Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I'm Stuck as Their Baby!-Chapter 179: A Prisoner’s Playbook

Velka POV

There are few things more humiliating than watching a magical clone live your life and worse do it badly.

My cell was no grand oubliette, not the gothic, spike-riddled chamber you might expect from a villainous betrayal. No, my prison was an old supply room deep beneath Arcanum, reeking of chalk dust, aged parchment, and the faint, bitter scent of regret. The walls were spelled smooth, the door thick and sealed, but the air was thin enough to breathe and, occasionally, to mutter curses at my jailer with remarkable creativity.

The magical screen shimmered before me a cruel window showing what the clone was doing with my face, my voice, my awkward fondness for Elyzara. Every so often, the image flickered, and I caught a distorted glimpse of Elyzara's uncertain smile or the clone's too-smooth movements.

If I ever got out of here, I was going to file a formal complaint with the universe.

I rolled onto my back on the hard cot, absently twirling a strand of hair between my fingers. If misery could power magic, I'd have blasted my way free by now, but Aria's wards were elegant and thorough, thick with anti-vampiric runes. Even the chains were lined with silver threads not enough to burn, just enough to make everything ache, like a song played off-key.

My mind spun: What was my doppelgänger up to now? Kissing Elyzara in public? (Ugh.) Smiling at Mara and Elira as if she hadn't secretly judged their taste in boots? Sitting through a history lecture and taking notes? Oh, the horror.

The screen flickered, showing the clone my double gently brushing a strand of hair from Elyzara's face as the sunlight caught in her eyes. I groaned.

"That is not how I would have done it," I muttered. "At least smirk, you impostor. Show some teeth."

In the corner, my reflection peered back from a bit of polished metal. Dark eyes, tired but not beaten. I offered myself a thin smile.

"If nothing else, I suppose I'm getting plenty of time to plot," I said aloud.

Because plotting was what I did best.

My days had acquired an odd rhythm, equal parts survival and stubborn defiance. The first rule of magical imprisonment: Never let them see you despair. The second: Always be ready to exploit your enemy's ego.

The trouble with Aria was that she thought she was cleverer than everyone else. She might even be right. But even the clever get careless.

I'd been testing the boundaries, tracing the spellwork in the mortar between stones, counting seconds between Aria's visits. The food was plain, but not poisoned. The clone checked in at regular intervals, always delivering a saccharine report through the screen. I mimed applause. She glared, but her eyes remained hollow.

"Enjoying my life?" I called out one day, knowing the wards carried my voice to the watcher. "Try not to mess it up. And for the record, Elyzara likes her tea with honey, not lemon."

No response. Predictable. But every word was a pebble in the gears.

Sometimes, in the dead of night, I pressed my ear to the wall, hoping for a sound any sound beyond my own heartbeat. And sometimes, in the shimmer between dreams and waking, I felt something tug at my mind, as if a memory was trying to surface.

The dream from before returned: Elyzara's face, grown and fierce, pressed close to mine, her lips on my cheek, the heat of battle in the air. Her voice, soft but sure "Baby girl." A rush of something old and sweet and terrifying.

I jerked awake, clutching the thin blanket to my chest, my heart thudding wildly. Ghost-memories. Not mine… or maybe not only mine.

Aria had said nothing about those. Either she didn't know, or she didn't care. Maybe she thought I'd break before the truth broke free.

She clearly didn't know me at all.

The monotony was broken one evening when the screen glowed brighter, showing the clone in the middle of a "date" with Elyzara. The awkwardness was almost painful Elyzara talking, the clone nodding and offering only the safest, blandest comments, as if she'd learned about friendship from a pamphlet.

I snorted. "You are a disaster."

Still, a sharp pang of longing lanced through me. I wanted to be the one sitting there, rolling my eyes at Riven's jokes, bumping Elyzara's shoulder by accident and pretending it was on purpose. I wanted the real thing the chaos, the confusion, the secret smiles.

I wanted out.

For the hundredth time, I turned my attention to the magical sigil Aria had placed on the lock. It was complicated, yes but not perfect. I studied its pattern, the way a musician studies a melody, searching for the hidden discord.

And as I traced the lines, an idea began to form.

I had one advantage over my captor: time. freewebnøvel.coɱ

While Aria plotted and postured, while the clone muddled through my life, I worked on the puzzle. Each hour, each tiny fluctuation in the runes, revealed a weakness. Silver thread dulled over time. Magic, if not refreshed, lost its bite.

I'd started to mark the days one for every time the screen flickered, for every sigh from the stone above. I marked my skin too, tiny lines hidden beneath my sleeve: one for every plan, one for every memory, one for every promise not yet broken.

Tonight, I stared at the lock, my mind whirring. I whispered words in an ancient tongue older than Arcanum, older than most gods. Shadows curled at my fingertips. Blood oozed from a shallow scratch, just enough to draw the wards' attention.

The lock shuddered. The chain warmed. A soft, hungry ache grew in my bones, not painful but electric like hope itself.

"Not tonight," I whispered to the cell. "But soon. Very soon."

The screen flickered again. Elyzara laughed her real laugh, the one I'd heard in dreams and wanted to hear again in the waking world.

I pressed my palm to the stone. "Wait for me," I murmured, "and I'll come back to you."

But freedom is a fox's art. You wait. You plot. You prepare for the moment when the guard blinks, the ward sputters, and the universe cracks just enough to let you through.

Until then, you remember who you are.

Not a clone. Not a victim. Not a memory.

But Velka Nightthorn vampire, exile, schemer, and if the dreams were to be believed someone's lost love, bound by a promise not yet kept.

And somewhere, above my head, the world spun on, blissfully unaware that the real storm had not even begun.