If you asked Lioren to choose between holding a narrow mountain pass against three thousand charging enemy knights or surviving a four-hour royal banquet, he’d pick the bloody mountain pass every single time. At least on a battlefield, people had the decency to attack you from the front with swords instead of trapping you near a punch bowl with fake smiles and endless talk about grain tariffs.
A full month had dragged by since the border was secured, and the Werestian capital was still drunk on triumph. The official peace treaty was signed, the long, bloody war was declared over, and the royal palace had spared zero expense for tonight’s grand celebration. The ballroom was giving peak fantasy-gala overload. Everywhere you looked, high-ranking nobles in silk, commanders in squeaky-clean dress armor, and diplomats were squinting under silver chandeliers turned up to maximum wattage.
And, naturally, every single human being in the room wanted a piece of the Grand Duke.
"Your Grace! A toast to your astonishing tactical brilliance on the battlefield!" a portly, heavily powdered marquis boomed, pushing a crystal glass into Lioren’s face for what felt like the fifteenth time in an hour.
"Ah, Marquis, you flatter me," Lioren said, flashing a textbook PR smile that felt about two seconds away from glitching out. "Though really, it was the front-line spearmen who did the heavy lifting. I mostly just stood on a hill looking majestic."
The marquis let out a wet, booming laugh, clearly mistaking the dry statement for high comedy, while two nearby count’s daughters hovering nearby giggled behind their lace fans.
Lioren took a tiny sip of his wine, his eyes frantically darting around the crowded room for an escape hatch. Over by the roasted pig table, Caldrin was in his own world, calmly chewing on a spiced chicken wing. He caught Lioren’s desperate look, raised his goblet in a mock toast, and went right back to eating. Absolutely useless. Zero loyalty.
Therin was slightly more helpful, or he would have been, if he wasn’t currently trapped three circles of conversation over, trying to explain to a group of elderly ministers why the northern army budget actually required winter boots instead of gold-trimmed ceremonial sashes. He flashed Lioren a quick, pitying glare over a duchess’s towering wig, silently warning his lord not to step out of line.
Lioren waited until the marquis turned his back to grab another pastry, he executed a flawless, Ninja-level side-step behind a marble pillar.
He skipped the formal goodbye entirely, announcing it was just begging Therin to hawk-dive in and force-feed him an introduction to the Archbishop or some baron’s third daughter. Instead, Lioren just merged with the shadow of the drapes, snuck past two bewildered guards standing near the side exit, and slipped out of the roaring ballroom entirely.
As soon as the doors slammed shut and blocked out the deafening music and laughter, Lioren let out an aggressively loud, un-gala-worthy sigh of relief.
"Jesus, can a guy not just eat and drink in peace?" he muttered, instantly undoing the top two buttons of his choke-hold jacket.
Finally out of the crowd, the stone hallway felt like entering an air-conditioned safe zone. Fresh air and garden jasmine blew through the archways while Lioren roamed down the marble, taking genuine pleasure in the utter lack of human presence.
Before executing his grand escape from the ballroom, however, Lioren had spotted a silver tray of freshly baked pastries floating past him on the arm of a nervous-looking servant. Since he had zero intention of leaving alone, he’d casually snagged a small, golden tart dripping with wild honey and thick vanilla cream. He’d taken a massive, completely undignified bite on his way out the door, entirely unbothered by how it looked.
As much as he loved a good party, and he really did appreciate the good food and free high-end wine, an uneasy weight had been sitting in his stomach for weeks. The peace negotiations were finalized, sure, but the hostage transfer details had been locked behind closed doors. Lioren had spent the last thirty days waiting, sharpening his teeth in the dark, wondering when the Ostharian delegation would finally hand over their fallen prince.
Until he actually saw the man with his own two eyes, Lioren couldn’t fully breathe. The clock was ticking, and the world’s survival was still hanging by a ridiculously thin thread.
Where the hell are they keeping him? Lioren thought, turning a corner that led toward the outer stone terrace overlooking the private courtyard. Did he actually reach Werestia yet? Did they block him at the palace gates or something?
That’s the problem with flashback lore, it leaves you hanging on the details. Left with half a puzzle, Lioren couldn’t stop wondering when the hell he was actually going to see the...
Lioren stopped dead in his tracks.
A stray piece of flaky crust and thick cream went down the wrong pipe, catching a square in the back of his throat.
At first, he assumed he’d just cough it out like a normal human being. He gave a quiet, polite little throat-clear. Nothing. He tried again, harder this time, his ribs heaving, and realized with a sudden, horrifying wave of disbelief that the piece wasn’t budging.
He couldn’t get air in. He couldn’t force air out.
