treated them with patience, spoken to them without condescension, and appeared genuinely interested in what they said.

But she was the daughter of Queen Kaliantha.

And she was the only princess of Skargardia.

She could not spend the whole evening in one quiet corner of the ballroom, no matter how pleasant the company there might be. Nobles had traveled from across the kingdom to see her. Some had come to offer congratulations, others to judge her, and still others to measure whether she possessed the bearing expected of the woman who might one day represent the royal house beside a future king.

Camellia had to be seen.

A few kind words spoken to each family. A question about a journey. Recognition of an elder lord’s service, a compliment offered to some noble daughter’s gown, a moment of pleasant attention granted to the sons whose parents were already calculating their prospects.

That was all it took.

The guests would leave satisfied, speaking of the princess’s grace and intelligence. Her image would grow more secure with each exchange. Now that she had come of age, the kingdom would watch her with far greater attention. Every royal appearance became part of the work expected of her.

Camellia smiled at Ulrich’s remark.

"I think Airam, Hermione, and Esther are wonderful," she said. "It is a shame that we are separated by so much distance."

Her eyes moved toward the three sisters.

Esther was still speaking eagerly with Louise, her hands lifting whenever she grew excited enough to forget herself. Hermione had recovered much of her earlier confidence and stood close beside them, listening with a small smile. Airam remained apart from the conversation despite sharing the same space, her arms crossed and her dark gaze turned toward the dancers.

"There is more than distance between you," Ulrich said.

Camellia looked at him again.

"Perhaps," she answered. "Yet distance only remains when people decide it should."

Ulrich’s gaze rested on her for a short while.

It was an idealistic answer. One her mother might have dismissed as naïve if spoken in council, where old grudges and political interests carried more weight than good intentions. Still, Camellia had crossed the room earlier to speak to Astrid when the girl had been left alone by her brother. She had welcomed the sisters without being asked. She had chosen to approach them despite the attention it drew.

She did not merely speak as though such barriers could be crossed.

She had already begun trying.

"That is an admirable thought, Your Highness," Ulrich said. "It will not make everyone agree with you."

"No," Camellia replied. "But it may make some of them ashamed to disagree aloud."

The corner of Ulrich’s mouth moved by the smallest degree.

That answer sounded less naïve.

Camellia noticed it, and she felt her lips parting immediately to speak as if emboldened by that small reaction.

"May I ask you something, Lord Rubenhart?"

He nodded slightly.

"When you danced with them," she said, lowering her voice so only he and the guards could hear, "were you trying to make the court accept them?"

Ulrich looked back toward the sisters.

Esther had finally made Louise laugh. Hermione watched them with open interest. Airam had noticed his attention, though her expression did not soften. She turned her face away before he could read more from it.

"No," Ulrich said. "I was teaching them to dance."

Camellia regarded him for a moment, as though she did not fully believe the simplicity of his answer.

"I see."

"You should return to your guests," Ulrich continued. "They are already watching."

Camellia glanced toward the cluster of nobles waiting near the dance floor. Several had noticed her pause with him, and several more had noticed the royal guards with her. A young lord stood among them with stiff posture and an expression too carefully composed to conceal his disappointment at being made to wait.

She gave Ulrich a small nod.

"You are right," she said. "I will speak with them before I return to the sisters."

Camellia turned toward the waiting nobles, her guards moving with her as she crossed the marble floor however, she was interrupted as Ulrich spoke.

"A princess has duties," he said, "but every person has the right to refuse."

She stopped.

The two guards continued a pace before recognizing that their princess had halted. Camellia faced Ulrich again, the hem of her gown settling around her shoes.

His words had caught her off guard.

Ulrich did not often concern himself with the private discomforts of other people. He was blunt when he wished to be, certainly, but there had been an unusual seriousness in the way he had looked at her before she turned away. It made Camellia wait rather than dismiss the remark as another of his cold observations.

"Shallowness may satisfy those around you," Ulrich continued. "It may make them praise you for being dutiful, graceful, and obedient to every expectation placed before you. Yet if you keep doing what they want while ignoring what you want, they will eventually see it for what it is."

Camellia’s brows drew together slightly.

"What would they see?"

"A performance," Ulrich replied. "And when people realize that the smile, the courtesy, and the effort are only there because you feel forced to provide them, they may call you hypocritical. Even if you never intended to deceive anyone."

His gaze did not leave hers.

