Arlo blinked, still trying to process what had just happened.
"Common let's go. One more finishing touch before we introduce you to the world," Charlotte's voice pulled him back, her lips curved in that faint, playful smile that seemed permanently etched onto her face.
'Finishing touch?'
It should have sounded ominous.
In fact, any sane person would have taken it as a bad sign.
But after everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours—the vault, the interrogation, the flames-that-looked-like-ice, the mind-shattering pain, the new body staring back at him in the mirror—Arlo found that his fear had quieted into something else entirely.
Curiosity.
A strange calmness hummed under his skin, steady and sure, as if his blood itself had been rewired.
Or maybe it had.
He didn't answer her right away.
He didn't know what was becoming of himself as he Instead leaned back against the wall, arms folding across his chest, eyes narrowing slightly.
He felt his lips twitch upward in a half-smile. "Finishing touch, huh? Should I be worried? Because I've already got the muscles, the white hair, and the whole 'Greek statue' thing going on. What else could you possibly add?"
Charlotte chuckled softly as she also stepped back a little, utterly unbothered, looking for all the world like she owned both the room and him. "Oh, don't flatter yourself too much. You're presentable, I'll give you that. But you're not finished. Not yet."
Arlo rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath. "Yeah, presentable. Sure. That's exactly what people say when they see a half-naked man with snow-colored hair breaking beds with his bare hands."
"..."
He hadn't meant for her to hear that, but of course she did.
Her ears were too sharp, her smirk too quick. "You're catching on quickly," she teased, turning toward the door. "Come along, husband. Let's get you polished before the kingdom has the misfortune of meeting you."
"Husband," Arlo echoed, wrinkling his nose as he pushed off the wall. "Still feels weird when you say that. Like…really weird. Not even twenty-four hours ago, I was single, broke, and dodging student loans. Now I'm—what—the royal consort of a dragon queen? Talk about career advancement."
The corridors they moved through were dim and cold, lit by torches that burned with bluish fire.
Their footsteps echoed faintly, his heavier and still a little unsteady, hers graceful and deliberate.
Arlo shoved his hands into the pockets of the loose trousers someone had given him and tried not to stare too much at her as she walked ahead.
'This obviously has something to do with dragon DNA,' he thought, replaying the way her flames had torn into him during that ritual.
That moment still made his skin prickle and his stomach twist. The memory of pain had already begun to fade, but the memory of power—the raw, intoxicating rush of it—remained sharp.
He wasn't stupid.
Whatever had happened back there wasn't just about marriage.
Something foreign, something ancient perhaps, had crawled into his blood, reshaped it, claimed it.
Even now, walking through these icy halls, he could feel that new strength coiled in his muscles, a constant hum at the edge of his awareness.
And with it came something else.
Emotions he wasn't used to.
Boldness.
Confidence.
A faint echo of pride that made him want to lift his chin a little higher.
It was subtle, but it was there.
He frowned to himself.
He wasn't used to feeling like this.
When he first landed in this world, he'd been a mess—scared, lost, scrambling for survival.
And now? Now his fear felt muted, distant, as if his body itself refused to let him wallow in weakness.
'Dragons,' he thought. 'Prideful, fearless, arrogant as hell.' That's what every novel displayed them as.
He'd never been any of those things. But now…now it was like something was nudging him toward them, reshaping him bit by bit.
He glanced at Charlotte's back and couldn't help a dry chuckle.
'Great. Just what I needed. A personality crisis on top of an arranged marriage to a sociopathic ice dragon queen.'
"Something funny?" she asked without looking back, her tone light but sharp enough to tell him she'd heard.
"Yeah," Arlo said, smirking despite himself. "Just realizing that I'm living through the plot of one of those novels I used to hate. You know—the ones where some lucky bastard falls into another world, gets powers, and ends up surrounded by hot women." He shook his head. "I used to be jealous of those guys. Always thought it was unfair how easily they got everything."
"And now?" She replied though she seemed confused about his choice of words.
"And now," he said, stretching his arms lazily, "I've apparently become one of those guys. Except with extra trauma, less choice, and a slightly higher chance of getting murdered in my sleep."
Charlotte glanced over her shoulder, her eyes glinting. "Slightly higher?"
"Okay, significantly higher," Arlo corrected quickly. "But still. Improvement, right?"
They descended deeper into the palace, the air growing colder and the stone beneath their feet darker.
Arlo's mind churned with thoughts he couldn't quite pin down.
When he'd been on Earth, he'd despised those overpowered protagonists, not just because of envy, but because it made his own life feel smaller, emptier.
He'd been stuck in a rut—ordinary, powerless, scraping by day to day. Fiction had felt like an insult, a reminder of everything he'd never be.
But now? Now he had muscle on his bones, strength in his blood, and the most dangerous woman he'd ever met walking a few paces ahead, calling him husband with a smile.
Even though she was kind of crazy, It was still insane.
Utterly insane.
But for the first time in his life, Arlo felt like maybe—just maybe—he was standing at the start of his own story.
And that thought made his pulse quicken with something dangerously close to excitement.
They reached another hallway, this one narrower and lined with doors etched in unfamiliar runes.
Charlotte finally slowed, letting him draw level with her.
"You're awfully quiet," she remarked, tilting her head slightly.
"Just thinking," Arlo said.
"Dangerous habit."
"For you, maybe." He gave her a crooked grin. "For me, it's survival."
Her lips twitched, and she gave a little shake of her head as though amused by a stubborn child. "Careful now husband. That tongue of yours will get you into trouble one day."
"Pretty sure it already has," he muttered.
They walked in silence for a while longer, the sound of their steps mingling with the faint hum of magic in the walls.
Finally, Charlotte stopped in front of a heavy double door carved with dragons coiled in intricate patterns.
She turned to him, her smile widening just slightly. "This is where your finishing touch begins."
Arlo arched a brow. "That sounds suspiciously like the opening line to a horror movie."
"Relax." She laid her hand against the door, and the runes shimmered faintly under her touch. "I told you, husband—I'm only polishing you up. Nothing more."
Arlo gave her a look. "You say that like 'polishing me up' doesn't involve pain, fire, or blood rituals."
She tilted her head, her eyes glittering with that same dangerous amusement. "Well, if it makes you feel better…this one's less painful."
"Less?" He groaned. "You have no idea how comforting that isn't."
Her laugh was low and rich, curling around the edges of the cold air. "Come along. You'll see soon enough."
The doors groaned open, and the chamber beyond was bathed in pale, bluish light. Arlo's stomach twisted with both dread and anticipation as he stepped forward, Charlotte at his side.
For better or worse, his story was moving forward.