I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)

"Both of them. In a single year. It’s a curse, surely."

"Did you see the boy? He hasn’t shed a single tear. Not one."

"He’s barely fifteen. How is a child supposed to lead the North? We’ll be at the mercy of the capital within the month."

"Oh, just look at him standing there... like a statue made of salt."

Zarius heard it all. He stood at the lip of the open family vault, his fingers locked around Marielle’s hand with a strength that was bordering on desperate. He didn’t look at the crowd. He didn’t look at the minor lords who were already counting the grain stores in their heads, wondering if the "Young Duke" would be easy to manipulate.

He only looked at the two coffins.

They looked small from up here. Two boxes of dark oak and polished silver, containing the two people who had defined the boundaries of his world. And yet, as the priest’s voice droned on in a language of old prayers and hollow promises, Zarius felt a sudden, sickening wave of pity wash over him.

It wasn’t for the dead. It was for the living.

He looked down at Marielle. She wasn’t wailing. She wasn’t making a scene for the gossips to feast upon. She stood with a rigid, haunting grace that she was far too young to possess, her young face drained of color and carefully kept blank. Her hand was tiny in his, delicate in a way that made him careful, but her grip was just as fierce as his.

Everything had moved with a dizzying speed.

When Nerissa’s heart finally stopped, Zarius hadn’t sought comfort. He hadn’t sought out Marielle or even a glass of water. He had walked to his own room and closed the door.

He sat on the edge of his bed in the dark, waiting for the collapse. He waited for the stinging behind his eyes or the Great North’s sorrow to finally crack his ribs. But nothing came. Instead, a hollow, bitter sense of the ridiculous settled over him. It felt like a badly written play. His father, the "invincible" wall, was taken out by a common poison. His mother, the "fragile" flower, dying of a broken heart for a man who had barely looked at her.

Ridiculous, he thought, staring at his hands in the moonlight. All of it.

Zarius couldn’t quite grasp it. He knew he should feel the weight of losing both parents in a single day, but the sadness was a tangled, confusing thing. Was he mourning the people who were gone, or was he mourning the fact that he would never, ever receive the love he had spent his whole life craving from them?

He felt a lump form in his throat, not of grief, but of a profound sorrow for the both of them. They were orphans in a house built on secrets and poison. They were two children inherited by a title that demanded they stop being children immediately.

The crowd parted as the royal party approached, their silk and gold a garish intrusion against the North’s stark black. King Alderon stepped forward, his eyes scanning the boy with a curiosity.

"Zarius," the King said. He placed a heavy hand on Zarius’s shoulder, a gesture that looked like comfort but felt like a measurement. "A tragedy beyond words. The Crown mourns with you. Your father was a titan among men."

"Your Majesty is kind to travel so far," Zarius replied. His voice was a flat, level plane. He didn’t leak. He didn’t break. He remembered Lario’s hand on a wooden sword, the sting of the lash, the taste of the silver cup. A Valtrane does not cry, Zarius. Tears are just salt water leaving a weak vessel.

The King’s gaze lingered on Zarius a second too long before his gaze drifted toward the second coffin, the one holding the Duchess.

"And your mother," he said. "Nerissa was... a singular bloom. To think that such a vibrant spirit was extinguished so soon... She deserved a life of much more... light."

Beside him, Yerel offered a smile. "The Academy will miss your presence, Zarius. But I suppose the duties of a Duke wait for no one. If the North feels... too heavy... the capital is always open to you."

Zarius felt Marielle’s fingers twitch in his and he squeezed back.

The Queen moved toward Marielle. She reached out to stroke Marielle’s cheek, her expression one of practiced maternal pity. "Poor little lamb. To lose a mother so soon... it is a wound that never truly closes."

Marielle didn’t flinch, but she didn’t lean into the touch either. She remained anchored to Zarius, her shoulder pressed against his side. She looked like a miniature version of the Duchess, but without the rot.

The final rites were performed. The heavy stone slabs were slid into place, the sound of grinding rock echoing like a final, definitive period at the end of a long, painful sentence. One by one, the nobles filed past, offering words that meant nothing and eyes that sought everything. Zarius stood his ground, his hand never leaving Marielle’s, a sentinel at the edge of his own life.

When the last carriage had rattled away and the King’s banners had vanished into the grey mist, the courtyard fell into a true silence. The servants stood at a distance, waiting for an order that no one felt qualified to give.

Marielle finally lifted her gaze. She wasn’t crying, but something in her eyes said she understood more than she should.

"Brother," she whispered, her voice barely louder than the wind.

"I’m here, Marielle."

She looked at the closed vault, then back at the massive, echoing manor behind them. "It’s just the two of us now, isn’t it? No one else is coming."

The pity returned then, sharper than the sleet. He thought of his mother’s last words, the hatred that had been his only inheritance. He thought of his father’s coldness. And then he looked at Marielle, the only person in the world who didn’t want a piece of his land or a drop of his blood.

"Yes," Zarius said, his voice hardening into something that sounded like iron. "It’s just us."

He looked out over the sprawling, frozen expanse of the North. He could feel the eyes of the hidden wolves in the trees, the weight of the King’s ambition, and the stirring of the beast blood in his own heart. He wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a wall.

He didn’t care if they hated him. He didn’t care if they called him heartless or a monster.

He pulled Marielle closer, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the storm was gathering. In that moment, among the ruins of his childhood and the scent of fresh earth, Zarius Valtrane made a silent, blood-deep vow.

He would not just lead. He would rule. He would turn the North into a fortress that even the King couldn’t breach, and he would protect his land until his own blood turned to ice.