She hadn't come here out of pity. Pity was for the dead, and Adrian Voss was not dead yet. She had come because she remembered too well what the world looked like without him in it—broken, unbalanced, a kingdom crumbling faster than she could hold it together. His life was the first thread she would pull to unravel the fate that had once strangled her.
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His eyes in the gloom were not those of a condemned man, but of a predator assessing new, unexpected prey.
The dungeon was silent but for the occasional drip of water echoing from the stone ceiling, the sound sharp and endless, like the ticking of a clock counting down to dawn. The air was damp, heavy with the stink of rusted chains and human despair. But none of that reached Adrian Voss.
Even beaten, shackled, and waiting for execution, he sat like a man who had lost nothing. His back was against the wall, his arms resting on his knees, his head bowed as if asleep. But when Celine stopped before his cell, his eyes lifted.
Sharp. Unyielding. Alive.
They cut through the darkness like a blade sliding free of its sheath, pinning her where she stood.
Celine's fingers curled around the iron bars, their chill biting into her skin. Her heart thundered, not with fear but with the weight of this moment. She had not seen him like this in her past life—alive, still unbroken, still dangerous. When she had first crossed paths with him before, he was already a ghost on the battlefield, his name spoken only as a warning of what had been lost. By then, he was too late to change anything.
Now, she had him here.
Alive.
And chained.
Adrian's voice broke the silence, low and edged like steel dragged across stone.
"A crown prince's bride in the dungeons," he said, his tone flat but his eyes watchful. "Tell me, princess, did you lose your way?"
The way he said princess wasn't flattery—it was mockery.
Celine forced her lips into the faintest curve, calm, deliberate. "No. I came here."
Adrian tilted his head, studying her as though she were a puzzle he wasn't sure was worth solving. "Then either you are a fool… or very bold. Which is it?"
She didn't flinch. "Neither." Her voice was quiet, sharp, cutting through the weight of the dark. "I came because you are to be executed at dawn. On charges that are false."
For a moment, silence stretched between them. Then, a slow, humorless laugh spilled from his lips.
"I see." His voice was rough but steady. "And the bride-to-be of my accuser comes to deliver the news herself? Should I thank you for your kindness?"
Celine's grip on the bars tightened, her knuckles whitening. "I am not his ally."
Something flickered in his gaze—something sharp, assessing.
Adrian leaned forward, the chains around his wrists rattling, pulling taut as he braced his hands against his knees. "Not his ally," he repeated, voice low, dangerous. "Then whose are you?"
She met his eyes, refusing to look away. "My own."
The words landed like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through the charged silence.
Adrian's lips curved into the ghost of a smile, but there was no warmth in it, only sharp amusement. "Honest. I'll give you that. But honesty is rarely free. So tell me, princess—what do you want?"
Celine drew a steady breath, forcing down the trembling in her chest. She couldn't give him the truth—that she had been reborn, that she had seen the ruin of kingdoms, that she had already lived the ending of this story. She couldn't tell him she needed him because, in her last life, his absence had been the single, fatal void that let everything collapse.
So she gave him the truth he could believe.
"I want survival," she said plainly. "I want freedom from the chains others would put on me. You are not guilty of treason, General Voss. You know it, I know it. Yet by morning, you'll be dead. Unless someone interferes."
He leaned closer, shadows stretching over his sharp features. "And you would interfere? For me?"
"I'm offering you a deal," she said, her tone unflinching. "Your freedom, in exchange for your alliance. Nothing more, nothing less."
Adrian stilled. His gaze searched hers, unrelenting, as if peeling her apart piece by piece. The weight of it pressed against her, but she didn't break.
Finally, he spoke, voice low, skeptical. "You want me to believe that a noblewoman—no, not just any noblewoman, but the crown prince's bride—would risk her name, her place, her future… for a man branded a traitor?"
"Yes," she answered without hesitation.
The swiftness of her response startled him; she saw it in the slight lift of his brow, the flicker in his eyes.
Adrian leaned back slowly, his shackles rattling against the stone. He exhaled through his nose, sharp and disbelieving. "You're either mad or desperate."
"Perhaps both," she admitted, her lips curving faintly. "But mad and desperate people change the world."
He studied her in silence again, longer this time, his gaze heavy and unyielding. Celine could almost feel him peeling away the layers of her mask, searching for cracks, for deceit, for weakness.
Finally, he spoke, each word deliberate, his voice dropping lower, quieter, more dangerous.
"And what use," Adrian murmured, "is a disgraced general… to a woman who already has a crown within her grasp?"