My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

"My apologies for surprising you, Count Rubenhart."

Ulrich didn’t loosen his grip. He maintained the pressure of his forearm against the demon’s windpipe.

He recognized the man immediately.

Zagon.

This demon had served as his handler since the inception of their treasonous arrangement. The initial threads of their alliance were spun years ago, quietly forged in the shadowed margins of Ulrich’s sixteenth year while his father still commanded the estate. But a teenage heir’s promises held little tactical value to the demon hierarchy. The pact only crystallized into an active, dangerous reality the moment Ulrich claimed the title of Count following his father’s death. The authority of the Rubenhart crest became his leverage.

Back then, the crippling reality of a shattered core had dominated Ulrich’s every decision. A ruler devoid of innate power was something Ulrich couldn’t accept.

His desire for a functional core, for an undisputed strength necessary to cement his aristocratic status, drove him directly into the hands of the enemy. The demons possessed quite an understanding of human frailty. They looked past his wealth and saw the bitter, festering humiliation underneath. They offered him the unthinkable: a brand new foundation for his magic. A Demon Core.

In exchange, Ulrich provided a door.

Over the intervening years, Zagon rarely initiated direct contact. When the demon did appear in the shadows of the estate, the requests were strictly logistical. They demanded unimpeded maritime passage through Rubenhart’s coastal waters. For a man of Ulrich’s standing, the execution was trivial. A single piece of letter, stamped with the Rubenhart wax seal, guaranteed any vessel immunity from Skargardian naval inspections. The kingdom’s harbor authorities obeyed the Count’s directives without hesitation, waving through battered merchant carracks under the assumption they carried textiles or imported grain.

They carried Demons.

Even Ulrich cannot definitively calculate the volume of demons he has ushered past the kingdom’s defenses. The number easily exceeds a thousand hostile demons walking clandestinely on Skargardian soil, slipping through his checkpoints and dispersing into the deep mainland. This invisible, perfectly protected entry route transformed Ulrich into the Demons’ most prized asset.

The demons understood his immense value. They never squandered his position on petty espionage or localized assassinations. Exposing a high-ranking Count as a traitor for the sake of a minor skirmish would be a tactical error. Instead, they treated him as a buried anchor. They demanded minimal overt action, ensuring his reputation remained perfect among the human nobility. They were methodically positioning him for the endgame. When their large-scale invasion would be finally launched, Ulrich was designed to be the blade thrust directly into the heart of the royal capital, a devastating, unexpected strike from a supposedly loyal lord.

It was a perfect strategy, built entirely upon the foundation of Ulrich’s former resentment. Zagon and his superiors worked under the assumption that the bitter, power-hungry young Count still held the reins.

They, however, did not know the foundation had cracked.

The recovery of Silas’s memories fundamentally rewired Ulrich’s internal thoughts. The desperate Ulrich, who sold his borders for a promise of power, no longer dictated the terms of his existence. Yet, Ulrich had never severed the connection to Zagon. To close the ports or burn the maritime pact now would instantly alert the demon command that their sleeper agent had turned. It would force their hand prematurely and might only endanger his status within the Kingdom.

Instead, Ulrich maintained the grand facade. He continued to sign the maritime passes. He let the infiltration proceed through his lands. He intended to preserve his status as their perfect, untouchable ally right up until the exact moment they rely on him for the killing blow. He would use this direct line to the demons’ hierarchy to dismantle their invasion from the inside, springing the trap when it would inflict the maximum possible damage.

The promise of a Demon Core no longer held any sway over Ulrich. The acquisition of the Hollow Core had solved his magical deficiencies, but the true transformation occurred deeper within his mind. The influx of Silas’s memories had provided a stabilizing perspective. The humiliation of his shattered core and the gnawing pain of his former weakness still existed, but they no longer drove him to desperate extremes. He could view the board from a higher vantage point.

His territory was not merely a strategic asset on a map; it was the physical embodiment of his mother’s life and ideals. He would never allow the demons to reduce Rubenhart to ash and salted earth. The infiltration he had allowed would be the very mechanism he used to betray them. To execute this double-cross successfully, his allegiance to Skargardia must remain buried. No one, not his guards, not his allies, and certainly not the witch sisters, could know the truth of his standing with the enemy.

Over the past years, his compliance had earned an immense volume of trust from the Demons. But that trust came with rigid boundaries that Ulrich strictly enforced: communication occurred exclusively via sealed letters, meetings took place only in highly secure, pre-arranged locations, and a demon was never, under any circumstance, to approach him directly in the field.

Yet Zagon stood before him in the dappled forest sunlight, wearing a lopsided smile.

Ulrich stared at the grey-skinned demon, his red eyes completely devoid of warmth.

