The first sensation was fire. It wasn't the intense fire of a bad life choice or the slow burn of regret; it was a burning pain tearing down my throat. My lungs seized, my body convulsing with the violent, instinctual need to expel the poison.
What the hell? Wasn't I just crossing the street? The screech of tires... the headlights... oh.
I was dead. I had to be. This was some kind of cosmic joke, a purgatory where you spent eternity reliving your worst moments, and apparently, my worst moment was choking on a glass of cheap, fruity wine.
"Seize him!" A voice boomed, so deep and commanding it vibrated through the floorboards and into my bones.
My eyes, streaming with tears, finally managed to focus. I wasn't in a cosmic waiting room. I was in a ballroom. A ridiculously huge fancy ballroom, all gold leaf and chandeliers, filled with people in clothes that cost more than my entire college education. And every single one of them was staring at me. With contempt.
My gaze fell upon the man who had spoken. He looked tall. Cold. Like he'd never smiled in his life., standing at the head table. His black hair was stark against his pale skin, and his eyes... they weren't just cold, they were predatory. A pair of silver-grey eyes fixed on me, promising a swift and messy end.
And that's when the second wave of horror hit, memories which wasn't mine.
Viscount Damien Kaelan. The 22-year-old son of a minor noble. A character so insignificant in the novel 'The Prince's Devotion' that his only function was to be a petty, jealous obstacle. What was his role? Oh right? To publicly accuse the powerful Duke of Blackwood of poisoning the prince's wine, get proven wrong, and be dragged off to the dungeons for a lesson in manners that would ultimately end in his death.
I was Viscount Damien. And I had just screamed, "He poisoned the Prince!" at the top of my lungs.
*Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.*
My internal voice was screaming, but my body oh Damien's body—was frozen in a mask of pale, sputtering outrage. The original Damien. The idiot.
The Duke of Blackwood, the ice mountain with the death glare raised a single, perfect eyebrow. He didn't even bother to deny it. He didn't have to. The Prince, a handsome, golden boy sitting beside him, took a deliberate sip from his own goblet and smiled beamingly . The message was clear: the wine was fine. The accusation was false.
The verdict was in. I was toast.
Two guards in heavy steel armor started moving toward me, their expressions blank. The crowd's murmurs turned into eager, bloodthirsty whispers. They wanted a show. They wanted to see the whiny little Viscount get what was coming to him.
*Okay, Leo, think! Think!* I commanded myself, using my real name like a talisman. *In the book, Damien just kept crying and sputtering until they gagged him. That is a shitty plan. A dead-end plan. I am not dying in some drafty, rat-infested dungeon because some little horney writer needed a disposable villain to prop up a sappy romance.*
The guards were ten feet away. Five.
My mind raced, flipping through the disastrous pages of the book's plot. There had to be a loophole. An out. Anything.
The Duke was still watching me. Not with anger, but with a kind of cold, analytical curiosity, Like I was something small and annoying. That was it. He was expecting me to be a bug. He was expecting me to squirm and beg and cry.
I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
The guards were three feet away, their hands reaching for my arms.
*Fuck it.*
I threw up my hands in a gesture of surrender, but instead of pleading, I forced a laugh. It came out as a strangled, wheezing choke, but I sold it for all I was worth. Every eye in the room widened in shock.
"Wait!" I gasped, holding up a hand. "Your Grace! A moment, I implore you!"
The guards froze, looking to their master for a cue. The Duke gave a barely perceptible nod, and they held their position. His silver eyes were narrowed, a flicker of something other than boredom finally appearing in their depths.
I straightened up, smoothing down the front of my ridiculously frilly silk shirt. My chest hurt from how hard my heart was beating, but I forced my lips into a smile that felt more like a grimace.
"It was... a test!" I announced, my voice ringing out with a sudden, surprising clarity. It felt... smoother than it should have. More practiced.
A confused silence fell over the ballroom.
The Duke tilted his head. "A test," he repeated, his voice a low rumble. It wasn't a question.
"A loyalty test!" I barrelled on, my brain firing on pure, panic. "Devised by the Royal Advisor, Valerius himself, to ensure the Prince's cup was always in the most careful hands! My accusation wasn't an accusation, Your Grace. It was a performance! A desperate ploy to see if you would defend the Prince's honor with the appropriate urgency!"
I gestured dramatically towards the Prince, who looked utterly bewildered.
"And you, Your Grace," I said, pouring every ounce of conviction I had into my voice, "passed with flying colors! Truly, a protector worthy of the crown! Your loyalty is beyond reproach!"
I finished with a bow, my head spinning. The silence was absolute. You could hear a pin drop. This was not in the script. The original Damien wasn't this clever. He wasn't this theatrical. He was a whiny, one-note nuisance. I was something else entirely.
I risked a glance up. The Duke of Blackwood was staring at me, his head still tilted. The coldness in his eyes had been replaced by something else. A sharp, dangerous interest. He looked like a hunter who had just seen a fox perform a backflip.
After an eternity that stretched for a thousand years, he spoke.
"A fascinating performance, Viscount," he said, his voice lacking of all emotion. "We will... discuss it later."
He waved a dismissive hand at the guards. "Let him be."
The guards stepped back. The spell was broken. The crowd began to murmur again, this time with confusion and speculation.
I was alive.
My legs felt like jelly, but I managed a stiff bow to the Duke and the Prince before turning and practically fleeing from the dance floor. I didn't stop until I was in a deserted corridor, leaning against a cold marble wall and gasping for air.
*Holy shit. Holy shit, that worked.*
I had survived. I had rewritten my first scene. A rush of giddy relief washed over me, so potent it almost brought me to my knees.
And that's when the world flickered.
A blue screen blinked into existence directly in front of my eyes.
'[Quest Complete: Improvised Deception]'
'[Reward Acquired: Skill - [Silver Tongue (Level 1)] - Your words are more persuasive and harder to disbelieve.]'
'[New Quest: Earn 50 Gold by week's end.]'
'[Failure Penalty: -10 Favorability with Duke of Blackwood.]'
I stared at the screen, my mind refusing to process what I was seeing. A system? A literal, video-game-style system?
*A system?* My internal voice shrieked. *Great. Just what I needed, a tutorial for my new life in hell.*
I read the penalty again. A drop in favorability with the man who currently looked at me like a interesting new bug he wanted to pin to a board. That was bad. Very, very bad.
But the quest itself... earn 50 gold? My heart sank as I suddenly remembered another crucial detail about the life of Viscount Damien. The original hadn't just been an idiot; he'd been broke.
*How the hell am I supposed to make 50 gold in a week when I'm pretty sure the last Viscount blew it all on fancy cravats and bad wine?*