THE VILLIAN FELL FOR ME

(I Died Reading a Novel) "You're an i***t, Cassian." I muttered it right at my screen, sounding like an absolute lunatic in the dead quiet of my room. My eyes were practically bleeding after staring at the blue light for three hours straight, but I couldn't stop scrolling. It was nearly three in the morning. Outside, the rain was slamming against the glass, turning the window into a blurred sheet of silver. Everyone else in the house was dead asleep, but I was stuck on this random story site I’d found a few days ago, re-reading the final chapter of The Crown of Ashes for the third time. Not because it was good. Because I hated it. I hated it so much I’d spent the last hour mentally fighting with a fictional character. "Why would you even do that?!" I accidentally yelled, immediately clapping both hands over my mouth. I froze, holding my breath, listening for any shifting down the hall. If I woke my mum up at this hour, I’d be facing a heavy punishment tomorrow. When the house stayed quiet, I let out a breath and looked back down. There he was in the chapter illustration: Prince Cassian Valerius. The Blood Prince. For hundreds of chapters, this guy was the ultimate nightmare. He’d slaughtered nobles, crushed armies, betrayed his own blood, and nearly turned the capital to ash. Now, he was standing alone on a burning battlefield. Across from him stood Adrian Laurent, the perfect golden-boy hero. The final battle. The big climax everyone in the comments had been hyped for since the middle of the book. Cassian’s black coat was completely torn to shreds by the swords of the guards he’d fought off earlier. Blood was oozing down his face, and Ashfire was eating away at his body. Yet, the narration said he smiled. No pain, no anger—just a smile. I hated that smile. I knew exactly what it meant. Adrian was about to drive his sword straight through Cassian's chest, the kingdom would throw a party, and the book would just end. I sighed, staring at my ceiling. "At least tell him the truth." Because I knew his secret. The author had dropped the twist three chapters ago: Cassian didn't want the throne, and he didn't hate his family. He’d been trying to break the ancient Ashfire curse before it consumed the whole kingdom. Nobody in the actual book believed him. Only me, some random person reading a screen, and obviously that didn't make a bit of difference to the plot. I scrolled to the final paragraph, my stomach tightening with pure frustration. Cassian looked back at the burning capital one last time. For a split second, the narration described a weird feeling hitting him. Not fear. Not anger. Just regret. Then Adrian's blade pierced his chest. The hero dragged the steel out, blood pooling in the dirt. "Nooo," I groaned into my pillow, desperately scrolling back up to re-read it, hoping I’d misread the lines. "No, no, no." I threw myself backward, slamming my phone onto the mattress beside me. "This is complete garbage." After a few minutes of stewing in the dark, I picked the phone back up. Right beneath the art of Cassian’s dead body was the final line of the book: And thus, the villain died. I stared at it until I burst out into a tired, bitter laugh. "That's it? Seriously, that's it?" Two thousand pages of character building just to execute him and give the hero a generic happy ending. I clicked into the comment section. It was a total wasteland of people celebrating. “Finally! Adrian saved the kingdom!” one person wrote. “Cassian deserved it,” said another. Some lady commented, “Best ending ever! I love it!” I frowned so hard that my face ached. "You're all completely insane." My fingers flew across the keyboard: Cassian deserved better. I paused, my thumb hovering, then typed: The whole story would've been better if he had someone who actually understood him. I hit post, knowing it was going to spark a massive internet war. Honestly, arguing in comment sections was half the fun of reading online anyway. My phone buzzed almost instantly. A reply. Reader_483: lol maybe he just needed someone to fall in love with him. I snorted. "Yeah. Sure. Romance fixes everything." I typed a quick reply, locked the screen, and tossed it toward the bed. The room suddenly felt way too quiet and stuffy. I reached blindly for the glass of water on my desk, but my fingers misjudged the distance in the dark and tipped it over. Water rushed across the wood, soaking into my school papers. "Oh, come on!" I hissed under my breath, lunging out of bed to grab a towel. But my foot got completely tangled in my phone's charging cable and I lost my balance entirely. For one terrifying second, everything happened too fast. My shoulder slammed hard against the desk, the glass shattered on the floor, the room violently tilted sideways, and a heavy, suffocating darkness swallowed me whole. The first thing that brought me back was screaming. It wasn't the muffled sound of a TV downstairs or a nightmare from my own head. It was loud, chaotic, and right next to me. I forced my eyes open, but everything was a blur of bright