Keiser had always hated wasting time.
Perhaps it was because he had lived his entire life in a state of constant battle—growing up in the crucible of border wars, where every second demanded readiness, every breath could be a final one. The only time he ever knew peace—however fleeting—was when he had his faction. When Gideon stood behind him, not as a prince, but as a friend.
But that, too, was a lie.
What he had mistaken for a hand of support had all along been a blade pointed at his back.
"Your Highness! What do you mean you're returning?!"
Keiser walked past the boy without pause.
He didn't care that he looked like he'd just crawled through the depths of hell, covered in grime, damp with filth. He didn't care that this wasn't his body—or that the boy—whose name he still didn't know—was following after him, calling him 'Your Highness', 'My Lord', with stubborn reverence.
Muzio, this body, had run away from being a noble.
But Keiser was running back toward it.
"Where are we?" he asked, eyes scanning the space as he moved toward the open barn doors.
All he could see beyond them were endless fields, weathered stables, and more barns scattered across farmland. Nothing familiar. No towers, no citadels. No signs of court or capital.
"What? Has your head sickness gotten so bad you've lost your memory?"
The boy's voice wavered, noticeably anxious. He tossed the bucket aside in panic and quickly leaned his pitchfork against the rotting barn wall. Before Keiser could react, the boy was crowding into his space, reaching up to press a hand against his forehead.
From this proximity, Keiser got a better look at him—a freckled face scattered like dust across a sunburned nose. Green eyes with hints of rust, and hair that curled in shades of copper and chestnut.
Familiar.
But the hand pawing at Keiser's face was not welcome.
He slapped it away.
The boy winced, clutching his stinging fingers with a wounded pout.
"My lord, since when did you become so abusive?"
Keiser ignored him.
There were far more pressing matters at hand. Something had gone terribly wrong—and if he was truly in another's body, in an unknown land, then time, now more than ever, was something he couldn't afford to waste.
"You… you're Olga's younger brother, aren't you?"
The boy flinched, eyes widening in shock.
"Hey! Who gave you permission to call my sister by her name so casually?" he snapped, then immediately slapped a hand over his mouth. "I—I'm sorry, my lord. It's just… how did you know my sister's name? I never told you anything about my family."
Because I fought beside her on the border, Keiser wanted to say. Because she saved my life more times than I could count.
But that wasn't something Muzio—the body he now inhabited—would ever be able to say without sounding mad. Muzio had never set foot on a battlefield.
"You're Lenko," he said instead.
The boy's brow furrowed in confusion.
"Yes, my lord. Why do you sound unsure?"
Because Keiser was unsure. Olga had spoken often of her many siblings—eleven, if he remembered correctly. But the one she always mentioned was Lenko, the younger brother who, according to her, had died alongside his lord. A boy whose death she refused to let fade into obscurity.
"His name will not be a whisper," she once vowed.
She had chosen her princess—the sixth princess of Valemont—believing her ideals would ensure a proper remembrance for those who gave their lives for the kingdom. She had allowed the princess to mark her with sigils, placing her faith in that promise. She had trusted that her cause would be honored.
But in the end, it was Keiser's kingmaker—not the princess—who ascended.
"I'm just… confirming something," Keiser murmured, brushing past Lenko and continuing toward the light that filtered through the open barn doors.
Lenko let out an exasperated sigh behind him.
"Come on, Your Highness. You can't seriously be thinking about returning to court—not after all these years hiding and running away."
Keiser said nothing.
He kept walking, even though he wasn't sure where he was headed. He followed instinct—the pull of the sun's direction—though part of him doubted Muzio had been hiding at all. Living in a barn in the middle of open farmland, with a talkative valet still at his side, didn't exactly scream 'in hiding.'
No… this wasn't exile.
It was simply comfortably forgotten nobility.
A bastard, yes. But still a noble.
And now, Keiser needed to decide what to do with this borrowed second life.
"Lenko."
Keiser halted mid-step, eyes narrowing as he caught sight of a small wooden house, tucked just beyond a thin grove of trees at the far edge of the barnyard.
"Where are we?" he asked, voice low but edged with urgency.
