Chapter Text
The dungeon beneath the black stone castle of Faubrey was a place where light went to die. It was cold, damp, and smelled of ancient stone and despair. It was a fitting end for a reign built on arrogance and stolen blood, yet as Malty descended the spiral stairs, her footsteps echoing in the silence, she felt no satisfaction. Only a heavy, suffocating pity.
She wore a simple cloak over her leathers, the hood pulled up to shield her face from the guards, though they bowed respectfully as she passed. She was no longer a princess of Melromarc, having abdicated her title, but she carried a different kind of authority now — the quiet, hardened resolve of a woman who had walked through fire and come out the other side.
The guard at the final cell door unlocked it with a heavy clank of iron. "He has been… agitated, my lady," the guard warned quietly. "Ranting mostly. But he’s quieted down in the last hour."
"Thank you," Malty said. "Leave us."
The door swung open, revealing a cell that was stark and small. In the corner, huddled on a pallet of straw, sat Takt Alsahol Faubrey.
He looked like a broken doll. His fine adventurer’s jacket was stained and torn. His hair, once perfectly styled beneath his twisted silver crown, was matted with sweat and grime. But it was the empty space on his right side that drew the eye — the bandaged stump where his arm had been severed.
He looked up as she entered, his eyes feverish in the gloom. For a moment, there was a flicker of the old Takt — the charming, dangerous boy she had known at the academy.
"Malty," he croaked, his voice rough from disuse and screaming. A twisted smile curled his lips. "Come to gloat? Or did you finally realize you bet on the wrong horse?"
Malty pulled up a wooden stool and sat across from him, just out of reach. "There is no horse, Takt," she said softly. "The race is over."
Takt let out a harsh, barking laugh. He shifted, wincing as the movement pulled at his wound. "That's what they think. That’s what you think." He leaned forward, his eyes burning with a manic intensity. "This? This is just the setback. The dark chapter before the hero’s triumphant return. They cut off my arm? Fine. I’ll get a better one. A mechanical one, maybe. Or I’ll just regenerate it when my powers return. They think executing me will stop me? Even if they cut off my head, I'll just come back!"
He slumped back against the stone wall, his gaze drifting to the ceiling. "The one who brought me here… he’s watching. He won’t let his champion fall like this. He’ll reset me. Reincarnate me. And when I come back… oh, Malty. When I come back, I’m going to burn this world down. And you… because we were friends, I’ll make it quick for you."
Malty watched him, a profound sadness welling in her chest. He was so lost. He was trapped in a narrative that had been deconstructed weeks ago, clinging to a script that had already been shredded.
"I'm sorry, Takt," she whispered.
He blinked, focusing on her again. "Sorry? You should be. You betrayed me. You jumped in front of my whip. For him. That old fool."
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner," she corrected him, her voice steady. "Back at the academy… we were so alike. Arrogant. Cruel. We thought the world existed to amuse us. If I had… if I had changed sooner, maybe I could have pulled you out of it. Before you killed the Vassal Heroes. Before you became this."
Takt sneered. "I didn't 'become' anything. I revealed myself. I am the genius this world needed. Those 'heroes' I killed? They were unworthy. They were holding the weapons hostage. I liberated them."
"They were people, Takt," Malty said. "And you murdered them for trophies."
"Necessary sacrifices!" Takt shouted, slamming his remaining hand against the floor. "For the greater good! My greater good!" He took a ragged breath, his bravado wavering for a second, revealing the terrified boy beneath. "He'll bring me back," he muttered, like a prayer. "He has to. I'm the protagonist."
Malty sat in silence for a long moment. She had debated whether to tell him. Would it be a cruelty to strip him of his last hope? Or was it a mercy to let him face the end with open eyes?
She decided, in the end, that she owed him the truth. As a friend.
"Takt," she said, her voice cutting through his mutterings. "The one who brought you here… the self-proclaimed god you serve… he is gone."
Takt froze. "Liar."
"He had his armies invade during a Wave," Malty continued, relentless. "And he was defeated — not by another army, but by Lyraena Winterglade. She kicked him into a mountain range and stripped him of his power. He is level one, Takt. He can't help you. He can't even help himself."
Takt shook his head violently, his eyes wide with panic. "No. No, that’s impossible. He’s a god! He controls the system!"
"Not anymore," Malty said. "Lyraena controls it now."
The name hung in the damp air. Takt stared at her, his mouth working silently. He remembered the woman who had stepped into his whip without flinching. The woman who had severed his arm with a speed he couldn't even track.
"She… controls the system?" he whispered.
"She rewrote it," Malty said. "She fixed the bugs. She stopped the Waves. She owns the very mechanics of reincarnation you're banking on."
Takt slumped, the defiance draining out of him like water from a cracked vessel. He looked small, suddenly. Just a maimed man in a dark cell. "So… that’s it, then? She’ll just… delete me? Erase my soul?"
"No," Malty said gently. "I don't think she will."
Takt looked up, a flicker of pathetic hope in his eyes.
"Lyraena is… strange," Malty explained, a faint, fond smile touching her lips despite the gloom. "She possesses absolute power, but she doesn't use it to punish. She uses it to experience. She believes in second chances. She believes that even monsters can learn."
She leaned forward. "I believe she will let you reincarnate, Takt."
Takt let out a breath, a sob catching in his throat. "She will?"
"Yes," Malty said. "But you need to understand something. You won't be Takt Alsahol Faubrey. You won't be a genius with forbidden knowledge. You won't have a special bloodline, or a harem, or a destiny."
She stood up, looking down at him. "She will likely strip you of every unearned advantage you ever had. You will be born normal. You will be average. You will have to work for every scrap of respect you get. You will have to learn empathy the hard way, just like I did."
Takt stared at her, horror dawning on his face. To a narcissist, mediocrity was a fate worse than death. "Normal?" he whispered, the word tasting like bile.
"It's a gift, Takt," Malty said, turning to the door. "It's the only one you have left. Try not to waste it this time."
She knocked on the iron door. "Guard. I'm finished."
As the door swung open, spilling a harsh rectangle of torchlight into the cell, Takt didn't move. He sat amidst the straw, clutching his stump, staring into the darkness of a future where he would be no one special at all.
"Goodbye, Takt," Malty murmured.
She stepped out into the corridor and walked away, leaving the past locked in the dark behind her. She ascended the stairs toward the light, toward the messy, complicated, beautiful world that Lyraena had saved, ready to find her own place within it.