orange. Fire. That was my first thought. The house was burning down. My second thought was that I must have died in the fall, and my third was that being dead felt way more painful than anyone ever warned me about. I tried to shift my weight, but a sharp spike of pain shot through my ribs, making me gasp. "He's awake! Get the water, his eyes are moving!" I blinked against the stinging air. The ceiling above me wasn't my smooth bedroom drywall; it was made of thick, heavy wooden beams. I looked around, my head swimming. Stone walls. A massive hearth. Clunky, medieval-looking furniture, and a single tallow candle sputtering on a table. I tried to sit up too fast. "Ah!" A massive headache exploded behind my eyes. A young girl rushed toward the bedside. "Master Evan!" I stared at her. She was wearing a heavy, gray peasant-style dress with her hair shoved back into a cloth tie. She looked completely terrified. "Where... where am I?" She froze, her hands hovering in the air. "What?" "Where am I?" I repeated, my voice sounding weirdly light and thin. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. "You're in your bedchamber, Master." "My room?" I looked around again. No computer. No desk. No light switches or phones. I pulled the heavy blankets down. I was wearing a loose, white linen shirt. My hands looked completely different—the skin was way too pale, the fingers narrower and younger. I touched my face, feeling sharp cheekbones I didn't recognize. "What happened to me?" "Master Evan, please don't frighten me," she whispered, stepping back. "Evan?" My heart gave a violent thud against my ribs. I stared right into her eyes. "What did you just call me?" "Master Evan... Evan Ardent." The entire room seemed to cold-fade into the background. A loud, high-pitched ringing filled my ears. Evan Ardent. No. No way. That wasn't a real name. I knew that name because I had literally just read it. Evan Ardent was a minor provincial noble. A background extra. He shows up for a split second during the royal banquet in Chapter Twelve, gets caught up in some political mess, and gets found dead by Chapter Thirty-One. He didn't even have any dialogue; he was just a disposable plot device to kickstart the hero's investigation. I dragged my legs out of bed, stumbling onto the rough, cold floorboards. "Master?" the maid called out. "What year is it?" I demanded, turning on her. She backed up a step, looking deeply confused. "The... the year 817, milord." My blood went completely cold. 817. That was the exact year The Crown of Ashes starts. I staggered backward, shaking my head. "No, no, no." "Master Evan?" I ignored her, lunging toward a tarnished silver mirror propped up on a washstand. The reflection staring back wasn't me at all. It was a young guy with messy dark brown hair, sickly pale skin, and wide, glassy gray-green eyes. It was the exact face from the character index illustration. The insignificant noble who dies before the real story even gets moving. I gripped the edge of the washstand so hard my knuckles turned white, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps. "This is a dream. This isn't real." But the cold silver under my hands didn't fade. The maid was still breathing nervously behind me. The candle still smelled like hot wax. The rain was still tapping against the window. It was all too real. And then the worst part of my memory clicked into place. I knew exactly how Evan Ardent died. He goes to the royal banquet. He meets Prince Cassian Valerius. Three days later, he's found dead in a ditch, and nobody ever bothers to look into it because he’s just a footnote in a bigger political war. "Three days," I whispered, my throat dry. The maid leaned in. "What was that, Master?" I spun around to face her. "How long until the royal banquet at the palace?" She thought about it for a second. "Three days, milord." My stomach completely dropped. Seventy-two hours. I had exactly three days before I was supposed to walk into a room with the man who became the Blood Prince. Three days before my scheduled execution. I squeezed my eyes shut, my fists clenching at my sides. I spent all night wishing Cassian had someone who understood him, and now I was trapped inside his universe. And according to the author's script... Cassian was the one who was going to kill me. I opened my eyes, staring at my new reflection. I am not dying here. I didn't know how I got here or how to get back, but I knew the rules of the genre. If this world followed the book step-for-step, I only had one survival strategy: Avoid the main cast. Stay away from the royal court. Run as far away from Cassian Valerius as humanly possible. And under absolutely no circumstances... fall in love with the villain. I had no clue that I’d already ruined my chances at rule number one. Because miles away in the royal palace, a silver-eyed prince was currently staring down at a fresh parchment report—a report about a minor nobleman who had suddenly broken a deadly three-day fever. And for reasons neither of us could yet understand, Cassian Valerius was already looking for me.