Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
233 – A Prince Without a Crown

Locan and Nahwu woke far earlier than anyone had expected—perhaps even earlier than some would have preferred. Their eyes opened on the same day they had been kidnapped, though by then, the day itself had already grown old.

Locan was the first to regain full awareness, and in true firstborn fashion, his immediate instinct was to reassert control. He sought out his mother, reached for his sister, but was met with an abrupt and undeniable reality: the guards at Wilderwood Capital Mansion did not move for him. They did not bow, nor did they part to clear his way.

That was when he understood.

He was no longer the first prince. No longer royalty. In their eyes, he had become something else entirely—something less.

Nahwu, when she woke, still had the luxury of ignorance. She and Locan carried on in a daze, unaware that they were not merely confined but quarantined. It took days before the truth was offered to them, piece by bitter piece.

Yes, Inkia had fallen. No, it had not been a war—at least, not in the way wars are typically defined. There had been no battlefield, no bloodied corpses left in the wake of conquest. Just pressure. Just inevitability. The kind of war that does not need casualties to leave its victims feeling utterly defeated.

Then, the world erupted.

Wave after wave of shocking news tore through the continent, carried by frantic messengers and breathless couriers, flooding post offices with ink-stained reports of events that no one could quite believe—except, of course, for those who had already resigned themselves to the inevitable.

At the center of it all stood the most staggering revelation: the Kingdom of Luminus had officially aligned itself under Soulnaught’s Imperial Banner. By the decree of the Original Saint, no less.

And, as many hastened to add, "the way it should be"—as if Burn’s rise to supremacy had been an open secret all along, an outcome so obvious that it hardly warranted discussion.

Which, frankly, was nonsense.

Burn’s so-called ‘achievements’ had never been announced, nor were they paraded for the world to admire. There were no proclamations, no great retellings of his triumphs.

And yet, despite the silence, a select few had seen enough—just enough—to understand. To stop questioning. To surrender before they could be crushed.

And as it turned out, those few were all it took to tilt the scales.

Now, with only Wintersin left standing, even the Outsiders—those self-proclaimed harbingers of upheaval—had begun to feel the heat. The moment they set foot on solid ground after crossing the sky’s fractured seam, they knew.

The air had changed. The tides had turned.

By the third day, they were finally allowed to see Blair. She was unconscious, her still form a stark contrast to the chaos that had upended their world. Headmaster Bianca Lumine informed them, with the kind of calm only a seasoned academic and wielder of holy power could manage, that Blair had been cursed.

Locan was horrified and spent most nights by her side, leaving only when he was forced to.

By the fifth day, Locan was granted an audience with his mother. She embraced him, checked for wounds, reassured herself that he was whole—because in the end, that was all that mattered to her.

The rest? The fall of their kingdom, the shifting tides of power, the weight of their uncertain future? Secondary concerns at best. Still, she told him most of what had transpired beyond their confinement, and the reality set in with sobering clarity: they had lost everything. Mercy was now their only currency.

By the seventh day, Rafaye Inkor was dragged from the ruins and sentenced to death. The news reached them, albeit on a delay, as if fate had the courtesy to let them digest one tragedy at a time.

On that same day, Saint Lucia Academy resumed its usual operations—or at least, that was the official narrative. Students were permitted to take leave for family circumstances, though the emphasis on “permitted” was more a formality than an actual option.

Most were expected to return, attendance thinly veiled as a duty rather than a choice. It was now clear: Saint Lucia had never been just a school. It was a chessboard, and its students? Convenient pieces in the grand game of political survival.

It was, after all, their last chance to pick the right side.

But Locan and Nahwu weren’t granted the same return to normalcy. They remained confined, shut away from the world beyond their walls.

"You can ask for help, you know," Nahwu said, breaking the silence.

"From who?" Locan shot back, his voice edged with frustration.

"From me." Nahwu met his gaze, unwavering. "You did nothing wrong. At least, not compared to me."

Locan frowned, suspicion creeping into his expression. "What do you mean?" He still didn’t know what had happened to Nahwu and her sister—because Nahwu had never told him.

Nahwu let out a slow sigh. "Ask the Elves for help. Through me," she said. "Though I don’t know if my words still carry any weight with them."

"What happened?" Locan’s worry deepened, his frustration now laced with genuine concern.

Nahwu looked down before finally speaking. She told him everything—about corruption, about how she had unknowingly poisoned her own sister, about how she had rebelled against the strongest forces in the world and was made to witness the truth.

It was a secret of the highest order. She had been explicitly warned never to speak of it to anyone from Inkia. But now, with everything pointing back to the Demon Lord, with Locan standing there, stripped of power and drowning in helplessness, she chose to tell him.

"I’m sorry. But I don’t trust Inkia anymore," Nahwu said, her voice quiet but firm. "I trust you—but not… you as a prince."

Locan fell silent. Everything was far worse than he had imagined. The Second Demon Lord…

"You’re saying… the people of Inkia… are involved with the Demon Lord?" Locan whispered, as if speaking the words too loudly might make them real.

That was when a firm knock echoed through the quarters they had been confined in for over a week. A guard's voice followed, steady and formal:

"Princess Nahwu, Her Majesty Queen Tashr and Her Highness Princess Shorof are here."

Locan’s eyes widened in shock, while Nahwu shot to her feet.

"Mother… and Sister?"

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