I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

Evening had already settled over Fillipo by the time Felix and Dune made their way home from the day’s job. It hadn’t been anything dangerous, just a house repair for a client too particular for his own good, moving the same furniture back and forth three separate times before finally deciding on the original arrangement. Felix’s head had been pounding by the second hour, and it hadn’t let up since.

He turned the single silver over in his palm, studying it like it might multiply if he stared hard enough. "Four silvers. That’s it. Four measly silvers, after everything that man put me through."

He shoved it into his pocket with more force than the coin deserved and glanced sideways at Dune, who was already tearing into a fresh loaf of bread pulled from the bag against her chest. "And could you stop eating for five minutes? That’s supposed to last us the whole week."

"I am empty." She answered between bites, entirely unbothered. "I need to fill myself in order to work properly."

"You need to learn how to ration. You can’t just eat the second you feel like it."

"I understand." She said it plainly, and kept eating anyway.

Felix dragged a hand down his face and pressed his fingers into his temple, walking the rest of the way home with his eyes half shut against the coming headache. "New season, my ass. I thought jobs would start pouring in the second the old one ended, not a single decent offer’s shown up at my door. I told myself I’d have the debt cleared before the season turned. Now I can barely afford a proper meal, forget paying anyone back."

He let out a short, frustrated groan into the darkening street. "How am I supposed to keep living like this?"

"Someone has entered our home."

"What?" Felix’s head snapped toward the house ahead, and sure enough, the front door stood wide open, faint light spilling out onto the dirt path. His stomach dropped. A thief. Had to be. Whoever it was wasn’t walking out of there on two working legs, not after the day he’d just had.

He broke into a run, closing the distance fast, and skidded to a stop just outside the doorway, a seven of spades already pinched between two fingers, ready. His eyes swept the room and landed on a man seated calmly at the table, elbows planted, chin resting against folded hands like he’d been waiting there for hours.

"It’s you." Felix flicked the card back into his sleeve and stepped inside properly. "What are you doing here?"

Anthony’s gaze drifted past him toward Dune in the doorway before he finally answered. "Came to talk."

"Talk about what?" Felix didn’t ease off his stance in the slightest, approaching slow, deliberate. A cold prickle worked its way up his spine despite himself, the same feeling he always got whenever Anthony showed up without warning. "And drop whatever trick you’re planning."

Anthony let out a slow breath, cold enough to fog faintly in the evening air still drifting in through the open door. He leaned back in his seat as Felix finally lowered himself into the chair across from him. "Congratulations on your marriage, by the way."

"Thanks, I guess." Felix said it flat, distracted, glancing back toward Dune still hovering near the doorway. "Come sit. This is Anthony." He turned back around. "Dune."

She crossed the room and sat, setting the bag of bread down on the table between them. "You are Anthony. Felix’s older brother, working for an aristocrat."

"Okay, okay." Felix cut in fast. "You don’t need to explain all that, he already knows exactly who he is." Please don’t say the other thing. Please don’t say Anthony sent you.

Dune nodded once, understanding enough not to continue, and fell silent.

Anthony’s eyes lingered on her a moment longer, something quietly calculating behind them, before shifting back to Felix. "You told her about me?"

"Is that a problem?"

Anthony didn’t answer that directly, just nodded once and moved on. "Jackson came to see me last week." He reached into his coat and drew out a black chain, setting it down carefully on the table between them, the metal catching what little light the room had left. "Said it was from Father."

"Looks expensive." Felix leaned in slightly, studying it. "What’s it do?"

"Haven’t used it yet." Anthony’s fingers stayed near it, not quite touching. "He mentioned you got something from Mother too."

"Yeah. A set of cards." Felix’s gaze drifted somewhere distant for a second. "Haven’t used mine either."

Anthony tapped the table twice, slow, deliberate, like he was working up to the actual reason he’d come. "I got a letter two days ago. They want me in the capital."

"Good for you, I guess." Felix shrugged. "They say why?"

