From Corpse to Crown: Reborn as a Mortician in Another World-Chapter 69: Balance Must Be Restored

While Atreaum’s palace was built with bone, sandstone, quartz, and obsidian, the underground was full of hollowed-out tunnels that led to all sorts of places. The previous monarch (centuries before Queen Marguerite) enjoyed traveling to other kingdoms but did not enjoy the heat.

Today, most of these tunnels were forgotten by everyone but the eldest maids, butlers, and caretakers.

Well.

And Elian.

He much preferred it to the upper elite in Atreaum’s court, where silence could sharpen into a blade. The shadow mortician already knew he wasn’t meant to be here--in the queen’s private war chamber--but his training kept his footsteps light and his breathing was softer than magic.

The guards at the perimeter bowed to him out of habit.

They thought he was still loyal to the crown.

He still wore the robes, and he still carried the chain-bound Shadowrite Grimoire. Currently, a low hum of regret was sealed within its pages.

Softly, gently, he slipped through the curtains behind a mirror-wall, the way the Spymaster once taught him. When he was beloved by the Queen.

He had been her pride and joy, especially after all of the glyph work it took to suppress his emotions. The mirror-wall led to a small corridor that went through the servant’s quarters.

The Grimoire provided him enough light to continue walking. He knew he was right next to the Queen’s court when he heard his name.

Not as a servant, but as a problem.

"She gave him everything, and he still dares to live," Queen Marguerite hissed. Her voice cracked with fury. "Gabriel should have ended it by now. He rang the bell in Staesis. The Code was clear."

Elian’s pulse slowed.

Oh, thank the Goddess. This is about Lucian again. It’s like an obsession with her.

Then again, if she wasn’t so obsessed with Lucian, he technically would never have existed. It was a strange feeling.

"But the bell," she continued, "was only the last straw. The original sin was from the world he came from. He robbed a child of a rite, and the echoes reached this realm. He should not have been brought to Velrithane at all."

There was a slight pressure on the mirror-wall and he imagined the Spymaster leaning against it, holding up a glass like he couldn’t live without alcohol. "Then we can admit our mistake. The summoning didn’t account for someone with unfinished business. Something we can correct for next time."

Elian paused as the Spymaster started whispering. "But when? The other cities are corresponding. The longer Lucian breathes, the more he inspires rebellion."

"What about Elian?" Marguerite asked.

"What about him?"

Months of training snuffed out his anger from the way the Spymaster talked about him, like he never mattered.

The Queen’s voice made his blood freeze. It was unbelievable how this was the same woman who was perfectly sweet to her own people...after she neglected them to grieve for a mortician who abandoned her.

"He’s nothing more than the blueprint. Let him rot with the original. If we remove both, we can start fresh."

The Spymaster chuckled softly.

"Good. I’m glad we’re in agreement."

Elian waited until he heard their footsteps grow further and further away, until the guards closed the great door to the courtroom. Only then did he walk out of the mirror-wall.

He was now at the entrance of the underground tunnel network, and could finally process everything. Elian drew in a silent breath, but the one he let out was different.

Tainted.

Angry.

He’d felt pain before. Elian had been taught to accept it.

Other times, he had been forced to bury it. Rare were the times he was taught to channel it.

But planning to betray him?

When he had done nothing but obey their instructions?

Now that. That was new.

+

Elian decided not to confront them, nor speak about the situation. He silently walked out of the underground network. As soon as his feet touched the palace floor, his mind was made up.

By nightfall, the Shadowrite Grimoire would be gone from the palace’s records.

And Elian would no longer hunt Lucian because the Queen told him to.

He would seek him for answers.

Because for the first time, he needed to know if his existence was ever truly his own. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

+

Far away from Atreaum’s politics and polished halls, Lucian sat with Gethra. In between them was a silence too full to name.

In the center of the room, the Loom hummed gently, its multicolored threads catching in the obsidian candlelight. Lucian had taken the loom and allowed it to guide his hands.

Slowly, a pale blue square emerged with a single figure suspended in midair. It was posed like a sketch made by a sad artist. It was a glyph heavy with light and loss.

Gethra nodded. "This is the Penance Glyph."

