Giving Every Yandere Villainess Her Happy Ending!

The Royal Archives weren’t an option. Too much of a boiling pot of everything, too many eyes, too many layers of bureaucracy. That left only the Tower of Magi, and honestly, my expectations were low.

I personally met every criterion they required for entrance.

But that didn’t change the fact that the Tower was run by grumpy, rigid old men who treated tradition like scripture.

If I was lucky, they’d recognize my name and tell me they’d process my request. If I was unlucky, they’d tell me to screw off and come back after graduating from the academy.

”Excuse me?”

”Lord Brimstone?”

The receptionist at the outside desk looked genuinely surprised.

”This is where I go to ask for entry, isn’t it?”

”Ah, yes. Give me a moment.”

He turned his chair around, rifling through a stack of documents before pulling out a specific letter. The stamp of one certain Lucius caught my eye.

”Here. Just show this to the guard, and you’ll be given entry from floors one through fifteen.”

”Where did this come from?”

”Lord Lucius said it was to thank you for helping him back in the Federation. I heard it was quite a shitshow; what actually happened there?”

”I don’t have the jurisdiction to tell you that. Wait for the official report from Leonis.”

I waved the letter as I walked off.

”And thanks for the letter.”

”Wait, I’ll pay you for the information!”

He was surprisingly nosy.

”I’m the son of a duke. That won’t work on me.”

The Tower of Magi loomed ahead like a monument to stubbornness. Fifteen floors of spiraling stone and enough magical wards to make a dragon think twice, all guarded by men who probably hadn’t smiled since the last century.

He examined Lucius’s letter without a word. When he finished, he looked up at me, then at the letter, then back at me, as if confirming that the name on the paper matched the face in front of him.

”Lord Brimstone.”

He said my name like it was a mild inconvenience.

”The letter is valid. You have access to floors one through fifteen. Not a single floor higher. If you break that rule, I don’t care whose son you are. Understood?”

”Crystal.”

He grunted and stepped aside.

The first floor was what I expected: rows of public records, legal archives, and the kind of bureaucratic documentation that made my eyes glaze over just looking at it. The second floor was more of the same. So was the third.

By the fifth floor, I was starting to understand why Lucius had given me this letter. He’d probably already searched the lower floors and found nothing worth the trouble.

This was probably the safest gift he could give me after the trouble he caused.

”Of course he had access to the Tower before me. Why wouldn’t he?”

The occult section didn’t start until floor eight.

I stepped off the spiraling staircase and into a narrow aisle lined with shelves that stretched up into darkness. The air was colder here, carrying the faint smell of old paper and older magic.

”Vampires, vampires...”

I scanned the spines. Most of the books were about werewolves, wraiths, and other creatures that had been hunted to near extinction. Vampires were tucked into a corner so dusty that I had to wipe the shelf clean just to read the titles.

On the Nature of Bloodbound Creatures, Volume II.

Bloodlines and Ascension.

The Vampire Queens of the Eastern Reaches.

I pulled the last one from the shelf.

The book was heavier than it looked, its cover cracked with age, the pages yellowed but intact. The author’s name had been scratched out, but the introduction was still legible.

More importantly, it was specific. It even included examples from previous vampire queens and their bonds.

And unlike the novel, these bonds were actually alive along with their vampire queens.

”Let’s see...”

It started off simple. First was the most popular vampire queen according to the book’s author: the Queen of Fangs and her consort, the Impaler.

Nothing useful, really. It read more like a story than anything practical. The rest of the pages were the same, telling the tales of each vampire queen and her bond, none of it organized into anything resembling usable information.

It was almost as if I’d grabbed a fairytale book.

But at least there was a pattern. Vampire queens and their bonds were unreasonably close. The bonds effectively turned their consorts into half-vampires the moment they consumed any blood. And severing the bond itself would be disastrous for the mental state of the vampire queen.

Like how the Queen of Fangs went insane when her consort was killed in a hail of arrows from witch hunters, causing the creation of the iconic river of blood just near Leonis’s borders.

Well, shit...

That meant Fate Erasure wasn’t viable.

Not unless I wanted to risk breaking Lillith’s mind in the process. The bond wasn’t just some supernatural leash I could sever on a whim. It was woven into her psyche now, tangled up with her evolution, her power, her very identity as a Vampire Queen.

Severing it would be like cutting a thread that held her together.

And if the Queen of Fangs was any indication, the result wouldn’t be pretty. She’d gone insane, created a river of blood, and probably killed thousands before someone put her down. Lillith was already unhinged. The last thing I needed was to make her worse.

”Fan-fucking-tastic.”

I closed the book and leaned against the shelf, letting the cold stone seep through my shirt. The Tower’s occult section was silent, save for the faint hum of the wards embedded in the walls.

It was just me and the weight of what I’d just learned.

So Fate Erasure was off the table. At least for now.

That left me with two options: accept the bond as it was, or find another way to manage it.

The first option wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Lillith was loyal. She was possessive, dominant, and occasionally terrifying, but she was also devoted.

The problem was that bond came out of nowhere. It completely robbed me of the satisfaction of traditionally claiming a villainess. It was a dumb problem, but it sure as hell was a problem for someone like me.

”Now, what am I supposed to—”

”Pardon me for interrupting, but are you also interested in vampires?”

I turned, and there I saw a man with chestnut hair and green eyes. He wore a white robe, and an amulet bearing the signature of a very familiar goddess of light hung from his neck.

”Excuse me?”