My Step-Daughters Are The Villainesses

After leaving the sisters in Camellia’s care, Ulrich moved away and forced his attention back to the matter that actually mattered.

Preventing Kaliantha’s assassination.

Or at least preventing the attempt without making the infiltrated demon suspicious in the process.

That was the most delicate part.

Stopping the attack openly was one thing. Doing it while preserving his position with the demons was another. Ulrich still intended to keep the image he had carefully built with them. A useful human. A reliable ally. Someone ambitious enough to be cultivated further. If he interfered too obviously, if he acted too early, if he gave even the slightest impression that he already knew too much, then everything he had gained with them could collapse at once.

And that would be troublesome.

Zagon had told him almost nothing.

That was the most irritating part of it all.

The demon had said just enough to burden him, not enough to help him. There were infiltrated demons inside the capital. One of them would make a move tonight. If that attempt failed, Ulrich was expected to assist in getting the task done.

The demand itself was absurd.

Ulrich would never take such a risk, and Zagon should have known it.

Even the old Ulrich would not have done something so reckless. The man had been cruel, yes, but never careless with his own standing. He guarded his image too closely for that. Every action, every expression, every alliance had always been assessed against one thing first: how it would reflect on him, what suspicion it might create, what weakness it might expose.

That had not changed.

Not really.

Silas’s memories had altered many things, but not Ulrich’s caution. Not his understanding of appearances. Not his instinct to keep his hands clean whenever possible.

That much had been obvious even in the novel.

Ceres had tried over and over to expose him for what he truly was. She had pushed, investigated, provoked, and nearly lost her life for it more than once. Yet despite all her efforts, despite how determined she had been, she had failed repeatedly. It had taken the cooperation of the other protagonist and several converging events before the truth around Ulrich had finally begun to hold in the public eye.

That alone said enough.

A man like Ulrich did not survive by leaving obvious traces.

Putting all of that aside, there remained the most immediate truth.

He did not want Kaliantha dead.

Ulrich lifted his gaze toward the throne.

Kaliantha sat with the same poised stillness as before, elevated above the hall on the dais, composed and untouchable in appearance. Beside her sat King Antonias, whose behavior was as shameless as ever. Even now he was leaning toward one of the serving women with lazy, indecent familiarity, speaking to her with a grin that made the girl’s discomfort obvious even from a distance. She kept her head lowered, her smile strained, her whole body stiff.

Still, from where the throne stood, anyone approaching Kaliantha directly would be seen.

That was the problem.

She was elevated. There was space before the dais. Guards were posted nearby. The commander of the royal guard himself stood not far off, watching the hall with trained attention. If an assassin rushed her openly, leaped for her, or tried to force a way through, the movement would draw too many eyes before it reached her.

Which meant the method would likely be subtler.

Or the threat would come from someone already close enough.

At this point, the person physically nearest to Kaliantha who could kill her most easily was her own husband.

Antonias.

Ulrich’s gaze rested on him a moment longer.

The king did not love Kaliantha.

That much had never been in doubt.

In the novel, it had been more than implied that he had played a role in her death. Later, when the capital was finally reclaimed by the Resistance, Antonias had all but confessed his involvement to his own daughter. He had worked with the demons at some point. That much was certain.

The only question was when.

Had he already begun?

Possibly.

But Ulrich doubted Antonias would move with his own hands tonight. Not yet. He did not seem the type to stain himself first when others could be pushed forward instead. Cowards loved delegation, especially when treachery was involved.

Then there had to be another opening.

Ulrich cursed inwardly and turned.

If waiting in silence cost him the chance to catch the shift before it happened, then hesitation would be far more suspicious than action. He needed information now, however awkward the method.

So he headed toward Marx Lambert, commander of the royal guard.

The older man noticed him coming and immediately stepped forward to intercept him before he could approach the dais itself.

"Any discussion with Her Majesty will have to wai—"

"I am here to speak with you," Ulrich cut in.

Marx blinked, his prepared refusal stalling in his throat.

"My lord?"

"I want the names of the guards currently posted in Skargardian Keep," Ulrich said. "More precisely, the names of those assigned in this hall tonight. I also want the list of guests present."

For a second, Marx only stared at him.

The request was too direct.

Too sudden.

And, from any reasonable angle, highly suspicious.

"May I ask why?" He demanded carefully.

"You do not need to know why," Ulrich replied. "You only need to hand me the lists."

"I am afraid I cannot do that without proper reason..."

Ulrich looked at him without blinking.

"Reason?" He repeated. "What reason would satisfy you? Or are you worried I may use those names for something?"

The commander did not answer at once.

"Then tell me," Ulrich went on, his voice turning colder, "what exactly do you imagine I would do with them?"

Marx looked awkward now.

It was not that he had an answer.

It was that Ulrich’s request sounded wrong enough to trigger caution, while Ulrich himself stood there with the rank, confidence, and force of presence that made refusal difficult. The commander was caught between instinct and pressure, and Ulrich could see it plainly.

"I do not have them on me," Marx tried.

Ulrich did not even let that stand.

"As commander of the royal guard," he said, "and after seeing you personally oversee the arrival and placement of both guests and security outside, I am certain you do."

His red eyes hardened.

"Do not waste my time."

Marx grumbled under his breath.

There was no clean way out of this. Not with someone like Ulrich pressing him face to face. Refusal would turn into confrontation. Compliance would at least move the burden elsewhere.

At last, with visible reluctance, Marx reached beneath part of his armor and withdrew two folded parchments.

