Ascension Of The Villain

Iyana pushed open the doors to her room.

She didn't trust the imperial grounds. Not the political corridors riddled with secrets, not the watchful eyes lining the hallways, and certainly not the too-helpful voices offering assistance with ulterior motives. So she brought him to the only place she could control—the private quarters assigned to her within the military base.

The room was sparse and less than glamorous; it was military-standard. It was just a bed, a desk, a chair, and a closet. But for now, it was the safest place for him.

Vyan had already slipped back into unconsciousness, his head lolling against her shoulder, breath shallow and uneven. She tightened her grip on him as she crossed the threshold, leaving a morbid trail of blood behind.

She laid him gently on her bed, and for a moment, just one, she allowed herself to breathe. But the scent of iron clung to the air like a curse.

He was bleeding too much. Too fast.

She could see the subtle tremble in his fingers, the unnatural paleness in his lips. With his already weak immunity, this wasn't just dangerous. It was life-threatening.

There was no time to wait for Doctor Harvey.

Without wasting a second, she turned and slipped out again, sprinting to the medical room down the corridor. A few soldiers saw her and wisely said nothing. They knew their commander's pattern well by now.

She might be a woman of steel, fearless and unwavering, someone who instilled fear in others, but even a papercut on the Grand Duke got her trembling to the core. So, for the sanity of their supervisor, they wished a quick recovery to His Grace.

Otherwise… they didn't even want to imagine the horror she would unleash during training.

By the time Iyana returned, her arms were full of gauze, antiseptics, ointments, suture kits, and pain suppressants.

She set the supplies down and quickly rolled up the sleeves of her gown, taking off her decorative gloves and putting on the surgery gloves. Her fingers moved to undo the buttons of his ruined uniform.

His coat came off with effort. It had fused to his skin in places where blood had dried. She winced but didn't let herself falter. Then the shirt. Her hands trembled as she peeled it back and rolled him over on his stomach, revealing the carnage beneath.

Cuts criss crossed his back, some shallow, others too deep for comfort. But it was the back of his shoulder that made her breath catch.

How had she not noticed this before?

A shard of marble—jagged, blood-slick, and cruel—was lodged deep into his shoulder blade.

Her vision blurred for a second, the room tilting ever so slightly.

She had seen worse on the battlefield. She had performed triage on screaming men with gaping stomach wounds. She had stitched together limbs under fire. But this—this was different.

This was him.

The shard was embedded deep, dangerously close to the bone. Her fingers itched to act, but they shook more than she would allow.

Her hands hovered over the wound for a moment too long. Suddenly, something strange stirred in her chest.

Her heart.

A beat. Too hard. Off-tempo. Unnatural.

A second beat—heavier. Not like panic. Not even like adrenaline. It wasn't the kind of ache that came from fear or grief.

It felt… foreign.

Like something was reaching inside her chest and squeezing her heart.

She paused. Just for a second. Enough to notice. Enough for it to unsettle her.

But she shoved it away. Filed it under exhaustion. Worry. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe she was just panicking harder than she thought.

Pull yourself together.

He doesn't need your panic. He needs your strength.

Jaw clenched, she braced herself and reached for the forceps. Her heart thudded, hard and erratic, sending a dull ache through her ribs, but she ignored it.

She didn't have time to think about herself. Not when he was lying there like this. Not when his blood was staining her sheets and his pulse was fluttering far too softly under her touch. Not when his life still hung on the balance.

She wouldn't let the reality from the alternate universe come true. She wouldn't let him die on this day. No matter what. This won't be his end.

She disinfected the area quickly, whispering a quiet apology even though he couldn't hear it, and began the delicate work of removing the tile.

Each second dragged like a lifetime. The shard didn't come out clean. It resisted, and when it finally gave way with a sickening crunch, a fresh wave of blood welled up.

Iyana pressed gauze hard to the wound, muttering through clenched teeth as she fought to stabilize the bleeding. The pressure tore at her already-tired muscles, but she didn't stop.

Only once the bleeding slowed did she pause to take a breath.

The ache in her chest flared again—sharp, pulsing—but she dismissed it. Later. It could wait. Everything else could wait.

She cleaned the rest of his wounds one by one, methodically. Her hands, though trembling, were precise. The battlefield had trained her well. But it hadn't prepared her for this kind of helplessness. For the ache of watching someone she cared for so deeply look like he'd been torn apart.

He looked too pale. Too quiet.

Iyana leaned over slightly, brushing a few blood-matted strands of hair away from his forehead. "You're going to be fine, Vee," she murmured. "You have to be."