"I want you to come with me."

"What? No."

"Why not?"

"I’m doing fine here." Felix’s eyes cut toward Dune for half a second. "And I’ve got priorities now."

"You could bring her along too. The capital’s not exactly short on room."

"No. Just, no." Felix’s jaw tightened. "If that’s the whole reason you’re here, then we’re done talking."

"How much longer are you going to keep doing this?" Anthony’s voice stayed level, but something underneath it had sharpened. "You’re wasting away out here, taking scraps of work that barely cover your rent. You know that as well as I do."

"What’s wrong with what I’m doing?"

"You know exactly what’s wrong with it." Anthony’s eyes hardened further. "You’re still blaming yourself for what happened, still stuck on Grandfather’s death like it happened yesterday. When are you finally going to accept it was an accident?"

"Don’t talk to me like you understand any of it." Felix’s own gaze turned just as hard. "You weren’t even there when it happened."

"Doesn’t matter whether I was there or not. Doesn’t change the fact that they’re gone, either of them. All that matters now is whether you keep moving forward or not. Grandfather never would’ve wanted you frozen in place like this." Anthony watched the faint tremor working its way through his brother’s hands. "Everyone makes mistakes, Felix. That doesn’t mean you get to just stop living because of one."

"I killed him." The words came out barely above a whisper, all the fight draining out of Felix’s voice at once. "It was me. I lost control, and I couldn’t stop it. And I’m never going to let that happen to anyone else again, even if it means staying exactly like this forever." He forced something like a smile onto his face. "You want the capital? Go. Get stronger, do whatever Mom and Dad would’ve wanted from you. But me, I’m fine right where I am."

Anthony pressed two fingers hard against his temple and sat with that for a long, heavy moment. "Fine. If that’s really what you want, then go ahead. Waste the rest of your life here." He rose from his chair, pulled a small pouch free from his coat, and slid it across the table. "Go clear your debts. I hear about them constantly, and frankly it’s starting to grate on me."

"Thanks." Felix scooped it up without hesitation.

Anthony walked past him toward the door, pausing just before he stepped through it. "You’re not actually changing, Felix. You’re just getting better at hiding what you are from everyone around you. And one day, that’s going to cost you more than you think."

Felix looked at his vanishing figure for a long moment, before he pulled his gaze back. He patted Dune’s head and smiled. "Nothing he said was true. He’s just jealous of me."

"Yes." Dune replied calmly.

"Yeah, nothing is going to happen to you. When I’m around." He nodded to himself, more to convince his own chest than anything else, and turned to the pouch Anthony had left behind. "Now let’s see how much is inside."

He opened it and gold coins spilled into his palm, catching what little light was left in the room. He counted them twice just to be sure. "Ten of them. He was really earning good."

He leaned back in his chair, turning the coins over one by one, running the numbers in his head. Ten gold coins. Enough to cover the debt to Mira, enough for the tavern owner, enough for the rest of the people he owed. Maybe even enough to leave a little behind for food that wasn’t scraps.

The next day he set out early, pouch tucked close to his side. He went from shop to shop, tavern to tavern, placing coins into hands one after another. Mira barely looked up when he paid her back in full, interest included, but the tavern owner gave him a long stare before counting the coins twice, like he expected them to be fake. By the time the sun dropped low, Felix had visited every single person who had lent him money over the past months. His pouch was lighter, but for the first time in a long while, his chest felt lighter too.

The week after that passed quietly. Felix spent his mornings and afternoons trying to teach Dune how to control her Numen, walking her through breathing patterns and the basic forms of the flowing water style, step by step, over and over. He showed her how to pull the Numen from her core and let it move through her arms instead of forcing it out all at once. But no matter how many times he explained it, no matter how simple he broke it down, Dune could never quite grasp it. Her movements stayed stiff, her Numen scattered instead of flowed, and by the end of each session Felix was left rubbing his temple again, wondering what he was doing wrong.

Then Jackson came knocking on his door.

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