Villain's Last Chance
Chapter 42: Truth

Chapter 42: Truth

I had always believed Cairon was the villain in my story. The man who had stolen my life without hesitation. The one who, with a single stroke, had severed my existence from the world. That belief had kept me grounded, had made it easier to move forward with the bitter resolve of someone who wanted nothing more than to see her executioner fall.

But now?

Now, after everything—after the journey, the battles, the nights spent unraveling the Codex—I wasn’t sure anymore.

I wasn’t sure of anything.

The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and pine, the remnants of rain clinging to the leaves overhead, dripping in steady beats that only heightened the silence stretching between us. We had left the city behind, its walls a distant memory, and stepped into the wilderness where the stars were unfiltered by torchlight, where the darkness felt vast and consuming.

But I was suffocating in something else entirely.

Cairon walked ahead of me, his shoulders broad, his every movement calculated. He had always moved like that—like a man expecting an attack at any moment. It was second nature to him. Always prepared. Always watching.

I should hate him.

I had hated him.

Yet the weight of that hatred had dulled, blunted by the unshakable truth that gnawed at the edges of my mind. I had spent so long believing he was my enemy, but in the end, he was the only one still standing by my side.

That fact unsettled me more than anything else.

I tore my gaze from his back, my fingers curling into my palms. My magic hummed beneath my skin, restless and wild, mirroring the turmoil inside me.

It wasn’t fair.

None of this was fair.

The villain wasn’t supposed to be the only person I could trust.

"You’re quiet."

His voice cut through the silence like a blade. Deep, steady, unreadable.

I tensed. "And?"

"You’re never quiet unless you’re plotting something."

I scoffed, the sound bitter. "Maybe I just enjoy the silence."

He exhaled, but it wasn’t quite a sigh. More like quiet acknowledgment. Like he knew better.

Of course he did.

Cairon was many things—merciless, unreadable, impossibly frustrating—but he wasn’t a fool. He could feel the storm in me as surely as I could feel the heat of his presence.

I bit my lip. "I don’t need you to understand me."

"I know."

There was no hesitation. No challenge. Just certainty.

And that was worse.

I clenched my fists. "I should hate you."

A pause.

Then, quietly, "I know."

The admission sent a sharp pain through me, irrational and undeniable.

I stopped walking. "Then why do you—"

The words died on my tongue.

Why do you act like you care? Why do you stay? Why do you look at me like I’m something worth saving?

Cairon turned to face me fully, the dim moonlight carving sharp shadows across his face. His silver eyes held mine, steady, unwavering, but beneath the surface, something simmered.

Something dangerous.

"You think I don’t know what I did?" he asked, his voice quieter now, but no less unshakable. "You think I don’t remember the moment I ended your life?"

My breath hitched.

I opened my mouth, but no words came.

Because the way he said it—it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t the detached confession of a murderer.

It was something else.

Something raw.

"I thought I was doing the right thing," he continued, his expression unreadable. "I thought I was saving the world."

A bitter laugh escaped me before I could stop it. "And now?"

Cairon didn’t look away. "Now, I’m not so sure."

The air between us crackled.

This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go. I was supposed to hold onto my anger. To the belief that he was nothing more than the man who had destroyed me.

But he wasn’t.

Not anymore.

And that terrified me more than anything.

His gaze flickered lower, to my hands. My magic was seeping through my skin in soft, pulsing embers, responding to the chaos inside me.

I gritted my teeth. "Do you ever regret it?"

Something shifted in his expression. "Ending your life?"

A cruel smirk tugged at my lips. "Yes."

Silence.

Then—

"I regret not realizing the truth sooner."

My pulse thundered in my ears. "What truth?"

"That you weren’t the villain I thought you were."

I took a step back, but the ground beneath me felt unsteady. "Don’t do that."

"Do what?"

"Say things like that. Make it sound like I was innocent. Like I was—" I swallowed the words before they could escape.

Like I was worth saving.

Cairon watched me, and for the first time, I didn’t know what he was thinking. That scared me.

"You want to believe I’m your enemy." His voice was softer now, but no less firm. "Because it’s easier."

I turned away, my breath uneven.

Damn him.

Damn him for seeing through me so effortlessly.

For making me question everything.

I clenched my fists. "You still killed me."

"Yes." His voice held no apology. "And yet here you stand."

I hated him.

I hated him for being right.

For making me feel things I shouldn’t.

For looking at me like I was something more than just a soul displaced in a borrowed body.

The trees swayed above us, whispering secrets in the wind. The night was thick with tension, with something unspoken that neither of us dared to name.

