Zephyr's consciousness clawed its way back to the surface like a dying man dragging himself from a battlefield.
His breath hitched—sharp, shallow, desperate.
Agony. That was his first sensation. His body felt like a thousand razors had been stitched beneath his skin. Every muscle trembled. Every bone groaned beneath the weight of something far heavier than his flesh.
Then the real horror set in.
He couldn't breathe.
His throat—dry, constricted—felt like rusted iron had been poured down his windpipe, seizing everything from the inside. He gagged, trying to swallow, trying to gasp, but it was like invisible chains had wrapped around his lungs. Every inhale was a jagged failure.
"What's… happening…?"
His thoughts were broken, scrambled, like torn pages in a storm.
And then—something touched his hand.
Cold. Smooth. Metallic.
He didn't question it.
Didn't hesitate.
Instinct screamed.
He grabbed it and shoved it toward his mouth, fingers trembling. The object clicked, and with a sharp hiss, cool, clean air burst into his mouth.
It wasn't just air.
It was life.
He sucked it in like a drowning man breaching the surface of a body of water. The first breath scoured the rust from his throat, and the second numbed the pain from his chest to his spine. With each inhale, the world stopped spinning. The fire in his nerves dulled to embers. The tremors eased.
Relief.
Desperate, euphoric relief.
He kept breathing it in, as if the thing were the only thing keeping his soul anchored to his body—because it was.
His grip tightened around the device. He didn't know what it was, didn't care.
He was alive.
But his eyes… he couldn't open them.
Light—too bright.
Even the faintest flicker beyond his lids felt like glass shards stabbing into his skull.
So he clamped his eyes shut tighter, gritting his teeth as tears welled up from the strain.
But he could feel now.
A soft mattress beneath him.
Silken sheets tangled around his legs.
The faint scent of incense—smoke and lavender and something metallic.
He was in a room.
Not a cell.
Not the Pit.
Not the execution platform.
A room.
His mind reeled. Confusion twisted with fragments of memory—pain, betrayal, cold stone, the chains, the voice of the queen, the sneers of his clan.
And then—sunlight.
Blinding. Warm.
Freedom.
Or was it just another cage?
He clenched his jaw.
He needed answers. And fast.
Zephyr breathed in one last time through the strange device, the cold air filling his lungs like sacred balm. The burn in his throat finally began to fade, replaced by a heavy, aching clarity.
He clenched his fists, felt the trembling settle into a dull throb.
It was time.
Slowly, painfully, he forced his eyes open.
White.
A flood of it.
Light poured in, blinding and unforgiving. It was like the sun itself was pressing its palm against his face. His eyelids fluttered, his brow tightened. He wanted to scream—but he bit it down.
One second.
Then two.
Then three.
His vision swam like oil over water, shifting in and out of shape. The world was a smear—shadows bleeding into light, shapes bending and swirling like his eyes had forgotten how to see.
The ceiling was a soft cream color—or maybe gray?
He blinked again, painfully. The blurriness refused to lift. A warm hue sat on everything, like a dream half-remembered.
He turned his head—slow, so slow it felt like stone grinding against stone.
Curtains. Silken. Flowing gently from a breeze that kissed his skin.
Furniture. Ornate shapes. Maybe a dresser, or a ceremonial stand? His sight couldn't confirm.
And then—a figure.
Blurry.
Standing by the his side on the bed.
Still. Silent.
Watching.
Zephyr blinked again, squinted through the fog of his vision, but the figure remained shapeless. Just a silhouette wrapped in shadow and light, like an ink drawing doused in sunlight.
He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.
Just a wheeze.
Dry. Pitiful.
The figure shifted, carefully—as if trying not to startle a wounded animal.
Zephyr's pulse quickened. Instinct screamed. He tried to sit up, but his body betrayed him. His muscles screamed as fresh agony shot through his ribs, locking him back in place with a grunt.
The figure paused.
Then, a whisper—gentle, female, familiar yet distant:
"You shouldn't move yet… Young lord."
His eyes widened.
That voice…
He couldn't place it—but it stirred something. A half-formed memory, a presence from the past wrapped in blood and cold moonlight.
The blur approached, coming into vague focus, but still dancing just beyond clarity.
He wanted to ask who she was.
