I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)-Chapter 92: The Smallest Victory

"Look at him. His Grace looks... eager. He must really be looking forward to gutting some frost-trolls this year."

"Eager? My man, he looks like a cat that’s cornered by a bowl of cream. It’s unnatural. If he starts whistling, I’m deserting. I can handle monsters, but a happy Duke is a bad omen for the weather."

"Oi! Stop gawking at the Duke and tighten your own straps, you lot!"

The courtyard was a symphony of miserable noises.

It was that specific, ungodly hour before the sun even considers showing its face, the kind of cold that doesn’t just nip at your skin but seems to chew right through to the marrow. Fog, thick and smelling of wet stone and horse breath, swirled around the ankles of hundreds of men. Soldiers were shouting, leather was creaking, and the rhythmic clank-clink of plate armor provided a constant, metallic heartbeat to the chaos. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

At the center of this swirling mess stood Zarius.

Usually, the Duke of Valtrane looked like a man who had a personal vendetta against the horizon. He’d typically be snapping orders with a voice like grinding gravel, his face a mask of granite that made even the bravest veterans consider a sudden career change into goat herding. But today, as he stood beside his massive, huffing warhorse, something was... off.

Zarius was checking the girth of his saddle, his large, scarred fingers moving with precision. But his gaze wasn’t on the leather. It was fixed on a small, sapphire-blue string resting in his palm.

It was a lumpy thing. It was objectively messy, a tangle of knots that spoke of effort rather than expertise. And yet, the Duke was staring at it with an expression that could only be described as dangerously soft. There was a tiny, traitorous twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Elios, as a man who had spent enough years around Zarius to recognize when the world was tilting on its axis, stopped dead in his tracks. He was juggling a helmet and a lukewarm mug of something that might have been tea once, but his entire focus was now pinned on his commander’s face.

He walked up, his boots crunching loudly on the frost, and stared. He waited for the inevitable glare. It didn’t come. Zarius didn’t even look up. He just carefully, almost tenderly, began to tuck the blue charm into the leather wrapping of his sword’s hilt.

"Right," Elios said, his voice dripping with skepticism. "I’m calling a medic. Someone’s clearly slipped some nightshade into the morning stew, or perhaps you’ve finally lost your mind and think we’re heading to a summer picnic instead of a hellhole."

Zarius finally glanced at him, but the usual lightning-strike of a scowl was missing. It was more of a... distracted acknowledgement.

Elios narrowed his eyes at the Duke, and scanned him carefully from head to toe before he reached into his own tunic and pulled out a green string, the one Reiner had been handing out to the entire battalion the night before. He dangled it between two fingers, the braid neat and professional.

"Look, we all got the charm, Your Grace," Elios said, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. "Reiner did a fine job. It’s a nice gesture, keeps the morale up, sure. But you’re looking at yours like it’s a legendary artifact forged by the gods themselves. It’s nice, but I didn’t think it was ’make-the-Duke-smile’ nice."

Zarius adjusted the hilt of his sword, ensuring the sapphire thread was visible but secure. He gave Elios a look brimming with quiet, confident victory, like a man who had just won a wager no one else realized existed.

"This one," Zarius answered, "wasn’t from Reiner."

Elios blinked. He looked at the lumpy, uneven knots of the Duke’s charm. Then he looked at the sapphire-blue color, the exact shade of Cherion’s eyes. He looked back at Zarius’s uncharacteristically satisfied expression. The gears in Elios’s head, usually well-oiled for combat but perhaps a bit sluggish in the cold, began to turn with a loud clunk.

"Oh," Elios breathed. A slow, wicked realization dawned on him. "It’s from... oh. OH."

Elios threw his head back and started to laugh, a loud, booming sound that made a few nearby horses startle. "The ’Special Edition’ charm! No wonder it looks like a bird’s nest, it was made with ’love,’ wasn’t it?"

Zarius’s jaw tightened, though the smirk didn’t entirely vanish. "It was made with prayers for the victory."

Before Elios could retort with something even more scandalous, a small commotion at the edge of the courtyard signaled a new arrival. Cherion appeared through the fog, looking like a very worried, very expensive marshmallow. He was bundled in so many layers of fur and wool that he could barely swing his arms, his face pink from the cold. Reiner followed closely behind, looking far too energetic for this hour, with Flio trailing behind.

Elios, never one to let a golden opportunity for teasing slide, shifted his gaze to the newcomer immediately..

"Lord Cherion!" Elios shouted, waving his own neat, Reiner-made charm in the air. "You made only one charm for the Duke? Seems a bit biased, don’t you think?"

Cherion halted, breath puffing into the cold air. Zarius noticed the quick glance, first at him, then at the hilt of his sword where the sapphire charm hung against the dark steel.

Zarius’s eyes darkened, a flash of something fiercely protective crossing his face. He stepped toward Cherion, his massive shadow looming over the smaller man. "Why would he make one for you, Elios?" Zarius asked, his voice taking on a sharp, possessive edge that made the soldiers nearby turn their heads.

"I... well," Cherion stammered, his fingers twisting in the fur of his cloak. "Mine wasn’t very good. You’d be better off with one of Reiner’s. His are actually pretty. Mine is just... ugly."

Elios let out a low whistle, glancing between the two of them with a delighted smirk. "Ugly? Lord Cherion, I think someone here has a very different opinion. In fact, I’m fairly certain this person hasn’t stopped looking at that ’ugly’ thing since he woke up. He’s looking quite proud of it, actually. Wouldn’t you say, Your Grace?"

Zarius’s ears began to feel suspiciously hot. He could handle a blizzard. He could face a pack of ravenous shadow-wolves without blinking. But he could not, under any circumstances, handle Elios when he was in this particular mood.

He felt the weight of Cherion’s gaze, wide, sapphire eyes looking at him. He felt the eyes of his men, who were definitely eavesdropping now. He felt the sheer, awkward vulnerability of having his heart tied to the hilt of his sword for everyone to see.

"Enough!" Zarius barked suddenly. His voice rang sharp and commanding, though it cracked just a little under the strain.

He swung himself onto his warhorse with a violent amount of dignity, the black plate armor clashing as he settled into the saddle. He didn’t look at Elios. He didn’t even quite look at Cherion. He just looked toward the iron gates of the fortress.

"The wind is changing! The scouts are waiting!" Zarius roared, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the courtyard. "It’s time to depart! MOVE OUT!"

He turned sharply before anyone could question him, already striding toward his horse.

The cold should have been the only thing coloring his face.

But it wasn’t.