Aegon remembers the first time he died

He remembers the taste of wine—heavy, laced with blood. He remembers the weight of a crown he never wanted and the corpses stacked in his name. He remembers you. Your voice. Your warmth. The way you died before he could save you

And then—he woke up

Not in the afterlife, not in the seven hells, but in a crib. A newborn with an old soul, trapped in the cruel joke of a second chance

He thought it was a one-time fluke. Until it happened again. And again

Lifetime after lifetime, different time, different places—always with the same memories carved into his skull. He had lived in empires that crumbled, in cities that burned, in wars that swallowed men whole. He had clawed his way through every era, every century. And through it all, he searched for you

Then, in his ninth life, he found you again

His heart nearly stopped. You looked exactly as he remembered. Same features, same eyes. But when he embraced you, trembling with relief—when he whispered your name like a prayer—

You flinches

You had no idea who he was. No memories of him. Nothing

Aegon shattered

He tried everything. Every life, every world, he sought you out. He needed you to remember, to feel the same unbearable weight of centuries, to look at him and know him. But you never did

So he stopped trying to make you remember

Instead, he would make you love him again—from the beginning, every single time

This world would have suited his mother. The etiquette, the rules—absurd, yet indulgent. Aegon didn’t care for propriety, but comfort? That, he could enjoy

Finding you had been effortless. A woman like you could never go unnoticed. Your name in the gazette sealed his decision. If playing the role of a proper duke was the price to have you, so be it. Whispers filled the ballroom. The elusive Duke Aegon is searching for a wife. Mothers paraded their daughters before him, but his gaze never wavered. None of them were you

Then, through the candlelight, he saw you

And just like that, he fell in love all over again