"Ugh."
For ten painfully long seconds, nobody said a word. The only sound in the Grand Duke’s study was the rapid scritch-scratch of a quill attacking a sheet of parchment.
"Hmm." A longer pause. A heavy sigh. The sound of a hand slapping a forehead.
"No. Absolutely not. Damn it."
Over by the far wall, near a massive curtain that desperately needed a good dusting, Therin Ilveris, the Grand Duke’s aide, shifted his weight from one boot to the other. He leaned a fraction of an inch toward Caldrin, keeping his voice down to an anxious whisper. "I’ve served His Grace for years. I’ve seen him face a thirty-foot ice beast with nothing but a broken broadsword and a slight hangover. I have never seen him make noises like that."
Caldrin didn’t even look up from the sword-belt he was oiling, though his shoulders had gone rigid. "He’s been staring at those blank sheets since sunrise. Should we call the chief healer? Maybe that hit to the skull had a delayed reaction. Brain rot, perhaps."
"I am not sick, my head is entirely intact, and if you two incompetent gossips want to whisper about me like a pair of girls gossiping over the laundry, you need to lower your voices by at least three decibels," Lioren snapped, not looking up from his desk.
Therin straightened instantly, smoothing down his tunic. "We weren’t trying to whisper, Your Grace. We wanted you to hear us."
Lioren finally lifted his head, glaring through the messy fringe of green hair that had fallen across his forehead. He looked less like the formidable, terrifying Grand Duke of the Northern Border and more like a mad scholar who’d spent three days straight consuming bad coffee and worse life choices. His desk, usually clean, was practically buried under sprawling stacks of hastily scribbled notes, messy diagrams, and random arrows pointing to nowhere.
The problem, Lioren reflected as he rubbed his aching eyes, was his memory. It was frustratingly incomplete.
When the dam broke during that bloody battle days ago, he’d remembered his past life, the modern apartment, the late-night reading binges, the glowing phone screen. But The Shattered Dawn hadn’t been an autobiography of Xavion Astervan. Xavion was the terrifying, world-ending final boss who loomed over the entire post-apocalyptic narrative, a figure whose dark legacy was revealed only through scattered flashbacks, vague historical lore, and angry exposition from surviving characters. Lioren remembered the major, earth-shattering beats, sure.
But the little details? The dates? The precise timeline of every household disaster?
He had to piece it together like a half-chewed puzzle.
He stared down at the name written in bold, ink-blotted letters at the center of his main parchment: XAVION.
God, what a miserable ordeal that man had lived through. Born to a lowly maid in Ostharia’s snake pit of a court, Xavion was branded a bastard from the moment he took his first breath. Despite carrying imperial blood, his siblings treated him worse than a stray dog. He was mocked, starved, and subjected to subtle, cruel humiliations. Yet, according to those brief novel snippets, the guy had remained shockingly gentle. Quiet. Kind. He took the high road, focused on his training, and eventually became an undefeated war hero who saved Ostharia’s hide more times than the King cared to count.
And how did his lovely royal family repay him?
Paranoia. Utter, pathetic cowardice. Fearful that Xavion’s god-like magic would eventually prompt him to claim the throne and avenge his mother, they poisoned him.
The poison hadn’t killed him. His dormant magic had fought it off, but the damage was already done. His body was left weak and damaged, and he lost all sight in his left eye. Overnight, Ostharia’s proud war hero was all but gone.
Then came the war with Werestia. Without Xavion on the front lines, Ostharia’s military machine collapsed like a house of cards. And now, cornered and desperate for a peace treaty, Ostharia was about to hand Xavion over to Werestia as a political hostage to secure the deal.
Lioren leaned back in his leather chair, staring blankly at the ceiling.
This is where the real nightmare begins, he thought, his stomach twisting into a hard knot.
In the novel, once Xavion arrived in the Werestian capital, he was promptly handed over to one of the princesses to be betrothed to her. The princess treated the fallen hero like a circus animal. Shee mocked him, starved him, locked him in cold dungeons, and let the court nobles spit on him for sport.
Years of relentless, unendurable torture finally shattered whatever was left of Xavion’s gentle heart. When his dark power awakened, corrupted by pure desolation and rage, he didn’t just break his chains. He destroyed Werestia, ripped every kingdom apart, and brought the entire world crashing down with it.
When Lioren had read those Chapters in his past life, sitting comfortably on his sofa with a bag of chips, he had actually cheered for the villain. ’Yeah, kill them all! Burn the palace down! They deserved it!’ he’d muttered to his phone.
But sitting here now? In the real world? Touching his desk, hearing Caldrin’s boots scrape against the stone, listening to Therin ramble on?
It wasn’t a fun web novel anymore. These were real people. If Xavion snapped, everyone died. Caldrin. Therin. His people. The laughing citizens who’d thrown flowers at his horse the other day.