If a single knight patrolling the perimeter broke through the brush and witnessed him conversing with a Demon, it would cause a succession of very unfortunate events where he would have to kill one of his Knights and justify himself right after.

The impulse to draw his blade, slice the demon’s head from his shoulders, and burn the corpse to ash right here in the dirt was very much overwhelming in Ulrich’s head

Ulrich pivoted, checking the dense foliage behind him once again. The air remained still. The metallic clanking of the knights preparing lunch drifts faintly through the trees, a safe distance away. He turned back to Zagon and stepped into his personal space, driving a hardened fist directly against the demon’s throat, pinning him back against the splintered limestone.

"Convince me not to kill you right now, filthy demon," Ulrich said coldly.

Zagon’s lopsided smile faltered. The skin around his eyes tightens against the sudden pressure on his windpipe, but he kept his hands raised in surrender.

"My...my apologies," Zagon choked out, struggling to draw breath. "This was urgent. I could not secure a method to contact you before—"

"So you deemed it intelligent to corner me on the open road?" Ulrich cut him off, his grip tightening. "While I am surrounded by a dozen armed knights?"

Zagon swallowed hard against Ulrich’s knuckles. "Do not be concerned, Lord Rubenhart. You are far too precious of a pawn for us to let you be caught so easily. I will be gone swiftly, do not worry—"

The sharp, metallic scrape of steel sliding from leather cut through Zagont. Ulrich drew his sword a fraction of an inch from the scabbard, letting the metal catch the sunlight just beneath Zagon’s chin.

His patience was dangerously wearing thin.

Zagon’s eyes darted to the exposed steel. He immediately dropped the arrogant smirk, understanding that any further attempt at levity might really result in his decapitation.

"You will be present at the Skargardian Princess’s event tomorrow evening in the capital. Will you not, Count Rubenhart?" Zagon asked, adopting a much faster, strictly professional tone.

Ulrich pushed his fist harder into the demon’s throat. "Where else do you think I am heading with an armed escort?"

The question was sarcastic. Skipping a royal gathering of that magnitude would not only draw massive, unwanted scrutiny from the Crown but it would be considered a direct insult to the royal family. Attendance was mandatory before even thinking of it as an important and perfect event to introduce the witch sisters to the Skargardian Nobility.

"Good," Zagon replied with a smile.

Ulrich narrowed his eyes, hearing that.

"You wouldn’t risk exposing my position in the open woods merely to confirm my itinerary," Ulrich said, his voice stripped of all inflection. "What are you planning?"

The corners of Zagon’s pale mouth stretched upward. "The assassination of the Royal Queen of Skargardia, Kaliantha."

Ulrich absorbed these words without shifting his stance. Striking directly at the Skargardian Queen during the kingdom’s most heavily guarded aristocratic gathering bordered on suicidal arrogance. The palace would be crawling with the Crown’s elite guard, highly trained combat mages, and the combined private security forces of every attending noble family.

"She has been a bother since the beginning," Zagon said, speaking carefully to avoid nicking his own skin against Ulrich’s blade. "But the project she already started, that Seven Pillared Bridge, will be a huge bother to us. Once the masons set those runic wards into the riverbed, our aquatic infiltration routes into the central territories will be entirely severed. We have to get rid of her before it fully concretizes."

"You will kill her at that royal event?" Ulrich asked.

"It is planned. We have already prepared for it," Zagon replied, adjusting his weight against the jagged rock. "I just came here to warn you gently, Count Rubenhart, so you wouldn’t be surprised by the chaos. And in case it fails... well, hopefully you will be able to end her yourself."

Ulrich pulled his hand back, shoving the demon away in a single motion. Zagon stumbled before recovering his stance with a chuckle.

Ulrich drove his sword back into its leather scabbard with a sharp metallic crack while his brain worked fast.

The Queen was indeed supposed to die, but her death was supposed to occur right before the start of the novel story, so in three years.

If the demons attempted this assassination now, they were walking into a trap of their own making, destined to fail in that case. Alternatively, if they somehow succeeded against the current of fate, they would irrevocably change the future timeline. Ulrich relied on the accuracy of Silas’s memories to outmaneuver his enemies; if the Queen died prematurely, every piece of future knowledge he held regarding the kingdom’s political structure became entirely worthless.

"Then, Count Rubenhart, have a good event," Zagon said, hooking a finger under his cowl and pulling the dark fabric back over his pointed ears. "And transmit my wishes for your precious witches."

Ulrich’s hand dropped straight back to the leather grip of his sword. He slashed the blade outward, aiming to separate the demon’s head from his shoulders. The steel cut cleanly through the floating limestone dust, whistling through empty air. When Ulrich snapped his gaze forward, Zagon was already gone.