(A/N: Their relationship dynamic progresses and doesn't stay exactly like it is at the start (The one-sided love doesn't last long). Pacing is also relatively fast at the start, but slows down in the future in romance arcs.)

In his old life, he was an assassin, invisible, efficient, and utterly alone.
His only escape came from the pages of a fantasy novel, Crown of Thorns, and the character no one else seemed to understand: Lady Evelina D’Arclight, the proud and brilliant villainess fated to lose everything.

After his death, he wakes up inside that very story, not as a hero, but as Cael Arden, a student at Eryndor Royal Academy. The world is just as he remembers it, right down to the woman destined to fall.

But this time, he’s not a bystander.
With a lifetime of deadly skills and the knowledge of what’s to come, Cael sets out to rewrite the story itself, to protect Evelina, rise through the academy’s ruthless hierarchy, and change a fate written in stone.

As alliances form and secrets surface, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur.
And in a world built on power and prophecy, he’ll prove that even a villainess deserves her happy ending.

I said to Fiona, almost as an afterthought, as I dispelled my [Profaned Guardian] and crouched to spring toward the nearest ledge.


Teleporting now was dangerous. I'd managed to avoid being detected so far, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way.


Better to do this the old-fashioned way.


I leaped the instant the platform swept past, twisting mid-air. I took the brunt of the impact against the glass wall and shielded Fiona with my body.


We couldn't use healing magic unless we wanted to draw the attention of everything lurking in the underground.


Shadow Society members in both the left and right corridors shouted, steam pistols leveled at us.


It seemed even they weren't allowed to use magic here.


So there was a trade-off to their powerful defenses after all.


Chapter 141 - A Near Death Experience?