In the middle of seemingly nowhere, along a muddy road riddled with puddles and potholes, some so wide Kaelor found himself gaping at them, the carriage had come to a frustrating halt. Rain from the night before had turned the dirt track into a mire. The wheels were buried deep, sunk in sloshing mud.
Kaelor stood beside his mother, arms folded and brow furrowed, glaring at the two coachmen struggling to push the carriage free. Their clothes were soaked through, splattered with mud, and their backs strained with effort. But no progress had been made.
"This is absurd!" Kaelor snapped, his voice rising with aristocratic indignation. "We've been out here for hours! Both of you are weak, incompetent oafs! Get my carriage out of that pit and ride me to Redwood Town before nightfall or I swear, I'll have your heads mounted on pikes!"
He jabbed his fingers toward them as though casting a curse, his voice cracking with anger and entitlement. The coachmen said nothing, their faces grim, their muscles straining silently.
His mother, a tall and graceful woman in her late forties with her long hair tied into a neat bun, offered the men an apologetic smile. Despite the strain in her eyes, she turned to her son with quiet composure.
"Kaelor…" she began gently.
"Don't speak to me, woman!" Kaelor spat, turning his fury on her without hesitation. "You got to my father's bed first, yet all you managed to become was a concubine! And me? I'm his firstborn, the rightful heir and still, here I am! Why couldn't you make him name me before he died?!"
His voice trembled with bitterness, his fists clenched. His father, the late Lord of the Dukedom of Merlin, had died during a hunting trip, and yet, it was his younger half-brother who had been chosen as the new Duke. The humiliation gnawed at Kaelor like a festering wound.
His mother's face tightened, but before she could respond, one of the coachmen, his back still bent from pushing, let out a low, sharp scoff.
"Maybe because you couldn't keep out of brothels and taverns long enough to learn anything about ruling."
The words were quiet, but the silence that followed was deafening.
Kaelor blinked. "What… did you say?"
The coachman straightened slowly, eyes glinting with contempt, lips curling into a malicious smile. His hand dipped into his muddied cloak and drew a dagger, its edge stained with rust and old blood.
"You heard me, you pompous brat."
Kaelor froze, his mouth ajar. The world around him seemed to slow. His rage vanished, replaced by a chill creeping down his spine.
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
"I apologize for my son's conduct. I assure you, he won't speak to you in such a fashion anymore," Kaelor's mother said softly, her voice steady despite the tension.
But before her words could settle, the second coachman, the one who had up until now played the obedient servant, bowing and following Kaelor's every order like a loyal dog, lunged without hesitation. A flash of steel. A brutal slash.
The dagger tore across her throat.
Blood gushed in a violent arc, splattering across Kaelor's face. His eyes widened, his body frozen in place as he watched his mother crumple to the mud with a dull thud. Her life poured out into the earth beneath her.
He didn't scream. He didn't move. He simply tilted his head, staring blankly at the body, as if it belonged to someone else.
It didn't seem real.
"Keep talking. Why'd you stop?" The first coachman sneered as he stepped forward, his gaze flicking to the lifeless form of Kaelor's mother. "A damn shame. I would've liked a turn with her. But orders are orders. The new Duke said we could do whatever we wanted… as long as you die."
Kaelor took a trembling step back, his lips quivering, his legs stiff with fear. He tried to speak, but no words came.
"Don't worry," said the one who had struck the fatal blow, twirling his dagger lazily in his fingers. "It'll be over soon."
"Easy money," he added with a chuckle.
Kaelor's heart pounded. Even as pain and grief stabbed through his chest, fear drowned everything else. He didn't fight. He didn't even curse. He turned and ran, bolting down the muddy road, slipping and staggering in desperation.
"Help! Someone, anyone, help—!"
Thunk!
A sound like meat being pierced.
Kaelor's breath caught.
He stumbled forward, then fell, his mouth gaping in silent agony. The first coachman's dagger had sunk deep into his back, so deep the hilt met his flesh. The force behind the throw was monstrous.
He collapsed face-first into the mud.
Still.
Silent.
Bleeding.
"Should we drag the body into the bush?" the second man asked, wiping his blade on the hem of his tunic.
"Why bother?" the first replied, spitting into the mud. "Everyone in the Dukedom knows what kind of filth he was. I once saw him spit on an orphan girl begging for bread. Let the crows have him."
Without another glance, they turned and walked away, boots squelching in the mud as the rain clouds gathered again above.
….
A couple of hours later, Kaelor's eyes snapped open.
He lay in the mud, drenched in drying blood, staring up at the grey sky above. His eyes moved slowly, scanning his surroundings with a bewildered gaze, as though seeing the world for the first time.
"Where… where am I?" he muttered hoarsely, sitting up with effort. "Wasn't I just at the construction site?"
The voice was not Kaelor's. The soul within him no longer belonged to the infamous heir of House Dravion.
It was Fang Yun—a weary man from earth.
His eyes darted around in growing alarm. Blood soaked the ground beneath him. A chill crept over his skin. 'The last thing I remember... was that sudden tightness in my chest, like my heart stopped working. Then pain. A sharp, radiating pain.' He swallowed. 'It felt like I died.'
As soon as that thought solidified in his mind, a surge of memories hit him, Kaelor's memories.
They didn't burn or sear their way into his consciousness. Instead, they spilled in like a flood bursting through a dam, overwhelming yet painless. Still, it felt like his skull would burst from the pressure.
He gasped and clutched his head.
Kaelor Dravion. Firstborn son of Duke Leo Dravion. Twenty-five years old. Squandered his noble name on drink, women, and meaningless indulgences. He spent nights passed out on brothel floors, or waking in ditches after drunken brawls. A man more feared for his arrogance than respected for his title.
A black sheep in every sense of the word.
He had conned merchants and nobles alike, shamelessly using his father's name to take what he wanted, only to waste it in taverns and gambling dens. His infamy wasn't confined to the Dukedom of Merlin, it echoed far beyond.
Now, with the old Duke dead, Kaelor's younger brother had inherited the seat and sent him off to a nameless, unmarked town, a convenient exile masked as mercy.
The previous Kaelor had accepted it. 'Better than dying in the capital,' he had thought. But he had underestimated just how cold his brother's smile truly was.
"If the current Duke was behind those assassins…" Fang Yun muttered, "…then I'm not just unwanted in Merlin, I'm marked for death."
He stood, surprised to find no pain in his body. His back, where the dagger had pierced him, no longer throbbed. There wasn't even a scar.
The blood surrounding him, he was certain it was his, but he felt no wound.
Then, his gaze fell to the corpse lying a few feet away.
His mother.
Her lifeless form lay awkwardly in the mud, her eyes open, staring at nothing.
Something shifted inside him. Fang Yun's breath caught, and before he could stop it, his eyes moistened. It wasn't just sympathy, it was grief. Kaelor's grief, bleeding into his own.
He looked away.
Heavy footprints marked the mud. People had passed by, several, in fact, and none had stopped. No one had helped. No one had cared.
The world, it seemed, had already forgotten him.
Fang Yun stood still, heart heavy. "Why… why was I even brought back?" he whispered. "If I had a choice, I'd have taken the heart attack and let my pitiful life end in peace."
And yet, here he was.
Alive again.
But in a world that had already tried to bury him.