A Villain's Survival Guide

Charlotte’s POV:

Her eyes moved across the room, taking in the fierce battle around her. Raine was going toe to toe with a statue nearly twice her size. And there she stood, utterly useless.

Cian stood a few paces away, not attacking and showing no particular interest in doing so anytime soon. The confidence in her eyes, though, was undeniable, she believed wholeheartedly she would win.

Charlotte couldn’t feel the same way.

Her hand ached from all the writing, but she forced herself to trace a few words in the air yet still. They formed into a glowing sword, and the moment they did, Cian snapped her fingers.

The sharp sound of the gesture was enough to shatter Charlotte’s sword completely, and her confidence shattered with it.

It had been going on for what felt like forever. Whatever she created, Cian destroyed with a snap. Long enough now that she’d started hearing the snap in her head the moment she thought of making something, even before Cian had actually done it.

She wanted to win this. She was tired, yes. But unlike the Endbringer she’d faced with Raine’s help, she wanted Cian for herself. Something she could claim sole victory over.

Her eyes swept the room, hollow and directionless, and her body was already edging backward, as though it intended to flee without asking her first.

What caught her eye first was Hazel and Ren, Leomaris and Raine’s servants, holding their own against a Sorcerer, despite Ren not being a mage and Hazel being only a Magician.

And yet there she was. A Sorcerer, facing another Sorcerer, someone who had threatened the life of the very person who had changed hers. And she couldn’t do a thing.

"I can see that you’re struggling, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just like you. Without my ability, I’m incapable of doing anything."

They sounded like empathetic words, but only those who couldn’t see past Cian would fall for them. Everything about her was a mockery directed squarely at Charlotte.

"A word of advice: if I can see a spell, I can turn it into glass and shatter it."

Charlotte sneered. ’I’ve already realized that much. But she’s not foolish enough to reveal all her cards just because I appear helpless.’

She’d been far too reliant on her ability. Since she could simply enhance her strength, speed, and endurance through it, she’d been reluctant to build her body properly. She did work on it, but compared to Raine and Leomaris, one hour of training a day was pitiful.

"What are you doing? Waiting for your friends to save you? How pathetic. I could be your older sister, and yet you don’t show me a shred of respect."

She shook her head and massaged her brow.

"What am I going on about? There’s no way you’re getting help. Look around, do you seriously think any of your friends have enough time to save you?"

Cian turned toward Hazel, who’d conjured an illusion to distract the red-haired woman. Cian snapped her fingers, the illusion shattered, and the opening it left was all the red-haired woman needed. A strike to Hazel’s gut sent her slamming into the ground.

With a satisfied smile, Cian turned to Leomaris. His revolvers were shrouded in black ash, his bullets unpredictable because of it.

He sidestepped the fallen beast’s attack and pulled the trigger on Instructor Moon in the same motion.

Cian snapped her fingers. Something stranger happened, nothing shattered. Instead, the fallen beast vanished, and across Instructor Moon’s shoulders a new pair of hands grew, blocking the bullets as though they’d always been there.

Charlotte’s eyes found Cian again, and there it was, sweat beading on her brow. That was when it hit her like lightning.

Cian’s ability was more than sight, it was understanding. No one knew what the ash surrounding Leomaris’s revolvers was, and Cian was no different. She couldn’t break what she couldn’t understand.

Cian turned to Charlotte with a darkened expression. "Don’t get ahead of yourself. This means nothing."

This realization had Charlotte feeling more confident than ever.

This time she wrote nothing. With a thought alone, Cian’s own words took form and glowed, and one by one, the unnecessary ones vanished, leaving only what she needed.

The words formed into a chain and connected them, and within the same second, it pulled Charlotte forward with a forceful yank, halting her just before Cian.

Cian’s face was all confusion, and that was exactly what Charlotte wanted. She drove her fist into her gut.

Not the most powerful strike, but for someone as physically weak as Cian, it was enough to send her slamming into the ground.

Charlotte shook her hand, face twisted in agony. That soft strike had been enough to dislocate her wrist. She hurriedly wrote a few words and healed herself before Cian could get back to her feet.

She clenched her gut as she spoke.

"Interesting. So you can even turn other people’s words into weapons. But since you don’t use everything I say, only certain words must trigger it. So what exactly is your ability?"

Charlotte met her with a flat expression. Nothing about her looked friendly.

’She isn’t wrong. My ability is Poem, the power of words. Words are powerful, and I wield that power.’

It brought to mind something Leomaris had told her once, a few words of encouragement about forming a clan.

"Words carry more weight than mere ink on a page or sounds in the air. Whether true or false, they are shaped by something deeper within the person who speaks them. They may come from a place of light or darkness, reason or confusion. They need not always make sense, but once spoken, they reveal something of the soul from which they came.

Whenever you think of forming a clan, consider these words."

She’d never truly understood Leomaris. But facing Cian had brought her to that conclusion. She was Poems, and Poems didn’t have to be logical. As long as Cian couldn’t understand them, she couldn’t break them.

She took a deep breath and wrote more words than usual. When she finished, unlike all her glowing creations before it, this one was black.

The black words formed into a cloak and circled her. When it vanished, Cian stared in confusion. The person standing before her wasn’t Charlotte.

She had Charlotte’s soulless dark eyes and her dark hair, and she looked almost like Charlotte. And yet, as though an illusion, Cian saw only one person. A woman who was supposed to have been dead for over two hundred years.

The Woman in Veil.

Cian snapped her fingers in a hurry, trying to break the illusion, but her face only darkened with every snap. It never broke. As though the Woman in Veil herself had stepped before her.

Charlotte wore a black dress, long dark hair loose, and a black veil covering everything, her face included. Everything but her succulent lips.

The confusion on Cian’s face amused her and forced a sharp smile on her lips.

"I can’t wait forever... Come on."

With a cocky posture, she calmly motioned toward Cian.