"The Queen has a duty. You have one as well. But you are not required to become her imitation merely because people expect it."

Camellia stared at him.

Around them, the ballroom continued moving. Couples passed through the open space between pillars, their steps following the music with rhythm. Several guests had noticed that the princess remained speaking with Count Rubenhart, and a few had begun watching with the curiosity of people who hoped to find meaning in a conversation they could not hear.

Camellia did not notice them.

Or perhaps she did, but could no longer bring herself to care.

Ulrich’s words had reached too close to thoughts she had never said aloud.

"Does Lord Rubenhart believe I am pretending?" She demanded with a rare serious expression.

"You are not; that is the issue."

The answer came too quickly.

Camellia’s lips parted, but no reply followed.

Ulrich watched the reaction pass across her face.

She was tired.

Tired of being watched. Tired of knowing that every appearance required the correct smile, the correct tone, the correct degree of attention. Tired of hearing people praise her whenever she resembled her mother, as though that was the finest thing anyone could say about her.

"You have your mother’s eyes."

"You carry yourself exactly like Queen Kaliantha."

"Her Majesty must be proud to see herself in you."

The words had always been meant kindly.

Camellia had always smiled and thanked them.

Yet each time, the praise had left her with the same quiet uncertainty. No one asked who Camellia herself wanted to be. They looked at her and saw the Queen’s daughter. The kingdom’s princess. A future piece of the royal house.

They saw an image before they saw a person.

"Truthfulness toward yourself may appear selfish," Ulrich said after she had remained quiet too long. "It may even seem unbecoming for someone of your status. But choosing for yourself, even in a small matter, gives you more satisfaction than fulfilling a hundred duties you never wanted."

Camellia lowered her eyes.

"Small matters," she repeated.

"Yes."

"What if I cannot choose in larger ones?"

"Then choose in the smaller ones while you can."

Ulrich’s voice stayed calm, but Camellia heard no mockery in it. He was not telling her to abandon her position, reject the Queen, or neglect the responsibilities that came with being born into the royal family. He was telling her that obedience did not have to consume every part of her.

That there was space, however narrow, for her own wishes.

"If you decide something for yourself and stand by it," Ulrich continued, "you will not have to look back later and wonder whether you lived only as others demanded."

Camellia raised her gaze again.

"I... do not understand."

Ulrich fell quiet.

He had not expected the words to come from him. He had only meant to point out the obvious: that she could not remain with the sisters while every noble house waited for her attention. That duty required compromise. That a princess did not possess the freedom of an ordinary girl.

Instead, he had said far more.

Perhaps it was because he remembered the Camellia from the novel.

The Camellia who had grown colder as the story progressed. The Camellia whose every decision had been assessed against the legacy of a dead queen. The Camellia who had learned to carry herself with such restraint that readers praised her maturity without asking what it had cost her.

In the novel, Kaliantha had been dead before the story began.

She had existed only through memories, portraits, old conversations, and the worship of those who had served her. Readers had never known the woman well enough to see how often Camellia’s behavior resembled hers. They had only seen Camellia as a cold and composed princess shaped by grief and responsibility.

Ulrich saw the truth more clearly now.

Kaliantha was alive.

She was present in the palace, in the expectations surrounding Camellia, in every noble’s approving comparison, and in the way Camellia seemed to correct herself whenever her own wishes threatened to show.

"Your Highness does not need to become the Queen’s image," Ulrich said at last.

Camellia went still.

"The Queen is the Queen," he continued. "She has her own manner, her own burdens, and her own choices. You are her daughter. You may learn from her. You may admire her. But you do not have to erase yourself to resemble her."

The words entered more deeply than Camellia wanted them to.

For an instant, she felt exposed.

It was as though Ulrich had reached past the royal gown, the trained smile, the manners she had worn all evening, and found the uncertainty she had kept buried beneath them. It frightened her. Nobody had ever spoken to her with such directness, especially not about a subject she had never admitted troubled her.

Yet beneath that fear came another feeling.

Relief.

Small and difficult to accept.

Camellia had expected Count Rubenhart to be distant, cold, and impossible to please. She had expected him to treat her with the same formal coldness he gave the other nobles.

"You are not the Queen," Ulrich said at last with a stronger and less polite tone, making her pink lips part slightly.

There was a long silence before Camellia gave him a small nod before turning toward the nobles waiting near the dance floor. Her guards fell into place beside her as she began walking again.

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