I fell in love with a villainess

The rebels named him Thornheart.

Jack heard the whispers as he passed through the dungeon's makeshift armory—a cramped cellar where rusted swords and Maeve's algae vials shared space with barrels of pickled herring. Thornheart. The Viper's monster. Seraphine's shadow. He kept his gloves on, even as the scar itched beneath his collar.

Evangeline stood at a war table, her fingers tracing the Capitol's skeletal map. "The eastern aqueducts," she said to Oren. "Flood them with algae. Starve the thorns of their rot."

"They'll retaliate," Oren grunted.

"Let them." She glanced at Jack, her gaze lingering on his concealed scar. "We'll be ready."

The diary surfaced at dusk.

A rebel scavenger found it in the dungeon's oubliette, hidden beneath a skeleton in Vossaire livery. Its pages crackled with age, the ink faded to ghostly gray. Evangeline read aloud by lantern light:

"The child born under the bleeding star shall bear the garden's mark. His blood will awaken the thorns; his heart will crown the dark."

Jack's throat tightened. "My mother used to say I was born during an eclipse. She called it an omen."

Evangeline turned the page. A sketch stared back—a newborn with storm-gray eyes, his tiny chest split by a rosebud scar. "The Vessel, 712 A.E.," the caption read.

Oren cursed. "You're not just a host. You're a reincarnation. Seraphine's heir."

Jack's gloves ripped as thorns tore free. "I'm no one's heir."

Evangeline closed the diary. "You're ours. That's all that matters."

The vision came at midnight.

Jack woke to Evangeline's scream. He found her in the cellars, dagger drawn, facing a specter in tattered Vossaire robes. The ghost's face was hers, hardened by time, his eyes twin voids.

"Daughter," the specter rasped. "You disappoint me."

Evangeline's blade trembled. "Father."

Lord Vossaire's ghost drifted closer, trailing the stench of embalming herbs. "The thorns must end. Plunge your steel into the vessel's heart, or your kingdom dies screaming."

"He's not a vessel," she hissed. "He's—"

"A weapon. One you're too weak to wield." The ghost seized her wrist, ice spreading up her arm. "Kill him. Or I will."

Jack lunged, thorns shredding the specter to mist.

Evangeline collapsed, her arm blackened with frostbite. "He's right. The thorns… they'll consume everything."

Jack knelt, thorns retracting. "Then let them consume me first."

They fortified the dungeon in silence.

Rebels barricaded doors with rubble, their glances at Jack equal parts awe and terror. Evangeline sharpened daggers, her frostbitten arm stiff. Oren distilled algae into bombs, his hands steady but his eyes haunted.

Jack approached her at the cistern, where she soaked her wounded arm in murky water. "Let Maeve's algae heal it."

"No." She flexed her blackened fingers. "Pain reminds me what's at stake."

He unclasped his glove, revealing the scar's golden tendrils. "You don't have to carry this alone."

She laughed bitterly. "You think I'd trust anyone else?"

Their hands brushed. The scar hummed, not with hunger, but something quieter.

Seraphine's laughter shook the walls at dawn.

"Come out, little viper. Let's end this."

The rebels froze. Above, the palace groaned, roots tearing through its foundations. Evangeline strapped on her daggers. "Oren, flood the aqueducts. Jack—you know what to do."

He didn't. But he followed her anyway.

The Capitol's heart was a battlefield.

Seraphine's new horrors roamed the streets—humanoid roses with serrated petals for hands, their roots fused to the cobblestones. The rebels fell fast, their screams swallowed by blooms. Evangeline fought like a storm, her daggers a blur, but for every thrall she felled, three more sprouted.

Jack's control frayed. The scar split, thorns ravaging the square. He didn't know friend from foe.

"Jack!" Evangeline's voice pierced the chaos.

A rose-born horror loomed over her, its maw dripping acid. Jack's thorns eviscerated it, but the scar ruptured, roots spearing his vision.

"Enough." Seraphine descended on a vine of bones, her form colossal, her eyes twin eclipses. "You are mine, vessel. Always."

Evangeline lunged, dagger aimed at Seraphine's heart.

The thorns moved faster.

Jack woke in the dark.

The rebels' infirmary reeked of algae and blood. Evangeline sat beside him, her frostbitten arm bandaged, her face streaked with soot.

"You're alive," he croaked.

"Barely." She lifted a vial—Seraphine's thorn, pulsing with black sap. "You tore this from her chest before collapsing. It's… weeping."

He touched the scar. Closed. Silent. "What happened?"

"You saved me." Her voice cracked. "Again."

Footsteps echoed. Oren appeared, holding the diary. "There's another page. One we missed."

The sketch showed a rose and dagger crossed over a cradle. The caption: "The covenant's price: the vessel's life, or the gardener's sacrifice."

Jack met Evangeline's gaze. "Oren."

She stood, dagger drawn. "No."

Oren smiled, sad and resolute. "The garden's fed on Vossaires long enough."

He plunged the thorn into his own chest.

Chapter 16 End.