Adrian's heart clenched violently.
The eyes staring back at him no longer held the usual confidence or pride. Instead, they shimmered with cunning, madness, and a kind of savage delight. He watched "himself" crouch down slowly, like a hunter admiring his prey, a lazy grin spreading across his face.
"You're awake, Adrian." The voice was brimming with undisguised pleasure, as if welcoming the climax of a long-awaited triumph. "Let me introduce myself. I am your twin brother—Arthur."
Adrian's eyes widened. Fear and fury surged inside him, swelling until they threatened to tear him apart. He tried to speak, to question, to scream, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make a single sound.
Arthur, clearly expecting this, smirked with cruel amusement.
"All thanks to you, I'm finally free. As a token of gratitude, I'll leave you this body."
Adrian's heart dropped. Only then did he realize where he was lying. He was on the same altar where the infant's body had once rested. No wonder the figure before him seemed so tall—it wasn't him that had changed. His soul had been trapped in that baby's lifeless body.
Why? How could this be happening?
Arthur seemed to read the question in his eyes. He began to speak, tone soaked with satisfaction and scorn.
"You're wondering why I did it, aren't you?" He chuckled, a flash of cold hatred flickering in his gaze. "Dear Adrian. Did you know I spent eighteen years trapped in this damned church? Every hour of every day, I was pinned down by the mark of the cross, scorched by holy water, shackled by Helmorin's sigil carved in ivory. Pain. Loneliness. You can't even begin to imagine it."
Adrian trembled inwardly. He wasn't heartless. Even now, bitter and shaken, he could feel the weight of Arthur's despair, how deep it ran.
But still—none of this was his fault. Why should he be made to pay?
Arthur snorted. His eyes locked on Adrian's, and his voice sharpened.
"Especially when I watched you, the honored prince, surrounded by love and luxury. You walked in sunlight. You had everything. Do you know how much I hated you? Why was it me who had to be sacrificed?"
By the end, Arthur was nearly shouting, his breath ragged, body trembling.
He paused for a moment, seeming to force his fury back down. When he spoke again, his voice was eerily calm.
"For a long time, I thought I'd be stuck here forever. The church's main sanctuary holds the Crown of Losanne. As long as it stayed there, my soul could never escape."
Arthur's eyes glinted with cunning.
"But then, fortune smiled on me."
He leaned closer, smiling as though delivering a secret.
"It was you, dear Adrian. All thanks to you. Because the crown had to be moved to the palace for your wedding, I was finally free to leave."
His laughter turned sharp with malice.
"At first, I only wanted to escape. But then I thought of you—and I couldn't stomach it. Why should you enjoy everything, while I rot like a rat in the dark?"
Adrian's heart twisted again. He had no defense. He had no voice.
Arthur leaned over him, eyes gleaming with madness.
"Do you want to know who told me about the soul exchange ritual?" he whispered. "It was the Archbishop. That sanctimonious old fraud. He was the one who had me nailed here, and yet it was his guilty conscience that betrayed him. During one of his prayers, he whispered the rite aloud before the statue. I was always listening."
His lips curled into a cruel smile.
"And you, Adrian. All I had to do was weep a little. You offered everything without hesitation."
He brought his lips close to Adrian's ear, his breath cold and mocking.
"You're so easy to deceive."
Adrian felt his soul ignite, burning with humiliation and rage. He had meant only to help, but now he had been thrown into a living nightmare.
Arthur smiled again, savoring his torment.
"Don't be so resentful," he said casually. "If you want to blame someone, blame yourself for being too naive. You lived too comfortably. Now it's your turn to understand what it means to be abandoned, forgotten, imprisoned."
He stood, brushed off his sleeves with slow deliberation, and straightened his collar.
"As for me," he said with a self-satisfied smirk, "I plan to enjoy your name, your title, and—your love."
Adrian's chest tightened. A chill gripped him.
Arthur paused deliberately before adding, in a voice as soft as it was cruel,
"You love your wife, don't you? That gentle, beautiful, kind girl—Liveta." He licked his lips as if savoring the taste of her name. "But you broke her heart for me."
He crouched one last time, his voice low and sinister.
"Don't worry. I'll take care of her. I'll hold her, kiss her, comfort her… until she forgets you completely."
Adrian thrashed inside his prison, screaming wordless rage into a silence that would not break. The pain and helplessness cut deeper than any blade.
Arthur turned toward the door. He paused only to cast one final, triumphant glance over his shoulder.
"Stay here, dear Adrian. Learn what real solitude feels like."
The door clicked shut behind him. Silence fell like a shroud.
Adrian lay on the cold wooden altar, frozen in a body too small to move, too weak to fight, his soul howling silently as despair consumed him inch by inch.