The carriage ride to the Artois Duchy was suffocatingly silent.
Heavy rain lashed against the glass windows of the luxurious carriage, blurring the gaslights of the capital into streaks of weeping gold. Asher sat rigidly on the plush velvet seat, his small hands curled tightly into fists upon his knees.
Across from him, Elara hummed a soft, wordless lullaby, her gaze fixed out the window.
To the elite knights riding alongside the carriage, it was a picture of aristocratic grace. A young noblewoman, exhausted from the banquet, returning home with her newly appointed companion.
But Asher couldn’t stop staring at the reflection of her face in the dark glass. She wasn’t looking at the rain. She was looking directly at him through the reflection, her mesmerizing violet eyes curved into terrifying, crescent moons.
‘I am walking straight into the dragon’s maw,’ Asher thought, his breathing shallow and controlled.
When they arrived at the sprawling Artois estate, the sheer scale of the mansion felt less like a home and more like an impenetrable fortress. Massive iron gates groaned open, a sound far too reminiscent of the heavy dungeon doors from his past life.
The Duke immediately retired to his study to finalize the paperwork regarding his new "property," leaving the Head Maid to escort the children to their quarters.
"Young Master Asher, this will be your room," the Head Maid announced. Her tone was strictly polite, but laced with the inherent, subtle disdain a high noble's servant held for a commoner picked up off the streets.
She opened a set of heavy mahogany doors. Asher stepped inside and froze.
The room was excessively large, bathed in rich silver and deep sapphire fabrics—the official colors of House Artois. But that wasn’t what made his stomach plummet. It was the architecture. There was no exit to the main hallway save for the door he just walked through, but there was another, smaller, gilded door on the far right wall.
Elara stepped lightly into the room behind him, waving her hand dismissively at the Head Maid. "You may leave us, Martha. I wish to show Asher around myself."
"But, My Lady, it is late—"
"Leave us."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop by ten degrees. The childlike sweetness evaporated from Elara’s voice, replaced by a cold, absolute authority that belonged to the future ruler of the Duchy. Martha bowed hastily, her eyes wide with sudden fear, and shut the main door, leaving them entirely alone.
The heavy click of the lock sounded like a gunshot in the quiet room.
Asher slowly turned around.
Elara was already looking at him. The pristine mask of the innocent noble daughter melted away completely. Her small shoulders relaxed, her head tilted to the side, and a slow, dangerously affectionate smile spread across her delicate lips.
"Welcome home, my love," she whispered.
Asher backed up involuntarily until his spine hit the edge of a heavy oak desk. "Don't call me that. I am not yours."
Elara let out a soft, musical giggle, covering her mouth with her white-gloved hand. She closed the distance between them with slow, deliberate steps. Because they were in ten-year-old bodies, she barely reached his chin, but her presence carried a suffocating, overwhelming weight that made the air in the room feel thin.
"Oh, Asher. You're still so delightfully stubborn," she murmured, stopping mere inches from him. The sickeningly sweet scent of roses wrapped around his throat like a noose. "Did you really think I wouldn't recognize your mana? You always favored the 'Breath of the Void' curse when dealing with political enemies in our past life. You would channel it through your fingertips. It was the first thing I prepared for."
Asher’s eyes widened. She knew exactly what spell I would use.
"You dragged us both back," Asher hissed, his gray eyes trembling with a mixture of trauma and barely contained rage. "I felt it in the Void, Elara. I heard them screaming. You sacrificed thousands of innocent lives, tore apart the fabric of time itself, just to—"
"Just to keep you," Elara interrupted, her voice dropping to a harsh, fervent whisper.
She reached up, her small fingers gently but firmly grasping his jawline. Asher flinched, but his body felt paralyzed by the sheer, terrifying density of the mana she was passively projecting.
"Time, space, human lives... none of it matters," she said, her violet eyes burning with a feverish intensity. "If you run to the end of the world, Asher, I will burn the world down to find you in the ashes."
Her thumb pressed against his lower lip, tracing the shape of his mouth with obsessive reverence.
"And look," she smiled, her eyes gleaming with dark, manic devotion. "It worked perfectly. You tried to sever our ties, and instead, my father practically handed you to me. An 'exclusive companion.' A 'stabilizing proxy.' Do you know what that means in high society, Asher?"
He knew. It meant he was a piece of property. An artifact. A living, breathing tool meant solely to serve the Artois heir.
Elara slowly turned her head, her gaze shifting to the smaller, gilded door on the right side of his room.
"That door connects directly to my bedchamber," she said softly, her words laced with absolute finality. "You will never be out of my sight. You will breathe when I tell you to. You will study where I study. And when we enter the Academy... you will belong entirely to me."
She stepped back, smoothing the pristine skirts of her white dress. Instantly, her expression snapped back to the pure, innocent child from the banquet. The transition was so seamless, so horrifyingly perfect, that Asher felt a wave of nausea wash over him.
"Rest well, Asher," she chirped sweetly, her hand resting on the ornate knob of the connecting door. "Tomorrow, the tailors are coming. We have to get you fitted for your new clothes. We can't have you looking like a stray dog anymore, can we?"
The connecting door clicked shut behind her.
Asher collapsed to his knees on the plush carpet, gasping for air as if he had been drowning. His fingers dug into his cheap trousers until his knuckles ached.
He had failed. His one chance to end it before it began was gone, and he had willingly walked into a golden cage even tighter than the underground dungeon of his past life.
But as he stared at the connected door, the cold sweat on his brow began to dry. The panic slowly morphed into a quiet, hardened edge.
Fine, Asher thought, his jaw clenching as his gray eyes darkened with an icy resolve. If she wants to play the game of a benevolent master and a devoted companion... I will play along. I will be the perfect, obedient dog.
He wouldn't strike recklessly again. A spell fueled by corrupted souls and mass sacrifice was unstable by nature. He would wait. He would use her resources, rebuild his own mana core, and when he finally found the crack in the foundation of her soul-bind... he wouldn't just run.
He would shatter the Duchy of Artois completely.
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