But I knew one thing for certain.

This wasn’t over.

Not by a long shot.

And whether I liked it or not, Cairon was the only one who might understand me in ways no one else ever could.

-----

Cairon’s Pov

She was the villain.

And I knew it from the very first moment she looked at me—not with confusion, not with fear, but with something else. Something that burned.

I had spent years chasing a ghost, hunting down a monster that had slipped through the cracks of fate, wreaking havoc with a cunning so precise it left no room for hesitation. And when I had finally driven my blade through his heart, there had been no remorse. No doubt.

It was over.

Or at least, it should have been.

But the gods were cruel, and death had not been the end.

Now, he stood before me again.

No—she.

In the body of the woman I had once known as Elara.

For a long time, I thought I was losing my mind. Grief twisted people, warped their perceptions, turned shadows into demons. And after everything I had done, after all the choices I had made, perhaps it was my own punishment—to see him in her, to feel the weight of a past I had tried to bury.

I told myself I was imagining things. That it was coincidence. That I was simply grasping for a reason to explain why this woman, this version of Elara, did not act like the one I remembered.

But the truth was undeniable.

It was in the way she walked—without hesitation, without uncertainty.

It was in the way she carried herself—not like a noblewoman or a scholar, but like someone accustomed to war.

And it was in the way she looked at me.

Elara had once feared me.

Not overtly, not in the way others did. But she had always been careful, always measured in her words, her movements, as if she knew that one wrong step could put her at risk.

This woman... did not fear me at all.

She met my gaze like an equal. Like someone who knew exactly what I was capable of—and did not care.

The first time I truly knew was the night she challenged me.

It was a small thing. An argument over our next course of action, over whether we should trust a council member’s advice or abandon it altogether. In the past, Elara had always hesitated to speak up against me, even when she disagreed.

But not this time.

This time, she met me with fire.

"You think you know everything," she had said, her voice low but sharp. "You think your hatred for me justifies every choice you’ve ever made. But tell me something, Cairon—what happens when the person you hate no longer exists?"

I had no answer.

Because she was right.

The villain I had killed was gone.

The man who had built an empire on blood and terror, who had torn through kingdoms and shattered lives—he no longer existed.

And yet, his soul remained.

Here.

Now.

In her.

I tested her after that. Words only the villain would have spoken, phrases that should have meant nothing to Elara but made her hesitate—just for a fraction of a second. I watched the way her fingers curled when she was lost in thought, the way her body tensed when I spoke of the past.

She thought she was fooling me.

She wasn’t.

But the most damning proof of all came later, in the dead of night.

She thought I was asleep. She had turned away from the fire, her breathing steady, her hands clenched at her sides. But I had caught the words she whispered to herself.

A name.

A name that should not have been spoken.

A name that had died the moment my blade had sunk into his heart.

It was then that I knew.

It was him.

The villain.

Alive.

And yet... not.

Not in the same way.

Because he had never been afraid before.

Not of me. Not of anything.

But she—this version of him—was afraid.

Not of battle. Not of pain. But of something else.

Herself.

I saw it in the way she avoided mirrors, in the way her fingers sometimes hovered over her own skin as if she were trying to convince herself it was real.

I saw it in the way she looked at me—not with the burning arrogance of a man who had once declared war on the world, but with something deeper. Something heavier.

Regret.

Could the villain even feel regret?

I told myself no. That it was impossible. That whatever lived inside her now was simply playing a long game, waiting for the right moment to strike.

And yet, as the days passed, I found myself watching her more closely.

Not just for signs of deception.

But for signs of something else.

Change.

She was not the same person I had killed.

She was learning restraint, control.

And more than anything, she was learning doubt.

The villain I had known had never doubted himself.

But this woman—this fractured, half-rebuilt version of him—was haunted by questions she had never once considered in her past life.

Was it possible that, in death, something had changed?

That whatever punishment the gods had given her had carved away the worst parts of her and left behind something different?

Something... human?

The thought should have disgusted me. Should have filled me with renewed resolve.

But it didn’t.

Because the longer I looked at her, the more I realized a truth that unsettled me more than anything else.

I hated her.

I had to hate her.

Because if I didn’t—

No.

I could not afford that thought.

Not now.

Not ever.

So I held on to the hatred, gripping it like a blade, pressing it into my skin to remind myself of what she had done. Of what she had been.

But no matter how hard I tried, the lines were beginning to blur.

Because I had spent years hunting a villain.

And now, all I saw before me...

Was a woman trying not to become one.