My Sister Is The Villainess

The front doors opened onto a wall of noise and firelight.

I counted rank before faces, out of habit more than anything else. A scattering of barons and their wives clustered near the hearth, a handful of viscounts holding drinks by the window, two counts deep in conversation near the stairs, and, closer to the center of the room than anyone else, one earl. Beside him stood a broad, grey-haired man in Hans colors, and it took me a moment to place the crest properly. He was Duke Hans. The head of the whole house, here, in my home, for me.

’Well. That is one way to make an evening feel heavier than it should.’

Precedence was not a suggestion in Valemont. It was a leash, and if you tugged it wrong, everyone in the room noticed.

I went to the Duke first, because anything else would have been an insult loud enough to be remembered for years. I inclined my head exactly as far as etiquette demanded for a boy of my house greeting a man of his, no farther, no less.

”Your Grace. Thank you for honoring our home tonight.”

”Rhys’s boy,” the Duke said, studying me the way older nobles studied anything that might one day matter. ”Awakened already. Good. Good.”

I moved to the earl next, then the counts, then the cluster of viscounts, each greeting shaved down to the precise weight it needed and not a hair more. Father had drilled this into me before I could properly read, and Sera had mocked me for practicing bows in front of a mirror when I was eight. Neither of them ever explained why it mattered so much. They did not have to. I could feel it now, in the room, in the way conversations paused just slightly whenever I turned toward someone new.

The baronesses were easiest, warm and doting, delighted to coo over the boy who had just become one of the Awakened. I let them.

By the time I reached the last of them, my father caught my eye from across the room and gave the smallest possible nod. I chose to interpret that as ”excellent work, my son, you have brought great honor to House Rhys,” even though it almost certainly meant ”stop making that face at the baronesses.”

Someone pressed a glass into my hand not long after, the wine dark and faintly bitter, far too old for a boy my age, but nobody in this room particularly cared what was proper for a fifteen year old tonight. Convenient, that. I made a mental note to bring up my age far less often around this crowd.

”To House Rhys,” the Duke said, raising his own glass, ”and to another Awakened joining its line.”

Glasses rose around the room. I raised mine along with them, took the smallest sip manners allowed, and immediately regretted every choice that had led me to this cup. It tasted like something had personally wronged the grapes before they became wine.

The talk after that blurred into the usual noble noise. Questions about my affinity, polite curiosity about my Talent rank, someone’s wife asking whether I intended to specialize in swordwork like my father once had. I answered everything the way Vane would have wanted, brief, correct, giving away nothing that was not already public, and privately congratulating myself for not once mentioning the system, the Shop, or the fact that I used to live in a completely different world. Small victories.

Sera drifted near me through most of it, saying little, watching everything, the way she always did at these things, occasionally shooting me a look that clearly said she was enjoying my suffering far more than she should.

It felt like hours before I was finally allowed to slip away.

My room, when I reached it, felt almost unbearably quiet after the party downstairs. I shut the door, sat on the edge of my bed, and let out a breath I did not realize I had been holding all evening.

’Finally. Freedom. And more importantly, no more cheek pinching.’

I had been waiting for this since the ceremony. Ever since that first notification flickered across my vision back at the Academy, one thought had been sitting at the back of my mind, patient, insistent, and honestly a little greedy.

I focused inward, the way the system’s earlier prompts had taught me to, and thought the word.

Shop.

[Shop Opened]

═══════[ SHOP ]═══════

Featured Items:

▸ [Hunger of The Creepy Dagger]

A dagger that hungers. Each kill sharpens its edge and its hunger both.

Rank: Bound

Price: 340 Plot Points

▸ [Wanderer’s Boots]

Never blister, never tire. The road simply stops noticing you.

Rank: Awakened

Price: 95 Plot Points

▸ [Random Box - Latent]

Contents unknown. Low odds, low cost, occasionally not worthless.

Price: 60 Plot Points

[Available Plot Points: 15]

═══════════════════════

My mouth went dry.

’Fifteen. I have fifteen.’

I scrolled down anyway, chasing that stubborn little voice insisting the good stuff had to be closer than this. It was not. Everything worth looking at twice sat behind a price tag that made fifteen look like a joke somebody was playing on me personally.

I kept scrolling, past weapons I could not afford, past a Random Box I could not afford, past an entire shelf of things clearly designed to make fifteen-year-old boys weep quietly in their bedrooms.

And then, near the very bottom, tucked beneath everything flashy enough to catch the eye first, I found a section that did not immediately mock me.

▸▸ [Stat Points] ▸▸

═══════════════════════

[+1 Strength] — 3 Plot Points

[+1 Vitality] — 2 Plot Points

[+1 Dexterity] — 3 Plot Points

[+1 Endurance] — 3 Plot Points ℴ

═══════════════════════

Now this, I could work with.

I bought two points of Strength.

[Strength Increased]

[Available Plot Points: 9]

Then four points of Vitality.

[Vitality Increased]

[Available Plot Points: 1]

One point left. Barely anything. Not even close to enough for another stat, let alone anything with a real price tag attached.

’Well. That is that, then.’

I moved to close the panel, already resigned to ending the night one Plot Point richer than useless, when something small flickered at the very edge of the screen. A tiny banner, easy to miss, tucked beneath the Stat Points section like it did not want to be found.

▸ [Beginner’s Starter Pack Available!]

═══════════════════════

[The Breathing Fire Glove]

A glove wreathed in something that is not quite fire, and not quite alive.

Rank: Awakened

One-Time New User Price: 1 Plot Point

═══════════════════════

I stared at it.

I stared at it a second time, just to make sure I had not imagined the whole thing out of pure desperation.

’...A starter pack. Of course there is a starter pack. Even the universe understands customer retention.’

It did not matter how it worked. The price sat there, plain and unmoving, one single Plot Point standing between me and an Awakened-rank item that had no business being that cheap.

I did not even hesitate.

[Purchase Confirmed]

[Item Acquired: The Breathing Fire Glove]

[Available Plot Points: 0]

The panel flickered once, then dimmed, folding itself back into nothing.

I sat there in the dark, completely broke, grinning like an idiot.

’Okay. Okay, that was actually worth it.’