Prologue: "The Seventh Refrain"
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Killian woke choking.
The familiar sensation returned as if death itself still clung to his throat—a crushing pressure that made his lungs seize and his vision blur. Gasping, coughing, he reached for his neck with trembling hands, but there was no wound this time. No rope. No poison. No blade.
Just the suffocating memory of it.
It passed slowly, like a storm losing interest, leaving behind cold sweat and a body too small for the fury boiling inside it. He opened his eyes and stared upward at the ceiling—cracked, crumbling, familiar.
Ah. Here again.
The eastern tower.
Light leaked through broken panes, illuminating peeling murals long faded to gray. Moss clung to the corners of the stone walls like old scars, and the air was damp with the scent of rot and forgotten things.
He was ten years old again. Of course he was.
He had died.
Again.
Killian let out a broken, hollow laugh. His voice sounded wrong in his ears—young, untouched by the years of pain and war and betrayal he had lived through. The echo of that laugh bounced off the cold walls, fragile as the bones of his newest reincarnation.
This was the seventh time.
And he knew exactly where he was.
Not just in body. But in the story.
This was The Light in the Crown's Shadow—a bland R-19 fantasy romance novel with predictable arcs, noble love interests, and a heroine whose tears healed broken men. The kind of tale meant to be sold in pretty covers, where tragic backstories existed only to be solved by romance, and every villain existed only to be forgiven or destroyed.
In this story, the central figure was Elowen, the female lead: an orphaned priestess gifted with divine magic and a heart too big for the world. After saving the empire from a holy disaster in the opening chapters, she was granted a title and position at court. Her gentle presence and unwavering kindness drew the attention of the empire's most powerful men—each of them scarred, noble, and brooding in their way.
There was the Crown Prince, first in line and cold as steel.The Silver General, who laughed in battle but wept in private.The Duke's Heir, loyal and repressed.The Grand Magister, aloof and obsessive.Even the Elven Prince, a foreign royal turned political hostage.
Each of them had a route. Each of them has a secret pain. Each of them was saved by her and came to love her.
And in every single route, Killian—the bastard prince—was the villain.
The one who could not be redeemed. The one who fell in love with the heroine and tried to drag her down with him. In some routes, he tried to kill her. In others, he plotted rebellion. In one, he summoned demons. No matter the variation, his role remained the same:
He was the contrast. The shadow. The blemish the heroine's light would ultimately banish.
He died in the end.
But that wasn't the whole story. Not the real one.
Because the novel only told what the court knew. It never questioned why Killian became what he was. It never cared about where he came from.
His mother had not been a concubine, nor a lady of the court.
She was a dark-elf slave—chained, nameless, and silenced. Taken during one of the empire's infamous purges of the borderlands, she had been nothing but a spoil of war: a prize, a symbol of conquest.
Until the Emperor laid claim to her.
No one knew her name. Not the nobles. Not the servants. She was never granted a title. Never announced. Just a rumor in the shadows. But when her belly swelled, and the Emperor confirmed the child as his, the whispers turned to screams.
A half-blood.
That was what they called him.
Killian was born in winter, in the wing of the palace reserved for the forgotten. His skin was deep mocha, the color of desert soil after rain—a rich, uncommon hue in a court of porcelain nobles. His ears were sharply pointed, the signature trait of his mother's people—"unclean" to imperial doctrine. His hair was black as ink, his features sharp and angular. Not one trace of his father's imperial blood seemed to mark him.
Except for his eyes.
The only trait the court could not ignore.
Golden, radiant, unmistakable—the eyes of the Emperor passed only to those of the royal bloodline. A mark of legitimacy. Proof.
It was the only reason he was not killed at birth.
But even those eyes could not save him from what came after.
They called him a curse. A political liability. A walking shame. The imperial family wanted nothing to do with him, but his existence could not be erased without causing unrest among the nobles who whispered and watched the royal bloodline for weakness.
So they did the next best thing.
They locked him away.
The eastern tower became his world. No servants. No warmth. No education, aside from a few bored tutors sent to fulfill appearances. When the heroine of the story arrived years later and crossed his path by accident—offering him a smile, a single moment of kindness—he mistook it for salvation.
He fell in love.
And the story labeled it obsession.
He tried to reach her.
And the story called it madness.
He tried to escape the role they cast him in.
And the story crushed him for it.
But Killian was not the boy they thought him to be.
Not anymore.
He had died six times. Each death, a different attempt at rewriting the tale.
In his first life, he had bowed to power—tried to win his siblings' favor. The result? Exile to the frontlines and a blade in his back.
In his second, he had withdrawn—learned magic in solitude. The result? Poison in his wine.
In his third, he had run—become a healer in hiding. The result? Execution in chains.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth lives were more of the same: new approaches, new skills, new heartbreaks. Swordsmanship. Alchemy. Strategy. Each time, he grew stronger, smarter. Each time, he refused the role the world demanded of him.
And each time, the male leads killed him.
Not because he was evil.
But because he didn't fit their story.
Now, reborn for the seventh time, Killian lay in the tower once more, staring at the light through broken glass. His hands were small. His body is soft. But inside, behind those golden imperial eyes, was a soul carved sharp by suffering.
He would not run again.
He would not beg.
He would not try to be the "better man."
Let the world write him as the villain. Let the empire call him a stain. Let the male leads sharpen their swords.
This time...
He would give them a villain to fear.
And this time, he would not die alone.
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