I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)

Zarius stood at the lip of the command circle, his boots crunching on a layer of frost that had begun to reclaim the mud. The transition from the high-octane screech of the Velkyn raid to this heavy, ringing silence was always the hardest part of the job. It was when the adrenaline evaporated, leaving behind the cold realization of how many men were missing from the roll call. He watched the last of the perimeter fires being banked, the orange light flickering across the watchmen’s faces who looked more like ghosts than soldiers.

Everything was technically ”under control,” yet the back of his neck remained tight. A phantom itch.

He’d spent the last hour buried in logistics, arrows, oil, casualties, the endless arithmetic of war, but his mind kept performing a persistent, rhythmic search for a single, messy head of hair. He’d last seen Cherion being practically abducted by Reiner toward the medical tent.

Zarius finally shook off his captains and strode toward the infirmary tent. Zarius moved through the rows of beds, his presence causing a ripple of straightening backs and weary salutes. Only when he was satisfied that the wounded was stable did his internal focus shift.

He looked around the bustling, candle-lit space. The specific, bright energy of the Southern healer was missing.

”Where is he?” Zarius asked, his voice cutting through the frantic atmosphere of the tent.

Reiner, who was currently elbow-deep in a bowl of greyish wash-water, didn’t even look up. He just gestured vaguely toward the flap with a dripping hand. ”I sent him off. He’s probably curled up by now, hopefully unconscious.”

Zarius didn’t find him in their tent. He didn’t find him near the central mess.

The itch at the base of his skull intensified. Cherion wasn’t the type to just... vanish. He was too curious, too much like a moth to a very dangerous flame. Zarius caught the eye of a passing knight and offered a sharp, silent lift of his chin.

”The healer,” Zarius said. ”Have you seen him?”

”Heading toward the rear supply line, Your Grace,” the knight replied, snapping a quick, weary salute. ”With Sir Ezek.”

Zarius didn’t wait for the salute to finish. He was already moving.

The rear of the camp was a graveyard of shadows. Here, the noise of the rebuilding effort was a muffled thump, swallowed by the low, mournful whistle of the wind through the shredded canvas of the storage tents. It was the least secure part of the perimeter, a place where the darkness felt thick enough to have weight.

He saw them before they heard him. Two silhouettes stood huddled near a cluster of battered crates. Ezek was standing guard, his posture sharpening the moment Zarius’s heavy tread announced his arrival. The knight’s hand dropped toward his hilt, a reflex, before he recognized the Duke and straightened into a formal, iron-stiff stance.

Cherion, however, was oblivious. He was hunched over, his back to the world, turning something over in his hands with the intensity of a jeweler.

”Cherion.”

Zarius’s voice wasn’t loud, but in the dead air of the supply line, it hit like a crack of thunder.

The boy jumped, a full-body startle that was almost comical. In his haste to turn around, the object in his hands slipped. It caught the dim moonlight as it tumbled through the air, a heavy Hearth Stone. Zarius just moved. He caught the stone inches from the mud, his fingers closing around the rough, soot-stained surface in a single, fluid motion.

For a moment, they all stood completely still. Cherion looked absolutely horrified, his eyes wide and guilty, like a child caught with his hand in the sweet-jar. Ezek remained a silent, watchful pillar.

Zarius looked down at the stone in his palm. It was cold, but the surface was badly damaged. Deep, violent gouges had been carved into the rock itself. He looked back at Cherion.

”You are supposed to be resting,” Zarius said. There was no anger in his voice, just quiet authority that didn’t invite argument.

He didn’t wait for an explanation. Stepping forward, Zarius reached out and wrapped his fingers around Cherion’s wrist. His grip was firm, pulling him back toward the safer part of camp, away from this drafty, vulnerable edge.

”Come. You’re done for the night.”

But Cherion didn’t move. He dug his heels into the slush, resisting the pull. It wasn’t a violent rejection, but there was a surprising, stubborn weight to it. Zarius stopped, turning his head to look at him properly.

”Look at the crates, Your Grace,” Cherion said, his voice breathless but steady. He didn’t look at his captured wrist, he pointed toward the wood behind them. ”Don’t just pull me away. Look at what they did.”

Zarius hesitated, then slowly released the boy’s wrist. He stepped toward the wagons, his eyes narrowing as he took in the details he’d missed in his rush to find the healer.

It was a massacre of timber. The crates weren’t just smashed by the weight of a beast, they were shredded. Long, obsessive claw marks were etched into the oak, focused almost entirely on the containers holding the hearth stones. The canvas above was a lace of jagged tears.

”They weren’t just attacking the men,” Cherion whispered, stepping up beside him, his exhaustion forgotten in the heat of his discovery. ”They weren’t even looking for the horses. They were targeting these. Specifically. It’s like they were trying to dig them out.”

Zarius ran a gloved thumb over a deep scorch pattern on the wood. It was an ugly burn.

”Have they ever done this before?” Cherion asked, his voice tight. ”The Velkyn... are they usually this intentional?”

”No,” Zarius answered. ”They are aggressive by nature. But they don’t hunt inanimate objects. Not with this kind of focus. This is... new.”

A silence followed. Not a peaceful one, but the kind of quiet that feels like the breath before a scream. The wind whipped a loose flap of canvas, the sound cracked through the dark. Zarius turned his gaze back to Cherion.

Up close, the healer looked terrible. There were smudges of soot under his eyes that looked like bruises, and his shoulders drooping with exhaustion. He looked like he was held together by nothing but sheer, stubborn curiosity.

”Rest, Cherion,” Zarius said, his voice dropping an octave, softening in a way that he rarely allowed. ”Truly. Before you collapse.”

Cherion offered a weak, lopsided smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach his eyes. ”I’ll go when you go. You look like you’ve been carved out of salt.”

Zarius let out a breath, white mist curling in front of him.A flicker of something, perhaps amusement, perhaps simple weariness, passed over his face. ”You really don’t make anything easy, do you?”

Cherion blinked, looking genuinely confused. ”Make what easy?”

Zarius didn’t answer. He didn’t explain the strange, frustrating, and terrifyingly vital pull that Cherion had exerted on him. He didn’t have the words for it, and even if he did, the Northern tongue wasn’t built for such things.

Instead, he acted.

Before Cherion could process the movement, Zarius stepped in and scooped him up. It was a swift, clean motion, hoisting the healer into a bridal carry.

”Your Grace! What... put me down! Why do you keep doing this?!” Cherion squawked, his face turning bright red in seconds. He flailed for a moment, his hands hovering awkwardly near Zarius’s shoulders as if he wasn’t sure whether to push him away or hold on.

”We are calling it a night,” Zarius said, he was already picking up his pace, heading back toward the center of camp. Ezek followed silently, as expected, even if his expression said otherwise.

”We have to talk about the stones!” Cherion insisted, though he’d stopped struggling, his head eventually settling against the cold steel of Zarius’s pauldron. ”The markings, the way they were searching... it means something.”

”We will talk,” Zarius promised, his voice vibrating through his chest and into Cherion’s ear. ”When the sun is up. And when you can keep your eyes open for more than ten seconds at a time.”

Cherion muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse word, but his grip on Zarius’s cloak tightened. The Duke didn’t look back. He just kept walking, carrying the small, stubborn heat of the healer through the freezing dark.

He kept his focus forward as his boots struck the ground in a steady beat.

But his mind had already decided those stones from the King might be trouble.