I Became the Villain Alpha's Omega (BL)-Chapter 130: The Last Inch

The change came fast. One moment, the army had the luxury of a horizon, however frozen, the next, the world had been whittled down to a single, treacherous ribbon of grey stone. There was nothing quiet about the Frostfall Pass. The wind tore through it, rattling stone and kicking loose debris down the mountainside.

To the left, the rock wall rose steep and uneven, with thin lines of ice running down its surface. To the right? Nothing. A stretch of white, shifting snow, with no sign of where the ground ended.

Zarius didn’t ride at the vanguard anymore. He’d dropped back, his stallion’s hooves picking through the loose, wind-swept powder with a dainty, lethal precision. His spine was a rod of cold iron, his head pivoting with every groan of the mountain.

"Slow the pace," he commanded, his voice not loud, yet it carried over the gale like a low-frequency hum. "Distance between units. Six horse-lengths. Minimum."

He could feel the uneven compression of the snow beneath them. It was "rotten" snow, honeycombed by the sun and then flash-frozen into a deceptive crust. Beneath that crust lay pockets of air and loose scree just waiting for a reason to slide.

Elios pulled up beside him for a fleeting second, his cloak snapping like a whip in the crosswinds. "Tell me again why we didn’t just bring wings?" he shouted over the whistle of the abyss. "The scenic route is lovely, Your Grace, but I think I’ve seen enough white to last me several lifetimes. My horse is currently reconsidering its career path."

Zarius didn’t offer a witty retort. He didn’t even look at his friend. His eyes stayed on the heavy carriage moving behind him. "Keep your weight to the inner wall, Elios. And tell the rearguard to stop talking. The vibration is unnecessary."

Inside that carriage, the "scenery" was a lot less impressive and a lot more nauseating.

Cherion sat braced against the velvet-lined bench, his boots dug into the floorboards. Every time the carriage dipped toward the precipice side, his stomach did a slow, sickening somersault. Across from him, Marielle was surprisingly stoic, her hands folded in her lap, though her knuckles were the color of bleached bone. Reiner, on the other hand, was vibrating with a mix of teenage bravado and genuine nerves.

The boy had poked his head out the window ten minutes ago, coming back with a shrug that was far too casual to be real. "Just a different path, Lord Cherion! The main one’s got a bit of a clog. Nothing to worry about."

"A ’clog’?" Cherion muttered, his hand white-knuckled on the leather strap. "Reiner, if I see a cloud below the wheels again, I am officially retiring from this life."

The carriage jolted, a sharp, tooth-rattling thud.

Cherion squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t look out. Don’t look out. Outside, the wind had reached a fever pitch, dragging thin, ghostly sheets of snow across the path like shifting veils. Zarius saw it before the drivers did. He caught the rear wheel settling onto a patch of snow that didn’t sound right.

The ground didn’t break. It shifted, slowly tipping toward the edge.

"Stop!" Zarius’s voice was a crack of thunder.

The convoy froze. The silence that followed was worse than the wind.

Underneath the carriage’s weight, the packed snow began to disintegrate into fine, crystalline dust. It was a slow-motion disaster. The carriage began to sink, the rear axle sliding toward the lip of the cliff with a sickening, wooden groan. The horses screamed, their eyes rolling back as they felt the weight of the vehicle begin to pull at their harnesses.

Zarius was off his horse before it had even fully stopped. His boots hit the shale, and he was already moving, quick but careful on the unstable ground..

"Cherion! Marielle! Reiner! Out! Now!" he barked.

The carriage door flew open. Reiner scrambled out first, his face pale, nearly slipping before a knight grabbed his collar and hauled him toward the rock wall. Marielle followed, her skirts catching on the frame for a heart-stopping second before she lunged onto the solid stone of the inner path.

But the shift of their weight was the final insult to the mountain.

The carriage groaned again, tilting another ten degrees. The left side was now unsupported, hovering over three thousand feet of nothingness. Snow trickled down the side of the cliff in a steady, mocking stream.

"Cherion."

Zarius was standing as close to the edge as physics allowed. His scent cut through the stagnant air inside the tilted cabin.

Cherion was pinned against the higher side of the seat, holding on tight. He looked toward the door, and all he saw was the grey, swirling sky and Zarius’s face, etched in a terrifying, focused calm.

"I’m coming," Cherion choked out, trying to crawl toward the opening. The angle made it hard to move. Gravity was a physical hand, pulling him toward the back window, toward the abyss.

"Slowly," Zarius instructed. His voice was a low, steady anchor in the chaos. "Don’t lunge. Shift your weight toward me. One inch at a time."

Cherion nodded, sweat beading on his forehead despite the freezing wind. He managed to get a foot onto the door frame. The wood under his boot splintered. The entire carriage shuddered, sliding another few inches toward the drop. A stone, loosened by the movement, fell silently into the mist. It never made a sound of landing.

Zarius stepped forward. The ground beneath his own boots cracked, but he didn’t flinch. He stretched out his hand, steady despite everything.

"I’ve got you," Zarius said.

Cherion reached out. His fingertips were shaking, stretching across the gap. The distance was so small, barely the length of a forearm, but it felt like a canyon. He could see the fine lines of Zarius’s glove. He could almost feel the heat radiating off the Alpha’s skin.

Almost.

A sound like a bone snapping echoed off the cliffs. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The ground beneath the wheels collapsed, sending the carriage down.

Cherion’s footing vanished as the floorboards gave way. For a split second, he hung in the air, his fingers brushing Zarius’s before the pull dragged him down.

"Zarius!"

The scream was swallowed by the rush of air.

The Alpha inside him simply took the reins. There was only a violent, singular directive: Retrieve.

He lunged.

The Duke’s body moved before his mind could even register the horror. With a violent, horizontal kick that sent a spray of shale into the void, Zarius launched himself. He didn’t call out a name. He didn’t look back at Elios’s horrified shout or the sudden, frantic chaos of the knights.

The world turned into a rushing tunnel of wind and stinging ice.

"Zarius! No!" Elios’s voice was a distant, fading pinprick.

Gravity took them both.

Everything blurred together, rock, snow, and the wind rushing past him. Zarius tucked his chin, his eyes searching the white chaos below for a flash of silver, for a piece of the carriage, for anything to grab.

The last thing he felt as the mist swallowed him whole was the phantom sensation of Cherion’s fingertips, the warmth he’d been an inch away from securing, and the sheer, terrifying weight of the silence that follows a fall.