Never Die Villain

Anastasiya couldn’t understand why, but her legs kept moving.

The moment she heard that Ilya was facing a Distortion alone, something inside her had reacted before she could even begin to process what the hell a Distortion was doing inside the estate in the first place.

There had been no consideration of whether the knights should go ahead of her, and certainly no time spent wondering why the first thought that entered her mind had been that she needed to reach him as quickly as possible.

Was it regret for nearly killing him?

Was it guilt for the way she had treated him?

No, it wasn’t that simple.

Anastasiya absolutely loathed his existence.

Ilya was a threat to everything she had spent years carving out for herself, to the place within this family that nobody had simply given her, but that she had been forced to earn through blood, sweat, and countless mornings spent dragging herself out of bed before sunrise.

The mere fact that he had suddenly begun displaying his talent again had been enough for relatives to question her succession, as though all those years of work could simply be discarded the moment the former prodigy showed the slightest sign of recovering.

And that resentment had existed long before the Winter Assembly.

He was the little brother who had hogged her mother’s attention while Anastasiya learned to take care of herself, the child everyone worried about while she was praised exactly because nobody needed to worry about her.

Even after disappointing the family at every turn, Ilya continued to be babied by the servants and protected by Mariya, while Anastasiya had been expected to endure whatever was placed before her because she was the older sister, the successor, and the dependable one who supposedly didn’t need anyone holding her hand.

Then there was their father.

Ilya embarrassed the family in public, ignored expectations whenever they inconvenienced him, and behaved however he pleased, yet Valentin hardly ever raised his voice at him, much less his hand.

Anastasiya could still remember being struck across the wrist for failing lessons as a child and being forced back onto her feet whenever she complained that training hurt, while Ilya could smoke in public, transfer departments without consulting anyone, and openly disregard the family’s expectations without receiving a fraction of the punishment she had once considered normal.

It infuriated her.

Ilya never listened to her.

Whenever she reprimanded him, he treated her words like meaningless noise, answering with that irritatingly indifferent expression that made it seem as though nothing she said could possibly matter to him.

Whenever his name came up at the Academy, it was Anastasiya who had to endure the questions about what ridiculous thing her younger brother had done this time, and somehow, even after everything, he could still look at her and casually call her Sister as though the years between them had never happened.

She hated that most of all.

"Sister."

Every time he called her that, Anastasiya remembered a little boy trailing after her through the estate.

She remembered someone who had promised to become strong enough to take the succession from her so she wouldn’t have to suffer through Father’s training anymore.

She remembered hiding behind him despite being three years older, complaining about her tutors while he listened with an expression far too serious for a six-year-old, and telling him that once he became Grand Duke, she would marry some handsome man and their children could play together.

That was why she had told him never to call her Sister again.

Anastasiya clenched her teeth and ran faster.

"Damn it..."

She hated him.

She had told herself that enough times over the years that there shouldn’t have been any doubt left by now, and after nearly driving a sword through his throat earlier, she had certainly done enough to prove it.

Yet the moment someone told her that Ilya was alone with a Distortion, her body had moved before her hatred could offer an opinion.

Boom——!

The mansion shook.

Anastasiya planted her foot without breaking stride. A tremendous crash followed from somewhere farther ahead, accompanied by the sound of an entire section of wall collapsing.

There.

That was where Ilya was.

Another crash echoed through the corridor, and Anastasiya immediately changed direction, accelerating around the next corner so quickly that her shoulder nearly clipped the wall.

Whatever confusion she felt about her own actions would have to wait, because no matter how much she resented him, envied him, or convinced herself over the years that she wanted nothing more to do with him, there was still one irritating truth she had never quite managed to escape.

Ilya was still her little brother.

And as the future Grand Duchess, he was someone she was obliged to protect.

"Fuck."

Anastasiya accelerated, aura surging through her legs as the corridor blurred around her. Another tremor shook the estate, but she barely registered it as she rounded the next corner, gripping the borrowed sword tightly enough that her knuckles turned white.