Lenko just stared for a moment. But when he met Keiser's gaze, he straightened from his slouched posture and answered, "We're in Sheol, my lord."
He even bowed his head slightly as he spoke, the expression on his face grim.
Keiser froze.
Sheol.
The common grave of mankind.
A name synonymous with the forgotten battlefield where the kingdom's border collapsed into something unholy. A place plagued by monsters, where the war never truly ended—only shifted into uneasy stalemates and quiet cover-ups.
This was where they had once been stationed. Where soldiers fought and died, not for glory, but just to keep the rot at bay.
Knights still patrolled the outer rim of Sheol, intercepting the occasional abomination that slipped through. But no one ventured into the forest anymore. Those who tried never returned.
And yet—here—a barn stood.
And beyond it, a wooden house. Settled. Stable. As though Sheol were merely a quiet forest tucked against the kingdom's edge—rather than the place where beasts sometimes claw their way out, dragging nightmares behind them.
Keiser didn't walk—he ran.
His boots thudded against the ground as he bolted toward the woodhouse, ignoring Lenko's startled voice behind him.
"My lord? Wait—what are you—?"
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
His lungs burned. Sweat slicked his back. The wind howled as he crossed the invisible line between farmland and the forest's edge. And there—just beyond the barn and its stables—stood that house.
Keiser staggered to a halt at the border where the land shifted. The trees loomed taller here, shadows clutching at the ground like waiting hands. Something wrong pressed against the air, thick and heavy like storm clouds about to break.
He doubled over, panting.
Cold sweat ran down his neck. His ribs ached—sharp, biting pain flaring at his side. The sensation was familiar, achingly so. An old wound, a memory etched into muscle. He had fought through worse. Bled through worse. But this body… this body wasn't his.
It wasn't built to endure the weight of what he had carried.
He cursed under his breath.
Footsteps stumbled behind him.
"M-My lord, why are you suddenly running like that? Did you see something?" Lenko's voice was breathless but steady, his expression scrunched in concern as he caught up and leaned against his knees.
Keiser didn't respond. His eyes were fixed ahead, scanning the treeline.
There was nothing there.
"Were you just running to grab something to change into before heading to the capital?"
Lenko tilted his head with an approving nod. "Though I'm not really sure about your decision… but like I said Muzio, I'll always be by your side."
It hit Keiser like a slap.
He recoiled instinctively, stepping back as if the boy before him had suddenly transformed into someone else entirely.
Murky grey eyes. Familiar words.
"Don't say that," Keiser snapped, eyes narrowing with a sharp glare.
Lenko immediately bowed his head, startled. "I—I'm sorry, Your Highness. I must've gotten too comfortable."
He peeked up sheepishly. "It seems you're serious about returning... I suppose I shouldn't call you by just your name anymore."
Keiser let out a low groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. Gods, the boy was pouting now—sulking, even.
Right. Gideon never pouted.
He wasn't Gideon.
With that bitter thought lodged in his chest, Keiser turned away and approached the small wooden house at the edge of the clearing.
He moved cautiously, scanning the exterior. It was modest, quaint—almost too peaceful.
But the forest behind it loomed like a silent predator. The trees cast deep shadows even in the daylight, and the air felt thick, unnatural.
This was nothing like the sacred lands he once knew.
Remembering that place twisted something in his chest.
The dragon—the young one he'd thought he had saved—hadn't been freed.
He had delivered it straight into the viper's trap.
Keiser's fingers brushed the frame of the house's door. His brows furrowed.
"This… house. Is it mine?" he asked, quietly.
The words felt foreign in his mouth. He still struggled to think of himself as Muzio. He didn't even know how he'd ended up in this body.
Grateful, yes. But the sensation was off—like watching the world from behind a curtain of smoke.
This body wasn't his. His skin didn't sit right. His limbs moved wrong.
It was like he was caught in an endless, grinding moment of out-of-body confusion, a soul misplaced in a vessel that refused to feel like home.
Lenko nodded. "Yes, my lord. Should I fetch an apothecarist from the village?"
Keiser shook his head—a simple gesture, but firm enough to speak for him.
He didn't need a healer. No, what he needed was answers.