To Lucian, it looked like an abandoned dog in the middle of a storm. It was the first that he associated with an image. Most of the time, glyphs were just meaningless symbols to him.

As sad as it was, the glyph remained incomplete.

But no longer still.

Lucian leaned in. "What does it say?"

Gethra stood beside him, arms crossed, halo flickering dimly behind her head.

"It’s a type of Judgment Thread. The Loom pulled it from the Code directly."

Lucian frowned. "So... what’s missing?"

Gethra turned to him. "It has all the structure. The rites. The timeline. The admission of guilt."

She touched the square gently with a fingertip. "But there’s no tribute--no sacrifice to complete it."

Lucian swallowed.

He remembered what the Judicant had said in the dark:

"Balance must be written."

"I thought facing the past was the sacrifice," he said softly.

Gethra shook her head.

"No. That was the prelude. You wanted to pay with empathy. The Code demands something real."

Lucian glanced at the pattern again. The Loom had unraveled and rewoven the threads into a complex symbol; now it looked like a spell casting circle. In the middle, he observed how the threads bent. There were names spiraling outward, then retracting.

It was the full picture of his regrets. It wasn’t just his initial guilt that was encoded here. Instead, it was every single instance. The Loom laid his soul bare for a former angel to examine.

The girl’s grief.

His unexpected death and how it had deeply affected Niko and Mei, his dearest friends from Earth.

The childhood Elian was robbed of, because he was forced to become Lucian’s shadow.

He even regretted the Spinnermaid’s final silence, because if he hadn’t been chosen...perhaps he wouldn’t even be in this situation right now.

"This glyph isn’t about punishment," Lucian whispered.

"It’s about offering."

Gethra said nothing at first.

And then she adjusted her glasses. "Yes."

Lucian stepped back, fingers curled at his sides.

"What could possibly balance a mistake like mine?"

The Loom pulsed in response.

The final strand appeared.

It shimmered, then darkened.

And in the center of the Penance Glyph, a single phrase etched itself into the air:

"To finish what was broken, you must offer what cannot be restored."

Lucian’s mouth went dry.

"What... does that mean?"

Gethra didn’t look at him. Instead, she closed the Celestial Ledger softly, placing it back on the shelf. Her voice was a hushed whisper now, and Lucian had to lean in close to hear her clearly.

"It means the Code is asking for something only you can give. Something you won’t get back."

Lucian looked down at his hands.

At the Loom.

At the path behind him.

He heard his companions at the next table, trying not to pry. However, their curiosity was as thick as molasses.

"Like what?" he whispered.

The Loom started working by itself once more. Lucian watched with bated breath as the threads started to weave into a single name.

It wasn’t his own.

Or the girl’s.

It wasn’t even Elian.

Instead, it was—

Alice.

Lucian’s breath caught in his throat.

"No," he whispered. "No. She’s not—she doesn’t even—"

The Loom flared again.

A glyph of a bowed rose--intertwined grief--was beside Alice’s name.

A third of her was mortal. Another third was thread bound. And the final third was a borrowed life.

Rosa gave up her control of the body so Alice could experience living.

And, painfully, Lucian understood why.

Alice wasn’t part of Velrithane’s design.

She existed because he allowed it.

Because he refused to let Rosa rest.

Because some part of him wanted to keep something human from his past, no matter the cost.

"She’s my friend," he said. "She helped me. She stayed."

The Loom offered no judgment.

Just balance.

"She’s also the thread that should have ended," Gethra said, gently. "You bound her to Velrithane when she was meant to pass. You stitched life where there was only memory."

Lucian shook his head.

"I didn’t mean to. I just—"

"I know," she said.

"But the Code doesn’t care what you meant."

Merry approached from behind, her face pale.

"She doesn’t even know," she said quietly. "Does she?"

Lucian couldn’t answer.

He didn’t know anymore.

He wasn’t sure if he knew who Alice truly was—Rosa’s echo, the Marionette’s daughter, or something neither of them had defined.

But now the Loom had made it clear:

To finish the glyph...

To balance the scale...

He would have to choose.

And Alice would have to be that cost.

"I just...don’t know if I can pay that price..." he whispered.

"What price?" said a voice behind him, and his heart sank.