The room was quiet. Seraphina sat upright, her silver hair cascading over her shoulders as she studied Aric intently. Her eyes glimred with a mix of curiosity and lingering skepticism.
"Aric...Lawson?" she began, her tone probing for info,
"You're from this… Earth? Are you sure you're not...sick? Like you have so split personality...?"
Aric knew honesty was his only chance to bridge the gap between them, even if it ant exposing parts of himself he'd rather keep buried.
"No." he said quietly. "I'm not sick. I'm not delusional. And I don't have a split personality. I know how it sounds, but I rember everything—my na, my ho, the life I lived before this one."
Seraphina's fingers twitched slightly where they rested on her lap. She was silent, but her mind raced.
Lawson. Aric Lawson. From Earth.
"And you're saying you just… woke up like this? In...Vayne's body? Just like that?"
Aric sighed, "I don't know how I ended up in Vayne's body. One mont I was dying, shot multiple tis and the next… I woke up here, inside Vayne."
Without a word, Seraphina let a thin tendril of dark energy slip from her palm and coiled around Aric's wrist with just enough pressure,
"If you're lying, I will know."
Aric's instinct when he saw the tendril was to brace himself for pain. For a slap, a strike, sothing. His shoulders tensed out of habit.
But the blow never ca.
"I lived a life on Earth. A different world. I was a philosophy lecturer. Taught university students—ethics, morality, all that stuff."
"I used to think I understood people. Understood the world. But then I got drafted into a war I didn't believe in. Turns out I was… surprisingly good at it."
He hesitated, then added with a bitter smile, "Like really good at it."
Seraphina raised an eyebrow. "What do you an by that? Good at war?"
Should I really tell? I an if I do, I would be just outing myself as a killer. But lying to her? I think that's useless. She's currently a walking lie detector, probably more accurate than any Earth-bound polygraph.
Also, Seraphina, this lovely wife of mine is still the strongest being in this world so...I should probably just tell the truth but tone it down abit. Yeah, let's do that.
"I an I was good at killing people." he said quietly, "I knew how to read movents. How to break a person's resolve. I beca... efficient and I hated that about myself."
Aric realising the tone of the conversation was getting dark,
"Okay sorry, this sounds dark already but war changes people and I wasn't spared either. It broke everything I believed in. When it did end, I tried to go back to teaching but...I wasn't the sa anymore. I couldn't connect with my students anymore. I was angry, detached, paranoid. The university let go—they said I wasn't stable and to be fair, they weren't wrong."
He looked down at the tendril around his wrist,
"Eventually I found work underground. In illegal fighting rings. I wasn't a fighter since I was banned due to my reputation in the war so I beca a cleaner. I cleaned blood, teeth, bone and even fats. You know, cleaning up dead bodies. It paid well but it was the kind of job you do when you stop caring what happens to you."
A hollow laugh escaped him. "Haha...then one day, I got shot. It wasn't even from an enemy nation or whatever. It was just so underground feud and I was caught in the crossfire. I was shot multiple tis. Hurts more than being stabbed, in case you were wondering. But instead of dying like any other human… I woke up here. In Vayne's body."
Aric's voice grew colder now. "I have no mory of Vayne. His life, his mind—none of it. At first it sucked but I thought it wasn't a big deal...until I started learning who Vayne was, the body I'm in. All the abuse, assault, gambling, infidelity...I was sick too."
Seraphina's breath caught in her throat.
He's not lying. My magic could feel even the slightest twist in truth and yet there was nothing. Not a ripple. Not a tremble.
Everything he said rang clean which ans there's only two possible explanation.
Either Vayne's mind had shattered completely that it invented an entire identity—crafted a delusion so elaborate he believed he was soone else...
Or this man...Aric Lawson, had lived through all of that and I spent the last two months abusing him.
Her stomach twisted violently and nausea clawed up her throat. She wanted to vomit.
Every insult, every bruise, every degrading word, every glare... But okay he could be lying.
Right? Right...?
Because if this was true… if even half of it was true...Then I didn't punish a monster.
I...tornted an innocent man who was just trying to survive, to make ands and all I did was...
Lysandra...please forgive .
Then Aric's voice cut through the fog of her thoughts,
"…Seraphina?" Aric asked as he snap his fingers,
"You've been spacing out for like… five minutes. Are you okay?"
Seraphina finally blinked. Her gaze focused on him again but her throat felt dry.
Her pride scread to keep her walls up. To scoff. To glare. To question.
But she couldn't bring herself to say the things she used to say.
"...I...mmm..." she swallowed, then looked away. "I'm fine."
For a mont, she didn't know what to say,
What could I say to soone I treated like garbage? I am...no better than Vayne.
So instead, she asked sothing personal. Sothing blunt. Sothing that shifted the spotlight back onto him.
"Did you have a wife?" she asked, but her tone had sha.
"Yes." Aric replied without hesitation. "Ex-wife, actually. After the war, when I ca back… she left . Took my kids and ran off with another guy."
"Huh." Seraphina murmured, "So you know what betrayal feels like."
"Yeah." he replied bitterly.
