Rain lashed the asphalt of the university campus, turning the central square into a wet mirror. Evan Lockwood stood under the canopy of the library, watching the familiar scene: his classmate Damien Carter, a burly guy with the face of an amateur boxer, pinned a freshman against the wall, emptying the contents of his backpack.
"Come on, baby, where's your pocket money?" Damien growled, shaking the victim by the scruff of the neck.
Evan sighed, adjusted his glasses, and slowly came out from under cover. Drops immediately pattered on his dark hair, but he didn't even flinch.
"Carter," his voice sounded calm, almost bored. "You're showing the intelligence of a houseplant again."
Damien turned around, his face contorted into his usual grimace of anger.
"Lockwood! Meddling in your own business again?"
Evan slowly took out his phone.
"First of all, I'm already filming. Secondly..." He took a step closer, his voice became quieter but clearer. "You forget that your father is a municipal judge. What do you think will happen when this video gets to the rector's office?"
Damien froze. His fists clenched, but Evan continued as if he were giving a lecture.:
"You're as predictable as a psychology textbook. You're going to blush now, then..."
The punch came exactly as Evan expected, a right hook with a pullback. He dodged easily, but the wet asphalt played its part. His foot slipped, and the back of his head hit the concrete curb with a thud.
The last thing he saw was Damien's twisted face, suddenly pale from the realization that he had gone too far this time.
Pain. Sharp, throbbing in the temples.
Evan groaned, trying to raise his hand to his head, but something prevented him - a heaviness, a strange feeling in his fingers.
"My Lord! You've come to your senses!"
A woman's voice, trembling with excitement.
He forced himself to open his eyes. A girl in a dark blue dress, with anxious gray eyes, bent down in front of him. Behind her are high vaults of black stone, stained glass windows with blood-red patterns, torches casting trembling shadows on the walls.
"Where..." Evan tried to sit up, but a sharp pain forced him to sit down again.
Not on the pillows. On a silk bed with an embroidered coat of arms: a flaming lion on a black background.
The memories came crashing down.
Not his memories.
The other Evan.
Evan d'arclent.
The youngest son of one of the Great Houses of Laura.
"Lady Ilse," his lips formed the name, —how long have I been unconscious?"
"Three days, my lord. After... after the incident in the Council Chamber."
The girl lowered her gaze.
Evan closed his eyes. He remembered.
No, he wasn't the one whose body he now occupied.
Scandal. Insulting the Duke of Shadows. A challenge to a duel.
And... a memory lapse.
But most importantly, he was getting to know this world.
Every stone, every coat of arms.
"The Laura Chronicles is a novel he read a week ago.
"Bring a mirror," he ordered.
When Ilse held up the silver mirror, Evan saw familiar features—high cheekbones, a pointed chin, dark eyes. But now a long scar across his left eyebrow has been added to this, a gift from that very "incident."
The door flew open with a bang.
A man in a black and red doublet entered the room-Caius d'arclent, the elder brother.
"You've finally woken up," the voice was cold. "Do you understand what you've done?"
Evan stood up slowly, ignoring the dizziness.
"Insulted the Duke of Shadows at the Council. I called him..."—he paused-"a rat in human skin."
Kai clenched his fists.
"You've put our entire House at risk! There's a duel in a week, and you... He looked at his brother with contempt. "You don't even really control flame magic."
Evan went to the window.
Beyond the glass stretched the city of Adrium— the capital of Laura, exactly as he imagined it in the book. Towers of black stone, bridges over a bloody river, and in the distance — the gloomy castle of the House of Shadows.
"Don't worry, brother," he turned around, and there was a twinkle in his eyes that hadn't been there before. "I've already figured out how to win this duel."
"How?" Kai snorted. "Escape?"
Evan smiled the kind of smile that would have made Damien from his previous life turn white. "I'm going to humiliate him so that the entire House of Shadows will blush at the mention of our name for three generations."
After his brother's departure, Evan was left alone in his chambers.
He went to the bookcase and pulled out the first volume he could find, The History of the Great Houses of Laura.
"So..." he scanned the pages. "It's just like in the book."
The Flame's house is his family. One of the five Great Houses that rule Lora.
The House of Shadows are their main rivals.
House of Ice, House of Steel, House of Winds — the rest.
He knew them all.
He knew who would betray, who would die, who would survive.
I knew that the war would start in three months.
And I knew that the original Evan d'arclent was supposed to die in a duel.
"Ha," he threw the book away. "Well, no way."
At that moment, there was a knock on the door.
"My Lord," Ilse's voice. "The Lord Father wants you."
Evan took a deep breath.
The first test.
The throne room of the House of Flame was decorated in black and red tones. There are banners with coats of arms on the walls, torches illuminating the marble floor.
Lord Artorius sat on a throne of black basalt.'Arclent is his new father.
He was tall, with gray temples, cold blue eyes, and a face that held an expression of eternal discontent.
"You have disgraced our House," the Lord Father did not even look up at him. "Do you know what it means to duel with the Duke of Shadow?"
Evan stood straight, hands behind his back.
"That means one of us is going to die."
"It means," Lord Father finally looked at him, "that if you lose, our House will lose face. And if you win..."
"...The House of Shadows will declare war on us," Evan finished for him.
Silence.
Lord Father slowly stood up.
"You've suddenly become perceptive."
Evan smiled.
"I've always been perceptive, Father. It's just that no one noticed."
Late at night, in his bedroom, Evan stood at the window, looking out at the city.
He knew what would happen next.
The duel.
War.
Betrayal.
But now everything has changed.
Because now he was in this world.
And he wasn't going to play by someone else's rules.
"Okay," he whispered. "Let's get started."