The heavy oak door slammed shut, and the lock clicked with a reassuring thud.
I leaned against the wood, sliding down until I hit the floor. My hands were shaking. Just a little. Not a full panic attack—I had too much dignity for that—but definitely a tremor that suggested I needed a stiff drink or a ticket to a different dimension.
"Okay," I exhaled, running a hand through my hair. "Okay. Deep breaths. You are a Prince. You have guards. You have money. You are not going to be murdered by a sociopathic debutante in the first week."
I looked at my hand. The image of the burning match was burned into my retina.
"That wasn't just a random match," I whispered to the empty room. "That was a citation."
I pushed myself up and walked to the window, staring out at the capital without really seeing it. My mind was racing, pulling up the files of the novel I had memorized.
The match. Why a match? Why specifically a wooden match in a world that had magic lighters and mana crystals?
A cold realization settled in my stomach. I knew exactly where that match came from.
It was from the jail cell.
I closed my eyes, and the text of the novel's began to scroll through my mind.
The Tower of Silence was not designed for comfort. It was a vertical coffin of stone, damp and freezing, where the Empire threw those it intended to forget.
Anastasia Vane sat in the corner of her cell.
She was unrecognizable. Her golden hair was matted and gray with dust. Her once-pristine dress was a rag. She had been there for almost three months. Days of darkness. Days of listening to the wind howl through the cracks in the masonry.
She was shivering, but her hands were steady.
In her lap, she held a treasure more valuable than any jewel she had ever worn: a single, crumpled piece of parchment and a dying quill.
She had begged for it. She had bartered her remaining jewelry, her dignity, and her tears with a sympathetic guard just for this.
The ink was almost dry. The paper was coarse. But it was her only connection to the world that had abandoned her.
She wasn't crying. She was focused. Her world had shrunk to the tip of that pen.
---
(Anastasia's POV - First Timeline)
The stone floor bit into my skin, but I didn't feel it. I only felt the scratch of the quill against the paper.
I had so much to say. I wanted to scream that I was innocent. I wanted to list the names of everyone who had lied, everyone who had framed me. I wanted to write a manifesto of my hatred.
But there wasn't enough ink for hate. There was barely enough ink for goodbye.
I didn't write to the Emperor. I didn't write to Aelius. I wrote to Cassius.
My Dear Brother,
The words came slowly. My hand was stiff from the cold.
I am sorry.
I am sorry I could not be the sister you needed. I am sorry I was too weak to protect House Vane. I am sorry that when you return from the front lines, you will find only my name in disgrace.
Please do not hate the world for my sake. Just live. Please, Cassius. Eat well. Sleep well. Don't forget me, and live.
Your sister,
Ana.
It was clumsy. It was short. But it was the truth. It was the only thing I had left to give him.
I folded the paper carefully, treating it like glass. This letter was my soul. If Cassius read it, maybe he wouldn't destroy himself. Maybe he could be happy.
I held it to my chest and waited for the dawn.
The days blurred into a gray smear, broken only by a single, recurring sound.
Click. Click. Drag.
Footsteps. Leather boots on stone, followed by the faint scrape of a scabbard or a cane.
He came every ten days. The Third Prince. Willes Rembon.
He never brought food. He never brought comfort. He would stand on the other side of the bars, his face obscured by the shadows, and just... watch. Sometimes he would mock me. Sometimes he would complain about the dampness of the dungeon. Sometimes he would just sigh, a long, bored sound that echoed in the emptiness.
"Still breathing, Lady Vane? What a stubborn weed you are."
His cruelty was mundane. It lacked the venom of the Inquisitors. It was casual, like a boy poking a dying bird with a stick.
And yet... I found myself waiting for it.
In the crushing silence of the Tower, his mockery was the only proof that I still existed. His voice was the only thing that wasn't the wind or my own sobbing. It was twisted, it was pathetic, but his visits were the tether that kept me from drifting into madness.
I sat up straighter.
Click. Click. Drag.
The sound echoed down the corridor. My heart gave a painful thud.
He was here. The spectator. The vulture. The only person who remembered where I was.
I scrambled to the bars, my dignity forgotten. I shoved the folded parchment through the cold iron, my fingers trembling so hard they scraped against the metal.
"Prince," I rasped, my voice broken from disuse. "Please. I beg you. You don't have to save me. Just... take this. Give this to Cassius. Please."
Willes stood there, bathed in the flickering light of the wall torch. He looked immaculate in his white coat, a stark contrast to the filth of my cell. He looked down at my hand, then at the letter.
He reached out and took it.
My heart soared. A sob of relief choked me. Thank you. Thank you.
He held the parchment between two fingers, squinting at it in the dim light. He didn't unfold it. He just read the name on the front.
"Cassius," he muttered. He let out a sigh, the sound heavy with annoyance.
"You really don't know when to stop, do you?"
I froze. "What?"
"Cassius is grieving, Ana," he said, his voice flat. "He is currently holding the Northern border together with duct tape and prayer. He is carrying the weight of the Aegis on his back. The last thing he needs is your... whatever this is."
He waved the letter dismissively.
"Your paranoid lies. Your attempts to turn him against your mother. Your desperate clawing for a savior."
"No!" I cried, reaching through the bars. "No, it's not—it's just a goodbye! It's just—"
"He doesn't need this poison," Willes interrupted.
He reached into his pocket, took out a match, struck it, and a small fire appeared in the dark jail jell.
"No!" I screamed, lunging as far as the bars would allow.
He didn't look at me. He held the corner of the letter to the flame. The dry parchment caught instantly. The fire curled up the page, devouring my apology, devouring my love, devouring the only thing I had left.
"He needs peace," Willes said, watching the words turn to ash. "Not this."
He dropped the burning paper onto the stone floor as well the match he's using to burned it, like it also a trash.
"Goodbye, Lady Vane."
He turned and walked away.
I stared at the black smear on the floor. The only piece of me that was true. Gone.
And in the silence, something inside me broke. It didn't crack. It shattered.
---
I gasped, jerking away from the memory as if the heat from that fire had burned me across time. I was back in my lavish bedroom. The silk sheets were cold under my sweat-damp hands.
The match.
She lit the match, watched it burn, and blew it out. It wasn't a threat about arson. It was a reenactment.
"She remembers," I whispered, the blood draining from my face. "She remembers the letter. She remembers me burning it."
I stared at my own hands. The hands that, in another life, had destroyed her final plea for mercy. I wasn't just the 'Third Prince' to her. I wasn't just a political enemy.
I was the man who spat on her last shred of humanity.
"I didn't do it," I pleaded to the empty room. "That was the other Willes. The NPC Willes. I would have delivered the letter! I would have put it in an envelope with a wax seal!"
But it didn't matter. To Anastasia Vane, the body was the same. The voice was the same. The crime was etched into her soul.
I sank my head into my hands.
"Retirement is canceled," I groaned. "The farm is gone. The sheep are dead."
She isn't just going to kill me. She is going to dismantle me. She is going to burn the Empire, the Capital, and every single person who stood by that day.
And I am currently sitting on the throne of the kindling pile.