I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)

The air didn’t feel as suffocating as it had yesterday for Zarius. Cherion was awake. That mattered. After three endless days of nothing, the quiet had started to hurt. Now, for the first time in days, Zarius could take a full breath.

He’d been meticulous about the recovery process, obsessive, even. He had hand-picked the new attendant, a choice that had raised a few eyebrows among the senior staff. Reiner, Flio’s younger brother, was... well, he was a lot. The boy was a sunbeam trapped in a bottle, radiating a brand of relentless, high-octane enthusiasm that usually made Zarius want to retreat into a dark room. But for Cherion? It was perfect. Cherion needed life, not more shadows. He needed someone who could match his warmth without wilting under the biting frost of Valtrane.

”With all due respect, Your Grace... are you absolutely certain this is the right move? Going out there, I mean.”

Zarius didn’t look up from the maps spread across his desk, though his jaw tightened just a fraction. Elios was many things, a brilliant strategist, a loyal commander, a man who could track a mountain cat through a blizzard, but he was also prone to a hovering sort of concern that Zarius found increasingly grating.

”It isn’t a matter of whether I want to go, Elios,” Zarius replied. ”The West doesn’t pause its decay because we’ve had a few difficult nights at home.”

They were in the study now, the sanctuary where the real, ugly work of the Duchy happened. It was that time of the year again. The topic on the table was the Subjugation, a word that sounded grand and heroic in many ways, but was essentially a grim, bloody sanitation project in the North. To anyone who hadn’t seen one, a ”subjugation” sounded heroic. Like something meant for ballads and illustrated books. But Zarius knew better. Zarius couldn’t hear the word without remembering the smell, thick, sweet rot, like burned sugar burned too long, mixed with coppery blood that made his stomach churn. It stuck with him.

”I understand the urgency,” Elios pressed. ”But, my Lord... you...”

”But what?” Zarius snapped, finally lifting his head. His eyes, usually a piercing red, looked like shattered glass in the light. ”Do you believe the ’Monster of the North’ has suddenly lost his teeth? Do you think I’m no longer capable of swinging a sword just because someone cursed me?”

The curse was still there, buzzing like a live wire under his skin, setting his teeth on edge and making the muscles in his arms twitch, but he could still handle a few of those monsters. He had to.

Elios winced, but he didn’t back down. That was the problem with loyal men, they were too brave for their own good. ”I merely worry about your health, Your Grace.”

Zarius felt a flare of irritation, that familiar, prickly heat that usually preceded a temper. He opened his mouth to deliver a scathing rebuttal, something about how his health was his own damn business, but the words died as a sudden, jagged spike of agony drove itself through his left temple.

It wasn’t just pain. It was an all-out attack on his brain.

The curse hit again, rolling through him like a wave of ice and fire all at once. It had been three days since he’d received Cherion’s healing energy. Seventy-two hours of the rot gnawing at his marrow without any light to push it back. The air in his lungs suddenly felt like hot sand, and before he could catch his breath, a violent, ragged coughing fit tore out of his chest. He doubled over, his hand flying to his mouth to muffle the sound, his knuckles turning a ghostly, translucent white as he gripped the edge of the desk.

”My Lord!” Elios called out in panic before turning toward the door with an urgency that bordered on panic. ”I’m getting Lord Cherion.”

”Stay. Put.”

The words were a hiss that made Elios freeze. Zarius forced himself upright, his spine cracking as he fought the urge to collapse. He pushed it all aside and put on the face he knew would keep him alive, indifferent.

”I am fine,” Zarius lied. It was a blatant, ugly falsehood, the kind of lie that felt like a sin. ”The curse is dormant. It’s just... the cold. Nothing more.”

”My Lord, your...”

”I said I am fine!” The shout echoed off the stone walls. Zarius took a shallow, shaky breath, his chest heaving. ”We set out in two weeks. I want the vanguard ready, the supply lines secured, and the scouts doubled. We march at dawn.”

Elios stared at him for a long beat, his face a map of profound, helpless frustration. He clearly wanted to argue, he wanted to scream that the Duke was being a suicidal idiot, but the hierarchy was absolute. If the Duke said he was fine, he was fine, even if he was bleeding out internally.

”As you wish, Your Grace.”

Zarius nodded. ”You can leave now.”

The commander bowed, a stiff, formal gesture that lacked its usual warmth, and retreated from the study..

Once the silence returned, Zarius let the mask crumble. He sank back into his high-backed chair, his head leaning against the leather.

He knew he was just making things harder on himself. A ”noble idiot,” as some might say. But every time he closed his eyes, he didn’t see the maps or the monsters. He saw the forest. He saw Cherion’s face, pale, translucent, looking like a porcelain doll that had been dropped and glued back together. He remembered the terrifying cold of Cherion’s hands and the way his mana had flickered out like a dying candle just to clear the poison from his body.

He’d deal with this curse, this fire in his brain and the knives in his lungs, than risk hurting Cherion one more time when the boy literally just woken up. If Cherion needed two weeks to breathe, to eat, and to laugh with that loud-mouthed boy Reiner, then Zarius would give him those two weeks.

Even if it meant that by the time they faced the monsters, there was nothing left of the Duke but a hollowed-out shell and a very sharp sword.