Valessia Von Astria. Twenty-two years old.
Baroness of the Astria estate, one of the decent houses in the entire empire and more importantly to Levi, the cutest queen of The Kingdom’s Genius Mage fandom.
Cold on the outside, catastrophically soft on the inside and the villainess that the entire internet had collectively lost their minds over for two straight years.
Levi knew her better than he knew most real people from his actual life.
Iron bit into his wrists and he blinked through a heavy groggy fog, the smell of old stone and lavender thick in his lungs as his vision cleared piece by piece and then finished clearing and he looked up and completely froze.
’Holy shit. It’s actually her.’
His heart launched into a full frantic drumroll against his ribs.
She was sitting on an elevated velvet armchair across the room radiating that untouchable chilling grace that had made an entire fandom lose sleep across twenty-seven episodes.
’That MILF Goddess actually did it. She actually sent me here.’
Then the chains dug harder into his wrists and the stone pressed into his knees and the next thought hit him like cold water dropped from a great height.
’...Why am I chained to the floor? And whose body even is this?!’
"This rat is finally awake, My Lady."
His eyes snapped to the tall stern-faced man standing at Valessia’s right, staring down at him with disgust that was personal and thorough and completely dedicated.
He recognized him instantly. Chief Advisor of the Astria estate and walking human migraine in a formal coat, Corvus.
Corvus turned slightly. "What shall we do with Sylus? My lady."
Levi’s stomach dropped straight through the stone floor.
’Did he just call me Sylus?’
He looked down at his hands. Older than his hands. Broader. A small scar across the left knuckle he definitely did not put there himself.
’I’m the senior butler?!’
A slow breath from across the room pulled his attention back up.
Valessia leaned forward and her gloved fingers dug into the ornate wood of her armrest slow and deliberate until her knuckles went white underneath the fabric.
Her violet eyes narrowed.
"To think you would actually betray me, Sylus." Her voice came out quiet and somehow that quietness was worse than any shouting would’ve been.
"How dare you stab me in the back. Selling away our estate’s deepest secrets, our military strategies..." She tilted her head slightly.
"Did you grow this bold simply because my late father appointed you when you were young? Did you genuinely believe your seniority made you untouchable?"
’I’m being framed!?’
The thought landed with total clarity and survival instinct kicked everything else out of the way.
Levi threw his weight forward and the chains snapped taut with a sharp clang as he strained against them with everything the borrowed body had.
"My Lady!" The desperation in his voice was not entirely performed. "I am being framed! I pledged my life and my loyalty to you the very day the former Baron brought me to this estate!"
"Insolence!" Corvus barked and took one sharp step forward. "How dare you speak to Lady Valessia without—"
Valessia raised a single finger.
Corvus’s mouth snapped shut like a trap and he stepped back instantly, spine straight, expression locked in place.
She brushed a lock of deep purple hair behind her shoulder without even glancing at him and her gaze never once left Levi’s face.
"Framed?" she repeated, flat and unconvinced.
She reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out a crumpled parchment envelope, holding it up between two fingers like the evidence it absolutely was.
"Every piece of outgoing mail from this estate passes through my hands for inspection. The sender listed on this particular envelope..." She let the pause sit there doing its damage. "Was Sylus."
’Me? What the actual hell?!’
"Inside this envelope," she continued, "was a detailed report on the poor condition of our lands and defenses. A complete map of every vulnerability we have." Her eyes flashed sharp and sudden, first real crack in all that ice. "And worse. A cheap vulgar note suggesting the Baroness would gladly sell herself for a fistful of gold coins."
She crushed the envelope in her fist and the crumple of parchment echoed through the dead silent hall like something small getting destroyed on purpose.
Levi kept his eyes on hers and didn’t look away. "My Lady. Think about it carefully. Using my own name is the most obvious decoy imaginable, it’s deliberate."
One dark brow lifted barely. "Explain."
"Whoever wrote this knows your routines," he pressed on fast and clear.
"They knew you personally inspect every piece of outgoing mail. So why don’t you ask yourself? if I were truly selling you out with ten years of experience inside this estate why would I sign my own name on a letter I knew with complete certainty you would read?" He held her gaze without flinching.
"Someone inside this estate wants me removed and they’re using your own thoroughness to do it."
Valessia went quiet.
Her eyes moved across his face like she was reading something written in a language she hadn’t decided whether to trust yet.
’He makes a point though,’ she thought, almost against her will.
Corvus scoffed before she could say anything and crossed his arms. "A convenient excuse. And how exactly are you so certain you’re being targeted? Do you have a single shred of actual proof to back any of this up?"
’Tsk.’
Levi ground his teeth behind a completely neutral expression.
He had nothing.
"Answer Sir Corvus, Sylus," Valessia said softly and somehow the softness made it worse. "Show us something. Anything. Give us one reason to believe this wasn’t you."
The hall waited.
Levi ran every option at full speed and came back with exactly one play.
’Fine. I play her character.’
He knew Valessia’s hidden lore better than the show’s own writers probably did, if the fan wiki’s fifteen-thousand-word deep dive was anything to go by. Beneath every inch of that icy immaculate exterior was someone who understood loyalty down in her bones, someone who’d been left alone enough times to recognize when a person was genuinely choosing to stay.
He didn’t say a word.
He threw his upper body forward instead.
CLANG.
The chains rattled hard as his forehead hit the stone flat, the sound ringing through the quiet hall, his whole frame bent into the deepest most absolute bow this borrowed body could manage.
A gasp swept through the servants lining the walls and even Valessia blinked. Genuine surprise cracking through for just a second before the mask sealed right back over it.
"Lady Valessia." His voice came out muffled against the stone but he pushed every drop of conviction he had into it. "I have served as your butler for ten years. In all that time I have never caused a single incident. Not one." A breath. "I am begging you. Give me one chance to prove my innocence. Let me find this traitor. I swear it on my life."
The room pressed down heavy.
Valessia looked down at the shape of him flat against the floor, at the hands pressed to the stone and the set of his shoulders and the way he hadn’t looked away from her once since she’d started speaking.
"You sound awfully confident," she said finally. "And what happens if you fail to find this phantom culprit of yours?"
Levi raised his head slowly and looked her dead in the eye.
"Then My Lady I will walk to the execution block myself. You can do whatever you wish with me."
The grand hall went completely silent.
Silence choked the room. Only the distant flicker of torchlight cut through the dark, leaving his words heavy in the cold air between them.
Valessia stared at him for a long moment and her violet eyes moved across his face looking for a flinch, a crack, anything to confirm what she already suspected.
Her grip on the crushed letter loosened.
The crumpled parchment dropped softly against her lap.
"Two days," she said and her voice carried the kind of authority that didn’t ask for confirmation, it just told the world how things were going to be. "That is all the time you have."