Ulrich took them without thanks.

He looked first at the guard roster.

His eyes moved down the names quickly, but not carelessly. At the same time, he compared them against the list he had received earlier through the Copper Guild. He did not need to pull that second list out. He remembered it well enough.

A few names matched.

Then he reached the discrepancy.

Four.

Four guards assigned within the keep did not align with the names he had been given before.

They had been replaced.

Ulrich’s expression did not shift, but his thoughts sharpened immediately.

Now the question was whether Marx’s list reflected the most recent changes while the Copper Guild’s intelligence had gone outdated, or whether the replacement itself was the point.

If the latter, then the infiltration had already moved deeper into the keep than he first assumed.

His thumb pressed lightly against the parchment as he reread the names once more.

Ulrich’s eyes stayed on the four names.

That alone did not prove all four were demons.

A last-minute change in duty assignments could happen for any number of ordinary reasons. Illness. Injury. A family emergency. A summons from elsewhere in the keep. Nobles liked to pretend their systems were orderly, but even royal households ran on men making excuses and superiors deciding whether those excuses were worth believing.

But four names at once?

No.

That was too much.

Perhaps Marx had already questioned the changes and accepted whatever explanations had been given. Perhaps each excuse, taken alone, sounded plausible enough not to invite further trouble. Under ordinary circumstances, that might have been enough.

These were not ordinary circumstances.

Ulrich knew an assassination attempt was expected tonight. That knowledge changed the value of every irregularity. What another man might dismiss as inconvenience, he had to treat as intention.

There was no chance all four had urgent reasons to miss their posts.

At least one of them had to matter.

His gaze moved across the names once more, slower this time, fixing each one in memory.

A demon wearing a human face.

It was not some far-fetched possibility. He had seen enough in the novel to know that concealment was one of their favored methods when subtlety served them better than force. Their natural appearance drew too much attention. When they needed to move unnoticed, they borrowed other skins.

So yes.

A disguised demon among the guards was very much possible.

Ulrich folded that thought away for the moment and lowered his eyes to the second parchment.

The guest list.

Unfortunately, this one was far less useful.

Marx had marked those already present and left the absent names unticked, a practical enough method for managing arrivals, but in Ulrich’s hands it offered little. These were only names. No faces. No descriptions. No immediate thread to pull. He could not compare them against anything meaningful fast enough to matter.

And worse, there remained the obvious possibility that a demon had entered not as a guard, but as a guest.

That would complicate everything further.

His gaze flickered toward the unticked names.

"I assume some guests may still arrive late," Ulrich said.

Marx nodded. "Yes. Some are expected to come later, as always."

Ulrich glanced at him.

"And I suppose you will not be present to verify them personally. Not while you are stationed here."

Marx furrowed his brows, visibly trying to follow where this was leading.

"My duty is to remain near the royal family and ensure their safety."

Of course.

That was the problem.

Ulrich said nothing more.

He handed both parchments back to Marx, turned, and walked away, leaving the commander standing there with growing confusion written plainly across his face.

Ulrich’s expression hardened.

This was becoming complicated.

If he pushed too hard, if he started openly investigating every inconsistency, then whoever had infiltrated the event would notice the pressure and retreat into caution. That could delay the attempt, alter it, or redirect it somewhere harder to control. Worse, it could make them suspicious of him.

And suspicion was dangerous now.

If possible, Ulrich would have preferred to identify them immediately and kill them before they moved at all.

But wanting a simple answer did not create one.

Catching them in the act remained the most reliable option. That would give him certainty. It would give him a target. It would let him move with justification rather than guesswork.

Yet letting them continue under the assumption that they remained undiscovered carried its own risk. He was gambling with Kaliantha’s life now, whether he liked it or not, and that was not a stake he wished to place on a board this uncertain.

She was too important.

That was what made the problem so vicious.

Part of his difficulty came not from the demons themselves, but from the question he still could not settle: was this assassination attempt truly supposed to happen?

If it belonged to the original course of events, then strange as it was, there would be some reassurance in that. Kaliantha was meant to die years later, not tonight. If the story still held, then she should survive this attempt one way or another.

But if this was not part of the original flow...

If this had emerged because of him, because of the changes already set in motion by his actions, because of the countless little disturbances he had introduced over the last two years...

Then the danger was real in a different way.

Then Kaliantha might truly die here.

And he would have to intervene.

That opened another problem at once.

If the demons were working in more than one place, or if more than one infiltrator had been planted inside the hall, then saving Kaliantha publicly while killing one of them could destroy everything he had built. Four years of careful positioning. Four years of trust. Four years of letting them believe he was useful, ambitious, and corruptible enough to remain worth cultivating.

All of it could vanish in a single moment.

Ulrich stopped walking.

Around him, the event continued in bright colors, lively voices, and false ease, but his thoughts had narrowed into something sharp and fast, turning over possibility after possibility and finding fault in each one.

A direct warning would create panic.

A visible investigation would alert the enemy.

Passive observation risked delay.

Premature action risked exposure.

Just as his thoughts swirled fast, showing no signs of stopping, the music in the hall swelled.

The musicians raised the volume so abruptly that conversation all around the room faltered, taking everyone’s attention.

In the sudden change, the spokesman of the event stepped forward and raised his voice.

"We hope all our honored guests are enjoying this celebration held for our royal princess," he declared. "But now it is time to entertain ourselves further and witness the beauty of the Skargardian waltz!"