I Became the Villain Chapter 33: A Hollow Realization

Chapter 33: A Hollow Realization

The silk of the duvet hissed softly against the Zarius’s heavy fra as Flio tucked the edges in. Cherion stood by the foot of the bed, his fingers still tingling from the residual buzz of his own magic, watching the scene play out like a silent play.

Zarius was out cold. Truly out. He looked calm and handso as ever, but the usual "fear " energy was nowhere to be found, like his aura had called in sick.

It was hard to scrub the image of Soren’s face from his mind. That mont in the study, right after the tea cup had shattered, his face hadn’t just looked surprised. He’d looked... hollowed out. Pale as a winter ghost. But the shock hadn’t paralyzed him.

If anything, it drove him to move faster, throwing himself into work. Soren had been the one to sprint down the hall, his boots thundering against the stone to fetch Elios and Flio. He had been the one to guide them back, eyes wide and frantic, yet his hands remained steady as a surgeon’s when they reached for their master.

Even now, as the heavy lifting was done, the devotion was pretty admirable. Soren hadn’t waited for an order or a request. While Flio and Elios were positioning Zarius onto the mattress, Soren had already dropped to his knees, his slender fingers working the buckles of the Duke’s heavy leather boots. He gently moved them aside, then retreated back into his usual "dark, mysterious corner" like a socially awkward cat.

"Let him sleep," Flio whispered, his voice hushed as if a loud word might shatter the fragile peace of the chamber. "He needs the quiet."

With a final, lingering look at the man in the bed, the group began to retreat. The floor didn’t make a sound under their boots. They walked so quietly it was obvious they had plenty of experience sneaking around dangerous people. Soren trailed behind them, like a shadow with his head bowed, his presence a constant, prickly weight at the back of Cherion’s neck.

As they stepped out into the corridor and the doors closed, the tension in Cherion’s chest finally relaxed, right in ti for his brain to start overthinking everything. He looked at the broad backs of the two n Darien trusted the most as they walked ahead of him.

"Does this... does this happen often?" Cherion asked, his voice sounding thin and small in the vastness of the hall.

Flio was the one who slowed his pace, glancing back with a tired, sowhat lopsided smile that didn’t reach his eyes. "The headaches? Yes. It’s not unusual for him to have a drumming behind his eyes every single day now. It’s beco a bit like the weather in the North, you just learn to live with the storm." He paused, his expression darkening. "But he’s never lost consciousness like that. Not while we were looking, at least. He’s usually too stubborn to let the ground catch him."

Cherion frowned, his mind already racing through a hundred different dical possibilities. "And he really doesn’t have a physician? A real one? Not just... well, ?"

Elios, who had been silent up until now, let out a short, huffing breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. "It’s not that he hasn’t had them, Lord Cherion. We’ve seen a dozen ’experts’ co and go through these gates. They never really got to see the true extent of it. How could they?"

"So they just... what?" Cherion pressed, his voice rising a half-octave in disbelief. "They just gave him tea and told him to nap?"

"Standard dicine," Elios said, shrugging his massive shoulders. "Healing tonics for the blood, herbs for the nerves. Before you arrived, we were just stuck waiting for it to pass on its own."

Wait for it to pass.

The words landed in Cherion’s stomach like a brick. "Wait for it to pass" was the kind of plan that basically ant: we have no plan. He thought about Zarius in the study, looking terrifying one second, then dropping like his system had completely crashed. It wasn’t scary in a monster way. It was scary in a "oh no, even he can break" way. Watching soone that strong end up folded on the floor really ssed with your ntal image of them.

Cherion felt a sudden, sharp prick of pride, or maybe it was just his healer instincts screaming that this was unacceptable. These n were loyal, sure. They’d throw themselves into danger for Zarius without blinking. But they were just... waiting for him to wilted away in slow motion.

They reached the spot where the West wing split from the main hall. Cherion stopped, causing the others to halt as well. He looked at Elios, then at Flio, his gaze lingering on their worn, weary faces. He felt a sudden surge of sothing warm and fierce in his chest.

Before he could overthink it, he reached out and gave each of their shoulders a firm tap, the universal sign for "hang in there," apparently. They both looked mildly shocked.

"Don’t worry," Cherion said. He didn’t an to sound that sure of himself, but there it was. "I’m here now. And I don’t do the whole ’sit around and hope for the best’ thing. We’re not just going to wait for anything to pass."

The silence that followed was long. Soren stayed in the background like he’d been switched to statue mode, remained as still as possible with his eyes giving nothing away. Flio and Elios, though, shared a quick glance that basically weren’t exactly encouraging.

And Cherion noticed it imdiately.

"Oh no," he said, squinting at them. "Don’t give

that look. That was a very very skeptical look."

Before either of them could say anything, he stepped forward and hooked an arm around each of their shoulders, pulling the two much larger n down a few inches like an overconfident coach gathering his team for a pep talk.

Flio’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile, but sothing close to it, perhaps an amusent or pity for the young man’s confidence. Elio, on the other hand, just lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug that sohow managed to say two completely opposite things at once: We’ve heard this before and ...but maybe this ti?

"Well," Elios muttered. "I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?"