"Don’t you dare die before I get there..."

Somewhere deep within her heart, Anastasiya wished things could have been different.

She knew that much of what had happened between them had begun with her own childishness and immaturity, with the resentment of a lonely girl who had watched her little brother receive everything she felt had been taken away from her.

Those feelings had only grown worse with time, until petty jealousy became genuine bitterness, bitterness became hostility, and eventually, neither of them seemed capable of speaking to the other without reopening wounds that had never been allowed to heal.

But knowing that didn’t suddenly make everything easier.

Their relationship had deteriorated too far for a simple apology to mend it, and Anastasiya couldn’t even find it in herself to offer one in the first place.

Perhaps that made her selfish.

Perhaps it made her a terrible older sister.

Anastasiya didn’t care anymore.

She had spent enough years trying to decide which one of them was responsible for what had happened, tallying every slight and every argument as though eventually she would find some definitive proof that her hatred was justified.

Even if she found it, however, it wouldn’t change the fact that when she heard Ilya was facing a Distortion alone, she had abandoned her own celebration without a second thought and started running.

That realization irritated her more than anything.

"After everything..."

Her feet struck the floor in rapid succession as she accelerated again.

"Why the hell am I still worried about you?"

She already knew the answer.

Anastasiya just didn’t want to admit it.

Boom——!

A violent impact echoed somewhere ahead, close enough that part of the ceiling cracked and showered the corridor with dust.

Anastasiya raised an arm over her face and pushed straight through it, emerging on the other side without slowing as the sounds of destruction grew louder.

Then she saw ice.

It covered the walls ahead of her. Anastasiya recognized it immediately, having spent the better part of the afternoon fighting against that same cold and gradually learning to distinguish Ilya’s magic from the natural chill of the North.

Ilya might have thought he was being sly about it, but Anastasiya had noticed far more during their duel than he probably realized.

The cold wind he wrapped around his sword whenever their blades collided was unnatural enough to give him away, pressing against the steel at the moment of impact and adding weight to swings that his physical strength alone should never have been able to produce.

"Ilya..."

He was close.

Anastasiya drew her sword and followed the trail of frost deeper into the damaged wing, her pace quickening as the evidence of Ilya’s magic became increasingly obvious.

Ice covered entire sections of the floor, while several walls had been frozen so thoroughly that cracks had spread through the stone, telling her that whatever restraint Ilya had shown during their duel was no longer relevant here.

Then she heard it.

Boom——!

The impact came from somewhere beyond the next intersection, followed immediately by the cracking of ice.

She crossed the remaining corridor in an instant and rounded the corner, only to find what remained of an enormous barricade scattered across the floor.

Great chunks of ice had been smashed apart and driven into the walls, while a path had been carved directly through the center as though whatever had broken through it hadn’t even considered going around.

Her expression darkened.

"That idiot..."

He was running.

Anastasiya could tell from the trail he had left behind. There was none of the careful control she had seen during their duel.

The frost stretched unevenly across the corridor, appearing wherever Ilya had apparently needed it before disappearing again, while several marks along the walls suggested he had been using the wind to throw himself around corners faster than his injured body could manage on its own.

And there was blood.

Several drops stained the ice near the shattered barricade, followed by another farther ahead and then another, creating an intermittent trail through the corridor.

Anastasiya stopped for half a second as her eyes settled on them, and the grip around her sword immediately tightened.

It was then.

Shatter——!

The sound of glass shattering echoed from somewhere above.

"...?!"

Anastasiya immediately turned toward the windows, raising an arm as fragments of glass suddenly rained down from the upper floors.

Her eyes followed them upward, and through the broken frame several stories above, she caught sight of a familiar figure falling through the open air.

For a moment, her mind failed to register what she was seeing.

Then her pupils contracted.

"Ilya?!"

Ilya had jumped out of the palace window.

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