Hold up. Lioren’s brain hit a hard reset. Nope. Not happening..
The grand duke who had survived mountain ambushes, cut through enemy vanguard lines, and walked out of brutal warfare completely unscathed was now, fighting for his bloody life against a three-inch dessert. If he died here, the cause of death on his tombstone would read Tart. Therin would never let him hear the end of it in the afterlife.
Lioren doubled over, clutching the rough edge of a stone railing for support, his eyes watering furiously as he tried to drag in a single thread of oxygen. His face was rapidly turning purple, and not in a particularly flattering way.
Footsteps echoed softly down the corridor, quickening as they approached.
"Are you... alright?" a voice asked.
A calm, low voice reached him, far too composed for the situation. Lioren tried to answer, to demand help, to say I’m dying, to call a priest, but all that exploded out of him was another violent, wheezing cough. He couldn’t even bother looking up to see who it was, his entire world had narrowed down to the immediate threat of choking to death on royal pastries.
The stranger didn’t just walk away. Recognizing the sudden, desperate struggle for what it was, the person stepped right up beside him without a second of hesitation. While Lioren was internally screaming in absolute, unhinged terror, the stranger remained completely composed. A firm, surprisingly solid palm slammed hard right between Lioren’s shoulder blades with precise, practiced force, helping his chest clear the obstruction.
On the third strike, the offending piece of crust finally dislodged, flying out onto the floor.
Lioren collapsed forward slightly, resting both hands on his knees, gasping for breath like a landed fish. His chest burned, his throat felt like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper, and tears of pure oxygen deprivation were streaming down his cheeks. The stranger stayed right beside him, hovering closely, waiting to make sure he wasn’t about to collapse.
Once his lungs finally stopped screaming, the stranger asked softly, "Are you alright now?"
Lioren was still coughing into his elbow, his voice coming out raspy and thoroughly offended by the whole experience.
"Yeah... yeah, I’m fine," Lioren grumbled, wiping his watery eyes with the back of his sleeve, sounding thoroughly annoyed as if choking to death was merely a minor inconvenience he’d been forced to endure. "Just... swallowed a piece of pie sideways. Annoying."
He took one more deep, greedy breath of fresh garden air, straightened his back, and finally looked up at the guy who had just saved him from the most embarrassing death imaginable.
But Lioren’s breath caught in his throat again.
It started with the hair, a long, dramatic sheet of blue silk blowing in the wind like a shampoo commercial. Then he caught the profile: an aggressively handsome jawline, skin that looked unreal under the stars, and a nose bridge so immaculate it felt like a personal insult to average-looking people.
And then... Lioren noticed the white, leather eyepatch strapped firmly over the man’s left eye.
The entire world seemed to grind to a sudden, violent halt for roughly three seconds.
The distant music from the ballroom faded. The breeze stopped. Even the crickets in the garden below seemed to shut up all at once.
Lioren froze in the shadows like a deer in headlights, his brain officially flatlining. This wasn’t a case of mistaken identity; God only made one of those and then threw away the blueprint.
Xavion Astervan.
The undefeated war hero of Ostharia. The tragic, abused royal bastard. The future greatest Black Mage in recorded history. The man who was literally destined to tear the sky apart, flood the continents in blood, and grind every living soul on this planet, including Lioren, into fine gray dust.
And...
He blinked twice, his train of thought running straight into a dead end.
Holy shit.
He is ridiculously, offensively handsome.
Lioren’s brain, which was usually capable of pulling off complex military ambushes and maneuvering through dangerous court politics on three hours of sleep, completely stopped functioning.
The dark web novel descriptions had mentioned Xavion being a striking figure, sure. But reading a sentence on a glowing phone screen in a messy apartment did not prepare a guy for the real thing. Even standing there in a plain, faded tunic that was clearly three sizes too big, probably a deliberate attempt by the Ostharian delegation to humiliate their fallen hero before presenting him to the Werestian court, the man looked utterly breathtaking. He had a soft, tragic-hero energy that made him look less like a planet-destroying threat and more like a displaced god who’d fallen out of the clouds and didn’t know how to walk on dirt yet.
Xavion shifted slightly, resting his pale hands on the cold stone railing, staring down at the dark gardens below. He looked so small. So terribly, heart-wrenchingly lonely amidst the roaring celebration happening just a few hundred yards away.
Lioren swallowed hard, his heart doing a strange, fluttering thud against his ribs that had absolutely nothing to do with fear of the apocalypse.
Oh, sweet mother of God, Lioren thought, clutching at his own chest with a silent, breathless laugh. You actually do exist up there, don’t you? Because if this is the guy I have to pamper to save the world... I am going to enjoy my job way too much.