I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)

"...and a rotating sweep along the lower stone corridors every twenty minutes."

"But have we not already tightened the security around the palace?"

"Do you really think that’s enough? We can’t afford to keep our guard down. His Majesty has made it abundantly clear that the safety of the royal household will not be compromised twice. We are tightening the net inside before another incident like Lady Iryna’s poisoning occurs. Is that understood?"

"Understood, Lord Harlond." The captain guard straightened his back, snapping a crisp salute. "I’ll double the shifts immediately. Not so much as a stray cat will slip past the inner doors."

"See that they don’t," Harlond said quietly.

Ten minutes later, Harlond walked out of the guardhouse and stepped into the wide, cold expanse of the grand corridor. He stopped near a high stone pillar, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched the deployment in silence.

Heavy iron armor clanked against the floor. Guards were already taking their positions at every archway, their hands resting on the hilts of their swords, their faces stiff beneath their visors. Inside and outside, the palace was turning into a cage.

His shoulders, usually held straight and firm, dipped slightly beneath the heavy silence of the palace wing.

He was tired. Not the kind sleep could fix, but a deeper exhaustion that had settled into his bones.

Harlond began his slow walk down the wide hallway, each step quiet and steady. He knew every loose stone in these floors. He knew which iron torches sputtered when the midnight wind picked up from the courtyard, and he knew exactly how many paces it took to walk from the King’s desk to the guard post.

He had known Alderon long before the man wore a heavy golden crown. Back when Alderon was merely a sharp-eyed prince who sometimes shut himself away in the gallery, spending endless hours smudging charcoal across blank canvases, Harlond had been there, a young, disciplined aide tasked with keeping the prince’s inkwells full and his schedule intact.

Harlond knew the exact shade of red the King’s eyes turned when a councilor was three seconds away from being executed. He knew that Alderon took his tea bitter, hated the smell of wet jasmine after rain, and could spot an exaggerated troop tally on a parchment from across a marble room. He knew the names of the men Alderon secretly hated, the debts he held over the high dukes, and the precise, terrifying threshold where his patience snapped into ruthless violence.

There was no secret in King Alderon’s life that Harlond had not held in his own hands first, no letter burned, no decree signed, no quiet execution ordered without Harlond standing two paces behind him in the shadow of the velvet drapes.

In those days, Harlond’s job had been relatively simple. He gave practical, grounded advice. He reminded the young prince to eat his meals before the meat turned cold. He nudged him to sleep when the candles burned down to wet nubs of wax. He mediated minor disputes between ambitious court tutors and shielded the prince’s private hobbies from a demanding royal father.

Harlond had always been good at it. He was practical, rarely impressed by courtly praise, and fiercely devoted to the survival and stability of the man he served.

He knew everything. Which was precisely why the cold, quiet dread currently knotting in Harlond’s chest was heavier than it had ever been in his years of faithful service.

But as the prince grew into a king, the advice Harlond was forced to give had grown heavier, darker, and far more dangerous.

Harlond paused near a deep stone alcove, looking out through a narrow arched window at the dark courtyard below. A squad of four heavy-armored guards marched past in the gloom, the first wave of the doubled internal watch Alderon had just demanded.

Harlond closed his eyes for a moment, leaning his shoulder against the cool stone wall. His mind drifted back across the decades memories he generally preferred to keep buried deep beneath his official duties.

Among all the political scandals, border skirmishes, and bloody court purges Harlond had helped navigate over the years, there was one matter he had never been able to truly manage, one quiet, festering wound in King Alderon’s chest that no amount of sensible advice could ever heal.

Nerissa Valtrane.

The late Duchess of Valtrane. Zarius Valtrane’s mother.

Harlond had seen it coming. He had tried, in his cautious, respectful way, to steer the young prince away from the edge of that cliff. He had quietly advised Alderon on the absolute necessity of a proper royal alliance.

Harlond opened his eyes, staring blankly at his own faint reflection in the glass window.

Alderon had buried his obsession deep beneath layers of royal authority, but he had never killed it. In secret, behind locked doors, the King had painted her. Over and over again. Capturing the curve of her throat, the quiet strength in her eyes, the exact way the light hit her hair when she walked through the palace gardens during state visits.

As an aide, Harlond’s golden rule had always been strict: As long as a secret does not threaten the stability of the throne or the King’s ability to rule, let it slide.

A monarch was allowed his silent vices. A king was allowed to bleed in private, so long as he looked like stone in public. So, Harlond had turned a blind eye to the keys Alderon kept tucked in his desk.

He had pretended not to notice the faint smell of paint that clung to the King’s robes late at night. He had personally guarded the door to that hidden gallery, ensuring no servant or court noble ever stumbled upon the canvas that held Nerissa’s likeness.

Or so Harlond had believed.

Now, standing in the cold hallway years later, Harlond felt a deep, sickening dread settling in his gut. She was long gone, but the ghost of that obsession was still breathing inside the palace walls.

If someone had truly slipped into that hidden room... if someone had seen that portrait...

Harlond drew a slow breath and forced himself to calm down.

So what if they had?

People saw strange things in the palace all the time. A forgotten room. An old portrait. A piece of the king’s past that had been left untouched for years. None of that meant anything on its own. There was no reason for anyone to connect it to anything else unless they were given one.

And that was exactly what he could not afford to do.

Harlond pushed himself off the stone wall and resumed his walk down the corridor. His face smoothed out, instantly hardening back into the stoic mask of the King’s chief aide.

He couldn’t undo the past. He couldn’t strip the dangerous, foolish longing out of the King’s heart, just as he couldn’t stop the Crown Prince from watching his father like a hawk waiting for a carcass to drop. All Harlond could do was keep moving, carry out the absurd orders, and post the guards along the inner halls.

I gave you good advice, Alderon, Harlond thought quietly into the empty air. I told you long ago to let go of those feelings.

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