Witchbound Villain: Infinite Loop
241 – Winners and Losers

“Atchee!” Morgan jolted with an absolutely adorable, high-pitched sneeze. “Tchee!” Again. “Ahchoo! Sssh…”

Burn wiped her nose with his sleeve while she buttoned up her dress, her face still red, lips slightly pouting.

“You know, you could have said no. Just say the word, and I’d stop,” Burn said, dabbing at the remnants of her tears.

“I don’t like saying no,” she huffed, glaring at him like it was his fault.

“Oh, so my feelings are the only thing that matters here?” Burn raised a brow.

“Intimacy between spouses is a form of worship, and I’m not about to rob us of our divine right,” she grumbled, arms crossed. “And technically, I started it.”

“Then what’s with the pout, Madam?” He asked, unimpressed.

“Why did you bring up my age?!” Morgan exploded.

“Haaaaaa…” Burn let out the world’s longest, most suffering sigh before slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of stubborn potatoes. “I’ve committed a grave sin. I shall repent.”

Morgan shrieked, pinching his side, making him jolt, and he immediately retaliated by smacking her butt. She shrieked again.

“So what if you’re younger?! You look older, anyway!” she snapped, kicking her feet.

Burn chuckled low and deep, the sound practically reverberating from his chest.

“Are we really spouses, though?” Burn mused, gazing up at the sky like some philosopher pondering the mysteries of life. “No wedding. No vows. Kinda sus.”

“It’s fine. I handled it,” Morgan said, far too casually.

“…Handled it how?”

“Secret.”

“When, Morgan?” Burn pressed. “Tell me exactly when you decided to unite us before God.”

Morgan threw her head back and belted out, “Laaaaa lalalalala laaaaa lalalaa~!”

“I’m not putting you down until you spill,” Burn declared, casually using his foot to set her heels upright like a man with all the time in the world.

Morgan sighed, long-suffering. “It was the resurrection spell, okay? Now put me down.”

“The first time we did it?” Burn asked, wiping the dirt off the bottom of her feet with his palm, still carrying her like a prized sack of flour.

“Yeah,” Morgan admitted as he finally lowered her, guiding her freshly cleaned feet into her shoes. “It was… actually a Saint’s wedding ceremony. The vow I said when we had it… it gave you a healing boost, the right to be my paladin, and…”

“And?” Burn straightened her up, waiting. “The right to get a head from the Saint anytime, anywhere?”

Morgan’s face went red. She looked away, pouting, before giving the tiniest, most reluctant nod.

Burn threw his head back and howled with laughter.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Burn’s laughter cut off as he shot her a sharp glare. “I spent nights feeling guilty for not giving you a proper wedding.”

“Good! I want a proper wedding too!” Morgan huffed, arms crossed like a victorious general. But then, slowly, her scowl softened into something shy, almost coquettish. “When?”

Burn smiled, brushing a stray blade of grass from her hair. “Soon.” He dipped down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, murmuring, “It’ll be the biggest wedding this realm has ever seen.”

With that, he tugged her hand and started leading her back toward the mansion. “And let’s invite those Outsiders too—proper courtesy and all that.”

Morgan instantly recoiled. “Eh? Are you trying to stir up trouble on our wedding day?”

“Who, me?” Burn shrugged. “Wouldn’t dare.”

She gave him a long, skeptical stare as they walked. He didn’t even need to look at her to feel it.

Then, in a voice so casual it was almost chilling, Burn added, “If even I don’t dare, no one would.”

The night grew darker.

***

The man sat slumped against the damp stone wall, his wrists resting limply on his knees, his fingers curled inward like they had forgotten what it was like to hold something of value.

His dark hair, once unmarred by time, now bore streaks of silver—unrushed, creeping reminders that even kings and monsters bowed to age. His purple eyes, sharp even in the dim light, flickered open and shut, though whether out of exhaustion or sheer disinterest in his surroundings was debatable.

It wasn’t the worst room he’d been in. No rats so far, at least. Just him, the silence, and the occasional drop of water from the ceiling, falling with the meticulous patience of someone who had all the time in the world. Which, to be fair, was more than he could say for himself.

He shifted slightly, the chains at his ankles clinking in protest. Ah, right. The iron-clad accessory set. A gift from his ever-thoughtful fate.