She should've left it there. Let the silence settle. Let it fade into awkwardness. That would've been easier.
But she couldn't.
Don't run from this. You're not Vayne. You are not him.
She had to believe that. Because if she dodge this? Kept hiding behind pride and silence?
Then maybe she wasn't so different after all.
You're not a monster Sera. You were hurt. You were angry. But don't let that beco an excuse.
What I did to him… if I let it slide, ignore it, pretend it didn't happen... then I've beco exactly what I spent years hating.
She took a breath and forced herself to look at him,
"So when you woke up in his body… you had no mories? Just your own?"
"Yes."
Seraphina's heart was heavier now, "You are Aric Lawson, and yet you bore every sin he committed. Every vile thing he did and endured my tornt like it was yours to carry...I'm not making excuses so I'll co clean and be honest here. When you woke up from the coma, you were weak. Vulnerable. And honestly?"
"I wanted to hurt you. Right then and there. I wanted you to pay. I wanted to give back every ounce of pain. Over and over again."
Aric nodded quietly,
"I know."
That simple answer made her lose her composure more than she cared to admit.
"I hate your face. I hate your voice. I hate you so much that when you opened your eyes, I was... happy. I smiled and thought to myself, 'I can finally give you back all the shit you put us through.'"
"I was cruel. Sadistic. I wanted to break you. Rip away whatever dignity you had left and watch you suffer for every horrible thing you'd ever done."
Her voice started to crack, "But you didn't even fight back..."
"I didn't see the point." Aric replied. "You weren't wrong to hate him. I hate him too and I didn't even know him."
Silence settled again, but this ti it wasn't sharp. It was… still. A kind of calm they hadn't shared before.
Finally, Seraphina spoke again, "Why didn't you tell sooner?"
Aric gave a faint smile. "Would you have believed ?"
She opened her mouth.
Paused.
And closed it again.
"…No." she admitted.
"Yeah, I get it don't worry. I wouldn't have believe either."
Seraphina's chest tightened and her tendril still curled around his wrist. It was still reading for lies but there were no lies.
The longer it stayed wrapped around him, the heavier her heart beca.
Seraphina had always trusted her magic. It was precise, refined, honed through decades of training. It could detect the faintest tremor in a liar's voice, sense deceit buried under layers of charm or fear. It had never failed her.
Until now.
Because there were no falsehood in Aric's voice. No shadows of manipulation clinging to his words.
And maybe, it wasn't only her magic that knew.
It was her heart.
There was a ti, long before Vayne when Seraphina had been soft. She used to smile more. She used to laugh in gardens, hugged children who scraped their knees, knelt to feed stray animals.
Her magic, back then, was warm. Intuitive. Protective. She used to believe that kindness was strength.
But Vayne? Vayne shattered that.
He didn't break her all at once. No, he did it piece by piece. A snide remark here. A dismissive hand there. Won, drugs, alcohol, abuse, loud parties, silent bruises.
She tried to help him, heal him, love him but he only ever took. Until the softness that she once had, bled out quietly in the corner of her marriage.
And what was left… was hate.
She beca cold because warmth made her vulnerable. She beca sharp because softness got her hurt. And sowhere along the line, that beca second nature.
But now? Aric spoke with the sa voice, wore the sa face, and yet... he carried guilt instead of arrogance. Grace instead of pride. Silence instead of threats.
He had no reason to stay, and yet he did. He had no debt to repay, but he paid it anyway.
That face…It destroyed . It shattered everything I ever loved. Vayne is a piece of shit that took everything from .
But Aric didn't. Aric gave instead. He gave us technology, this...electricity stuff. He paid off Vayne's debt and even humiliated Callista all in the na to prove a point.
Aric didn't need to stay, especially after I hurt him but he still chose to stay and rebuild. He fixed what wasn't his to fix—because, sohow, he believed it was his to carry.
You bear the face of the man who broke … but your soul…
She clenched her jaw, Your soul never belonged to him.
Her vision started to blur. The weight beca too much and tears welled in her eyes before she could stop them.
The tendril uncoiled from his wrist on its own, retracting back into her palm like it had read her heart and couldn't bear to hold on anymore.
Aric looked up, confused at first, "Seraphina…?"
Her lips parted, voice barely above a whisper.
"…I'm sorry."
Aric blinked. "What?"
"I'm sorry..." she repeated, louder this ti, "For everything. For the things I said. For what I did to you. I didn't know. I didn't want to know. You kept telling that you weren't Vayne but I refused to see it. Even though you never acted like him, how gentle you are, how nice you are to everyone, how considerate you are. You're not Vayne and I...hurt you"
Aric shook his head and slowly put his hand on her shoulder,
"I don't deserve that and you didn't know either. As I said...how could you have believed ? I ca from another world but I am inside his body. I bear the consequences even if I don't want to. You shouldn-"
Seraphina cut him off even with tears streaming down her face,
"Yes, you do! You deserve so much better Aric! You...you're so kind and all I have ever done is hurt you! I should've listened to you from the beginning! You may have his face… but you're not him. And I was too blind to see it."
Tears kept coming, "I'm so sorry, Aric."
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