It was the morning of the next day.
Devin opened his eyes. The bright sunlight filtering through the grimy windowpane of the small apartment felt entirely, inherently undeserved. He lay perfectly still on the unfamiliar sheets, his dark eyes tracking the slow, lazy dance of dust motes in the air.
All his waking mind could conjure was the visceral, horrific image of Emerald. He saw her torn throat. He saw her lifeless, terrified eyes staring blankly at the rotting ceiling. He remembered the blood-soaked floors of his room, and the miraculous, clinical efficiency of his shining knight, Lotjed.
Devin slowly sat up. The heavy joints of his hijacked body popped loudly in the quiet, empty room.
He took a deep breath. The sharp, heavy scent of alchemical pine and industrial bleach immediately stung his nostrils. It completely, perfectly masked the heavy slaughterhouse copper that had choked the very same air just hours before.
He could easily spend the entire day sitting on the edge of this mattress, paralyzed by the ghosts of the past, pondering the terrifying, labyrinthine mystery that was Lotjed. How did an old man, operating hundreds of miles away from the ashes of Trangdar, manage a flawless crime scene cleaner's miracle in the beating heart of a foreign kingdom? Did the former head of royal security have an underground network of spies here? Did Lotjed command shadows that even King Arthur had been completely blind to?
But Devin didn't have the luxury of time to untangle the old assassin's secrets. Marinakas awaited.
He dragged himself off the bed and walked over to the small wooden washbasin. He plunged his hands into the freezing water and splashed it violently over Zain Ricky's face.
He gripped the edges of the ceramic basin, water dripping from his chin, and stared at his reflection. He looked at the dark, brooding eyes. He traced the strong, rough jawline. He thought about the hidden, highly volatile Cyprian venom lurking somewhere deep within the marrow of those bones.
He had to pretend as if all was perfectly well in the world. He had to walk out into the bustling, noisy streets of Reignn and put on his absolute best acting performance yet.
But as he stared deeply into the mirror, a chilling, deeply unsettling realization crept slowly up the back of his neck, freezing the blood in his veins.
It was sad. It was utterly, profoundly pathetic.
Aside from the initial, visceral state of raw panic when he had first awakened next to a maimed Emerald, Devin realized something terrifying.
He didn't feel sorry any longer.
The grief was simply gone. The agonizing, suffocating guilt that should have been crushing his chest into powder had evaporated like morning mist over a scorched battlefield.
Why? Devin gripped the edges of the ceramic basin harder, his knuckles turning a bruised, bloodless white.
Was it the venom? Was the experimental Cyprian chemical coursing through his hijacked veins aggressively rewriting his emotional responses, actively normalizing the act of brutal slaughter?
Or was it Zain Ricky's inherent, biological detachment? If this body was truly engineered from childhood to be a sleeper agent—a living biological weapon meant to eradicate its own kind—perhaps Zain's brain simply lacked the physical capacity for empathy.
Or... was it something far worse?
Was God's twisted curse of the Soul Swap fundamentally causing him to lose his humanity? With every jump, with every new skin he wore, did he leave a vital, irreplaceable piece of Prince Devin Trangdar behind in the blinding white void? Was he slowly becoming the exact monster he had sworn to destroy?
"Stop," Devin whispered to the empty room, his raspy voice cracking.
He quickly, forcefully suspended the terrifying thought. If he stared too long into that psychological abyss, he knew he would never leave the room. He threw on his simple, woven canvas work apron, forcing his mind to build a brick wall over the darkness, and began his journey to work.
The morning air of Reignn was incredibly crisp, biting sharply at his exposed forearms. The cobblestone streets were already alive with the mundane, loud chaos of commoners.
Merchants were loudly hawking their fresh wares from wooden stalls. Young UEI students were hurrying to early morning lectures with thick, heavy tomes tucked securely under their arms. The rhythmic, ringing strikes of blacksmiths hammering away echoed in the distance.
They were all so blessedly ignorant. Devin walked among them like a ghost, a lethal, blood-soaked predator masquerading perfectly as a sheep.
Throughout the walk, he meticulously built his alibi. He rehearsed the exact lines he would speak. He practiced the slight, worried furrow of his brow, tuning the precise pitch of a concerned colleague.
"Has anyone seen Emerald?" Devin muttered under his breath, testing the words on his tongue. "She didn't come by my place this morning. I hope she's not sick."
He ran the short script over and over in his head until the lie sounded like absolute, undeniable truth.
He finally arrived at the cafe. The brass bell above the heavy wooden door hung silently in the morning breeze. The wooden door sign was already spun to read 'Open'.
Dunkan was in.
The chef had always arrived first, long before the sun ever fully crested the horizon, to begin his meticulous kitchen cleaning and heavy prep work. Devin took a deep, steadying breath, bracing his nerves for the inevitable, probing interrogation, and pushed the door open.
He didn't stop in the dining area. He went straight to the kitchen, pushing through the swinging wooden doors.
Dunkan was standing over the massive, scarred chopping block. He was rhythmically dicing a large pile of root vegetables. His heavy steel blade moved like a silver blur, striking the wood with a terrifying, metronomic precision.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
"Good morning," Devin said, forcing Zain's raspy voice to sound completely ordinary.
Dunkan paused for a fraction of a second. He gave his standard, guttural grunt of acknowledgment from deep in his chest, and immediately resumed his rapid chopping. He didn't even look up from the vegetables.
And more importantly, he didn't ask a single question about Emerald.