Even if her heart wouldn't stop throbbing. Even if some distant part of her whispered that something wasn't right.

Still, she worked in silence.

Because right now, his life was the only thing that mattered.

———

Vyan stirred.

The first thing he registered was the faint ache crawling through his body. It was sharp in certain places, dull in others, like distant echoes of pain that hadn't quite faded. The mana coursing through his body was brittle as well. He felt drained. He wanted to stay still, not move a finger, and let time flow by quietly.

But his heart gave a soft thump—not out of surprise, but something deeper. So, he willed himself to wake up.

His brows furrowed as his eyes slowly opened to a dim, amber-lit ceiling. Familiar, but not quite his. The subtle scent of burnt herbs and crisp linen tickled his senses.

His gaze shifted, head turning stiffly on the pillow.

This was Iyana's room at the military base. He has been here a couple of times before. He let his gaze wander across the space until it landed on the figure slouched beside his bed.

His family doctor, Harvey, was nodding off in the chair, arms crossed and chin tucked into his chest. His mouth hung open slightly, a quiet snore escaping every now and then. It was oddly comforting.

But the comfort didn't last.

Where was Iyana?

Despite the exhaustion, Vyan sat up slowly, ignoring the sting in his shoulder and the sudden throb at the back of his head. The pain was manageable. What wasn't… was the knot tightening in his chest.

Why wasn't Iyana here? Why was she not with him?

A cold sweat prickled at the nape of his neck.

He didn't understand it—this rising panic—but it was real. His breath hitched, chest growing tight. His palms were clammy. He looked around again, hoping he'd missed her. Maybe she was in the corner, maybe just in the next room, maybe—

No.

She was nowhere.

And that irrational fear—the kind that grips you before your mind can even shape it into words—clawed its way through him. He couldn't sit still. He needed to see her. Now.

He swung his legs off the bed, wincing slightly as the movement tugged at the stitches throughout his body. Harvey stirred faintly but didn't wake.

Vyan didn't wait.

Throwing on a coat over the clean shirt he was wearing, he stepped into the corridor.

The cool air wrapped around him like an unwelcome cloak. The summer wind tonight was strange. It was colder than usual, with a strange silence blanketing the palace grounds.

Everything felt still. Suspended.

He paused for a beat, trying to think. He didn't even know where to begin looking.

Where could she be?

Definitely she wouldn't be at her desk working when his condition was like this. She might love her work, but not more than him. He was confident about that at least.

Fragments of memory flickered. Her voice, her touch, the moment she found him… and then his own words. Slurred, barely conscious. "My pendant…"

Something told him that she had gone back.

Back to the ruins.

His feet moved on their own, carrying him across the grounds toward the Grand Hall—the place where so much had taken place in the last few hours.

The path was quiet under the moonlight. The smell of ash still lingered in the air.

It took eternity to drag his body there, but when he did, he saw her.

She was just stepping out of the blackened remains of the imperial banquet hall, her figure silhouetted against the flickering torchlight. Her hair was tousled, streaked with soot. Her white gown was even more dirtied than before. But she looked happy.

And as her eyes met his, she beamed. She lifted her hand and waved like an excited puppy.

The silver chain dangled from her slender fingers, catching the moonlight.

His breath hitched.

The pendant.

The one he'd told her to forget about. The one he'd claimed didn't matter anymore. The one he claimed he was okay with replacing with a new one. He

But she had known better than that. Of course she had. She always did. She must have known that he planned to look for it himself once he felt better.

Vyan's chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with his injuries. She had gone back into that burned down place, just to retrieve something he had lied that he was okay with losing as long as he got a new one.

She had dirtied herself, dusted through embers, walked through ruin… all for him.

For a pendant.

All so that he wouldn't have to go looking for it himself.

He stepped forward, drawn to her like gravity itself bent around her existence.

"Iyana…" he started, touched by disbelief and gratefulness at the same time.

She walked towards him, grinning. Her eyes were gleaming. She was clearly overjoyed that she was successful in retrieving the pendant.

Wait… what?

He froze mid-step.

Maybe it's just a reflection.

He blinked multiple times, rubbed his eyes, and looked at her face again—to be precise, into her eyes.

Am I seeing it correct? Her eyes… they are…

A cold shiver passed down his spine.

They are red.

The beautiful, mesmerizing violet eyes that often stole his breath were no longer there.

Her irises were red.

Not the gentle red of wine like his own… but a glowering crimson that bled too deep, too dark.

The kind that didn't belong to any noble house.

The kind that wasn't part of genetics.

The kind that didn't belong to any blessing.

The kind that represented a curse.