Chapter 1: The Villainess Turns 10

On the day of her tenth birthday, a few things happen to Ecclesia in quick succession:

First, the little snake that is the seventh prince walks into the garden party, bows, and says, “Oh, Lady Ecclesia. You grow more and more boyish every year, how wonderful.”

Two, she picks him up and punts him like a football, leading to,

Three, the entire royal household converging on her like a flock of dismayed ducks,

And four, the force of her punting makes her stumble a few steps back, hit her head pretty hard on the ground, and then remember her entire past life.

Well.

Not ideal, but not too shabby either, as far as birthdays go.

She sits on the ground with her frilly dress rucked up around her knees, her stockings showing, and blinks through the hazy memories of being a sad lonely office worker who died playing her favorite otome game.

How pathetic. Is that how peasants lived? She’d kill herself if her life was half that bleak. She’d twist the neck of her boredom and feed it to—

“Lady Ecclesia,” comes a tearful voice. “My lady, you simply cannot—just—throw His Highness across the field!”

Ecclesia blinks up at her loyal maid, Sally.

“Sally, I have grave news. I have just remembered that we are living in a pretty mediocrely written game. Ah, but,” she brightens. “I am the most excellent villainess of that very game, Lady Ecclesia Thornheart Spencer!”

She leaves out the part where the game was called Love Love Revolution!! Some things were too humiliating to be said out loud by one of her prestigious bloodline.

Sally does not greet this joyous news with whoops of celebration, just a look of confused concern. That’s okay, nobody’s perfect.

Ecclesia scrambles to her feet. Her underskirts offer some resistance, but she tucks them between her legs adroitly as she strides. A few of the gathered staff gasp weakly and try to block her way, but she fights through them without blinking.

She makes a beeline for the pile of snot that’s still sitting on the ground being fussed over by his attendants. She plucks him from their limp, startled arms and holds him out like a ragdoll.

“And this absolute piece of piss, this stale cardboard cutout of a boy, is supposed to be the main villain! Him!” She seethes. “Where’s the devilish charm that outshines the love interests? Where’s the roguish good looks? He looks like he’s made of sourdough!”

“Your veins pop out when you’re vexed,” says Prince Leonard, seventh prince, smiling. His legs dangle a few inches above the ground as Ecclesiaholds him up. “It’s really very unattractive.”

She shakes him again in disgust. He really is dreadfully boring to look at: his hair is the sickening color of dragon dung and his eyes are the blue-grey of the sludgy sky before a storm. The CGs had lied to her. They had lied to all of them. This was not the handsomest man in all the land. This was just some awful little boy who happened to be royal.

Prince Leonard gives her a gap-toothed smile. He is all of ten years old, and has used those ten years productively to cultivate the most irritating attitude in the country.  

“Lady Ecclesia,” he says, in his high, clear voice. “Do you mind setting me down? Holding up a royal like this is so terribly uncouth, don’t you think?”

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“I’ll show you uncouth—”

“Ecclesia!”

She freezes.

Converging across their garden is the petite, delicate figure of her mother. Her waist is trim, her hair in gorgeous ringlets. Her expression is mild.

“What are you holding, my beloved daughter?” she calls, still a good distance away. Her eyes are crinkled into a smile. “Because it looks like it’s the seventh prince, but I know for a fact that that cannot be true, since I did not raise a daughter barbaric enough to—”

Ecclesia is sweating buckets. She looks at the nearest royal attendant.

“Lady Ecclesia,” he says plaintively, “won’t you let His Highness go?”

Ecclesia nods. Her mother is still some distance away, but gaining fast, terrifyingly fast: her eyes are still crinkled in her genial smile that sends ice running down Ecclesia’s spine.

She comes to a decision. She holds the prince up higher—“Such strength! Befitting of the best strongman at a circus!” the boy revels—and dunks him, like a basketball, into the waiting arms of his staff.

She takes one last, anxious look back. Her mother is almost on her.

Ecclesia shrieks a little, and books it across the garden.

*

Later, after she’s caught, and her mother has smilingly cosigned her to hell (extra etiquette classes) Ecclesia sits at her lessons and compiles what she knows.

“As the daughter of the Duke Spencer, a family ranking only below the royal family itself, you have a sacred duty to uphold the shining name of your house,” her tutor drones. Mr. Sanderson is a well-meaning, mousy middle-aged man from some stodgy old university somewhere. He adores her parents and thinks that Ecclesia should be muzzled. “Behaviors that are inappropriate to your station include, but are not limited to, picking up one of the royals and throwing him across the grounds. Calling him ugly. Picking him up again—”

On and on he goes. Ecclesia pulls out some paper and a pen and writes, in bold letters: THINGS I KNOW.

She thinks.

• Leonard is a villain (obviously!)
• In my first year of high school, the savior of the world will appear to purify the land and romance its princes.
• She will most likely kill me (kind of understandable)
• She will also kill Leonard (highly deserved)
• In order to escape outright death, I must make sure that I am not caught for my misdemeanors.
• That requires a scapegoat
• Leonard is right there.

 She’s a genius. It’s so neat. So simple. Whenever this savior girl appears, she’s just going to make Leonard seem like the ultimate baddie and escape scot-free!

It’s diabolical.

This villainess stuff was so easy.

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