Why he was alive.
Why he was in a bed and not in a grave.
But all he could do was lie there, breath shallow, and stare through a haze, as the figure drew closer.
The figure stepped closer, her silhouette beginning to solidify, lines becoming clearer as if someone were drawing her into focus with a steady hand.
Zephyr blinked again. The blurriness lessened, just enough for him to see the soft white gloves, the neat uniform laced with black and crimson trim—the colors of Clan Demios.
A maid.
No—his maid.
She knelt by his side, her presence calming like cold rain after fire. Her voice was low, composed, but threaded with a tension she failed to hide.
"Young Lord," she said, brushing a damp cloth over his forehead. "Don't force yourself. You've only just awakened."
Young Lord.
The words echoed like a forgotten lullaby.
Zephyr's throat twitched. He tried to speak, but it was only a rasp.
"You shouldn't even be alive…" she added under her breath. "But you are. Somehow…"
Her eyes, now clearer, glinted with something fierce. Loyalty. Pain. Relief. Her cheeks were streaked with what might've once been tears, dried long before he woke. A silent testament to the storm she had weathered.
"You scared me," she whispered. "I thought they'd really—"
She cut herself off, clutching the cloth tighter in her hand.
Zephyr could only look at her.
His maid.
Serena.
She had served him since he was a boy. Even when the clan cast him into the Pit, even when his name was stripped from the records, she remained. Helping him clean his wounds anytime he was lucky enough to have energy to climb up from the pit.
"How long…?" he rasped.
Serena looked startled for a moment that he could speak, then immediately softened.
"Three days, my lord," she said quietly. "You've been unconscious. Fevered. Screaming in your sleep. The royal family Bell ended two days ago… and the rest of the clan has been silent since."
Her voice grew bitter. "They speak of you as if you're a shadow. A ghost. As if your existence is a stain they don't want to acknowledge."
She met his gaze, unwavering now.
"But I see you."
A pause.
"You're alive. And they're all going to regret it."
Zephyr stared at her, the haze lifting more and more from his vision, her form now fully visible. Her black hair tied neatly back, her posture respectful, but behind her eyes—rage.
And something else.
Hope.
"Rest, young Lord," she said, gently adjusting his blanket. "You've walked through fire. But the world hasn't seen your flames yet."
Zephyr closed his eyes—not only in weakness and pain, but in thought. The pain was still there, dull but ever-present.
Zephyr stilled his breathing, letting his body remain slack against the silken sheets while his eyes fluttered shut, feigning sleep. The gentle rustle of fabric and the soft clinking of a water pitcher being set down told him the maid was still nearby. But he didn't move. He didn't speak. He simply lay there, pretending to rest—because right now, rest was a mask. Inside, his mind was screaming.
Images surged through his mind like a broken dam.
That man.
The silver-white void.
The mark of infinity on his hand.
"You think you could do better? Fine. Go survive it."
That voice still echoed in Zephyr's skull like a curse—and in a way, it was. A curse he had brought upon himself. His stomach twisted, not from pain this time, but from the heavy weight of realization.
He had insulted the author.
He hadn't even read the damn book.
He haven't even seen how it started and how it ended—but he called it garbage. After a gruelling battle with the outside world, he took out his anger by raging, he comforted himself by saying there was someone out there worst then him, and how he had spoken ill of what didn't concern him, unleashing the cruelest commentary his bitter fingers could type. "Lazy writing," "plot armor garbage," "trash ending for a trash MC"—he'd typed it all.
And now?
Now he was in that garbage novel.
'what about Ethan'. He thought of how his elder brother would react to his sudden death or disappearance as the case may be.
'i don't want to die, I promise I will do better, I will stop all my insults and my sarcastic outlook in life just give me a second chance, I will be nice'. He rationalize, word has gotten him here— surely words would take him back. But no matter how he begged, he could still feel the soft bed under him. And then he raged.
'Damn you asshole, bring me back my life, keep this your pain ridden life to the unfortunate soul in this wretched story of your's". Zephyr body started to tremble slightly from anger. "Where the hell did that bastard come from, go double check your story it sucks, or would the people exaggerate". He started to bubble out nonsense in anger. Forgetting the nature of man— Exaggeration.
But somewhere else, something else was happening.