Alive? Sure. Barely. But what was life when stripped of purpose, power, and even the basic dignity of a well-lit room? Not that he ever deserved it.

Tap…

Tap… tap… tap…

Footsteps?

Light. Careful. Hesitant, but deliberate. Approaching with the kind of restraint that spoke of reluctance, or perhaps, dread.

Closer… closer…

His head remained bowed, his line of sight granting him nothing more than a pair of satin shoes. Delicate—once pristine, now ruined by mud. A fitting metaphor, really.

"Rafaye," came the whisper. Familiar. Too familiar. The kind that pulled at something buried deep, something he had long since learned to ignore.

He lifted his face.

Celia.

His most loyal wife. His first love. His truest love. The only one who had refused to leave, long after the titles, the power, and the pretense had crumbled into dust.

And yet, she looked twenty years older. Curious, considering it had only been a handful of days since she had stood as the noblest woman in the realm—his realm.

Just days ago, she had been untouched by time, never looking a day past thirty. But today, standing before him in the filth of his ruin, she looked every bit the widow she was never supposed to be.

All reminded him that he was no longer king, and she was no longer queen.

"Rafaye..."

Her voice cracked, swallowing a sob. She reached for him, but—ah. How tragic.

The distance between them was more than just space.

Even if he could hear how the narration of fate depicted them, he would agree. How cold and cruel, how sarcastic and mocking. He had thought death would arrive sooner than retribution.

"Rafaye, please..." she called once more—the third time, as if repetition might somehow bend fate.

"Don't be foolish. Leave."

"I will beg for you. Tell them you know nothing, please..." Celia whispered, her knees nearly brushing the filthy ground.

Rafaye jolted upright.

In an instant, he surged forward, his hand slipping through the steel bars, catching her knees before they could so much as graze the stone. But fate, ever the bitter jester, had other plans. The chains on his ankles tripped him, and his entire front met the cold floor in a graceless embrace.

"Rafaye...!" Celia straightened her knees so fast it was as if his touch burned like fresh molten iron.

"I promised you'd never kneel for anything ever again."

Rafaye's fierce, bloodshot eyes locked onto hers, filled with unshed tears and filth, but mostly, as always, with something far worse—unyielding devotion.

"Please..." Celia silently sobbed. "Rafaye, I..."

She tenderly tried to pull him up, brushing the wet sand and dirt from his body as if she could somehow cleanse more than just the filth. "It's not hard to beg."

"I've taken the blame for the deaths of your legitimate and illegitimate children. I've taken the blame for everything you did to secure power. I've even killed the Prime Minister. Begging for you, even when we were only children, was the least difficult thing I've ever done."

Celia Angemoux smiled—a tired, knowing smile, the kind only a woman with nothing left to lose could wear. "It's okay to use me one last time."

"This time, it's different," the man glared, his voice raw with something dangerously close to desperation.

But she only shook her head. "I've always been the evil queen. It’s no different."

Even their only son, Locan, saw her as the murderer of his half-siblings. There was no redemption left to chase.

"But you didn’t know about the Demon Lord. Only I did," Rafaye muttered, shaking his head like a man trying to wake from a nightmare.

"So what?" Celia glared back, her eyes damp with grief and defiance. "Do you understand how much I love you now?"

"I'll take all the blame in the world... for you, Rafaye."

She pulled his head into her embrace, and her tears fell onto his cheek. Tragic, really—how he had spent his life trying to put distance between them, convinced that love was just another cruelty in disguise.

How he had tried, in his own backwards way, to protect her by keeping her in the dark. How he thought one touch would taint her, as if his very existence was made of thorns.

All those years of cold shoulders, cold words, cold nights. All his calculated efforts to make her despise him, to push her away from his rotting soul—only for her to wade into the filth anyway. To stand beside him in the trenches, sinking into the same mud, smiling as she did so.

Only for her to take all the blame for him.

Why hadn’t he just loved her, then? Why had he clung to his damned principles when he had already shaken hands with the devil? He couldn’t even hold onto the one thing he truly wanted.

The children he sacrificed for the Demon Lord’s experiments, his own blood spilled for power. The ruthless games, the schemes, the killings, the dirty dealings dressed up as politics—the very things that led him to damnation in the first place.

What had they ever been worth if, in the end, he couldn’t even be with the only woman he had ever loved?