Himself.
"I can’t just tell the King not to take him," Lioren muttered under his breath, chewing absently on the end of his wooden feather quill.
"Pardon, Your Grace?" Therin asked, taking a hesitant step forward.
Lioren ignored him, spiraling deeper into his own head. He couldn’t go to the King and say, ’Hey, don’t accept the Ostharian prince, he’s going to turn into a dark magic nuke in the future.’ They’d throw him in an asylum. He couldn’t openly intercept the hostage convoy without triggering a fresh war. He couldn’t alter Ostharia’s past choices.
So what could he actually change? How could he rip Xavion out of the princess’s sadistic grip before the man’s mind shattered?
I need a legal right to him, Lioren thought wildly, tapping the quill against his chin. Something the King would have to agree to...
A sudden, sharp thud interrupted his frantic brain-mapping.
Lioren blinked, snapping out of his trance. Therin had just dropped a ridiculously thick, leather-bound portfolio onto the edge of the desk and gave the dusty cover an unnecessarily aggressive swipe.
Lioren stared at the thick stack. Then he stared at Therin. "What is this? Are these tax reports? Please tell me you brought them for someone else."
"They are not tax reports, Your Grace," Therin said, his voice dropping into that smooth, rehearsed, extremely nagging tone he used when he was about to deliver bad news. "These are marriage proposals. Formally submitted by the Elders and several major noble houses over the last six months. You have ignored all of them."
Lioren recoiled as if the portfolio had just hissed at him. "No. Absolutely not. Take them away."
"Your Grace," Caldrin chimed in from the corner, dropping his oil rag, "you are twenty-four. You rule the entire northern border. You have no direct heir, your sister is moving to the royal palace, and the Elders are dropping hints that you’re going to die alone in a trench surrounded by snow wolves."
"I am currently thinking about the very survival of our future, thank you very much," Lioren snapped, waving a dismissive hand. "Marriage is at the very bottom of my list of priorities."
"Well, if marriage is part of securing your house’s future, which it inherently is, perhaps you should at least look at Lady Yerenia’s profile?" Therin pressed, sliding the top folder forward. "She’s accomplished, her family controls three major grain routes, and..."
"Therin."
"Yes, Your Grace?"
"Keep silent."
Therin let out a dramatic, muffled huff, puffing his cheeks out in an obvious pout, but he dutifully took a step back and crossed his arms.
Lioren rolled his eyes, turning back to his messy notes. He picked up his quill, prepared to dive back into the impossible puzzle of rescuing a doomed villain...
He froze.
His eyes slowly drifted from the scribbled name XAVION on his parchment... across the desk... to the thick, gold-embossed leather portfolio of Marriage Candidates.
The room fell completely still. The rhythmic tick of the tall pendulum clock in the corner suddenly sounded deafeningly loud.
Lioren’s brain hit a screeching, violent halt.
Wait.
Hold on a damn minute.
The royal promise. The King had sworn on his crown the other day in front of the entire audience hall, ’Whatever you present your request, it shall be granted without question or delay.’
A political hostage from an enemy nation was usually assigned as a servant or prisoner to the royal family. But a hostage was, ultimately, just a piece of human property in diplomatic terms. A bargaining chip.
And Lioren had an unfulfilled royal favor burning a hole in his pocket.
Slowly, Lioren stood up from his chair. The heavy wood scraped loudly against the stone floor.
Therin nearly jumped out of his boots, flinching back. "Your Grace?"
Lioren didn’t answer right away. He rounded the desk, his boots clicking smoothly against the floor, his eyes wide and unblinking. He stopped right in front of his terrified aide, reaching out to clap both hands heavily onto Therin’s shoulders.
The look on Lioren’s face was so wildly unhinged, so violently bright with revelation, that Therin looked ready to faint.
"Therin," Lioren said softly, his voice trembling with manic joy.
"Y-yes, Your Grace?" Therin squeaked, trembling under the grip.
"You’re a genius."
Therin blinked, his brain short-circuiting. "...I am?"
"Yes! A genius of truly questionable proportions!" Lioren shook him slightly, a massive, shameless grin spreading across his handsome face.
"I... I am?" Therin repeated, looking desperately toward Caldrin for help. Caldrin just slowly raised an eyebrow, completely lost. "Your Grace, I genuinely have no idea what I just did."
Lioren let go of Therin’s shoulders with a loud snap of his hands, spinning around and snatching up the empty ink pot, tossing it in the air and catching it with a laugh.
"You just solved the biggest problem in the entire bloody world, Therin!" Lioren announced, marching toward the door with broad, energetic strides. He paused at the threshold, looking back over his shoulder with a sharp, wicked spark in his golden eyes.
"Oh... I just figured out where I’m going to get myself a husband."