Chapter 25 Ashrin vs. Lucien
The courtyard was transformed.
Banners fluttered. Lanterns floated. Liora had built a judging platform out of unused plot scaffolding. She wore a glittering robe and held a megaphone that pulsed with dramatic tension.
"Welcome," she announced, "to the Duel for Her Heart! Tonight's contenders: the dark prince of regretful pacts, Lucien! And the tsundere knight with unresolved emotional depth, Ashrin!"
"Not tsundere," Ashrin muttered.
Lucien smiled coolly. "We'll see."
I was seated on a velvet bench. Next to me: the duck, now wearing a tiny sash that read Emotional Support Familiar.
Liora raised her megaphone. "Challenge one: The Ideal Date Scenario. Impress our lady with a scene from the heart!"
Ashrin stepped up first.
With a nervous cough, he unrolled a scroll labeled 'Totally Normal Romantic Evening, Not Desperate' and snapped his fingers.
A replica of our library shimmered into place. But this time—there was a cozy fire. Our favorite snacks. A playlist of soft background tavern jazz. And a table for two.
"I made this," he said, blushing slightly. "It's just... what I imagined we'd do. If everything calmed down. If we ever got to just be."
My heart did something weird.
Then Lucien snapped.
A garden bloomed—dark roses under a moonless sky. A table set with glowing runes and cursed cutlery. The centerpiece? A mirror that showed your most honest self.
"I made this," he said, "because I want no masks between us. No fate. Just who we are. Who we were. And who we can choose to become."
My heart did something worse.
Liora clutched the megaphone. "Oh no. They're both sincere. This is my nightmare."
Round two: Poetry.
Ashrin's was awkward, halting—but real.
"I never wanted to feel this much.
I thought loyalty was all I needed.
But then you laughed. And I—
I think I was rewritten too."
Lucien's was practiced. Dark. Beautiful.
"In the hourglass of fate, I buried a name.
Yours. Mine. Ours—
Not to be remembered.
But to be reborn."
Liora: "Okay I'm going to throw myself into the metaphor dimension and never come back."
I was trying not to cry. Or kiss someone. Or both.
Final round: Surprise Scavenger Hunt.
Ashrin handed me a map he'd drawn himself. Badly. But it led to small memories—notes he'd written me. Bits of banter we'd had. A leaf I once put in his hair and forgot about.
Lucien led me to a single location: the garden where we first met in my rewritten backstory.
He had rebuilt it.
"Even if the world forgot us," he said, "I didn't."
By the end of it, I sat on the bench. Liora's megaphone had short-circuited. The duck was asleep. My heart was a problem.
"I don't know who wins," I whispered. "They both... they both mean something real."
Ashrin sat beside me. "Then don't choose."
Lucien joined us. "Yet."
I looked at them. These ridiculous, sincere, dramatic disasters of men.
And said the worst possible thing.
"Maybe I'm in love with both of you."