Chapter Text
Lee Donghyuck sat upright in his narrow bed, the velvet canopy above him sagging with age. The room was cold, always cold, as if the stone walls of the east wing refused to acknowledge the warmth of the sun. Outside, the estate slumbered beneath a blanket of frost, the gardens skeletal, the fountains frozen mid-song.
He had dreamed again.
Not the soft kind, not the kind that melted away with the morning light. No, this one clung to him like wet silk, heavy and suffocating. His fingers trembled as he reached for the basin of water beside his bed, splashing his face in a futile attempt to wash away the memory. But like a stubborn wine stain that would not go away, it was impossible.
Donghyuck had been dreaming of the future for as long as he could remember.
But his dreams weren’t just visions, they were lives. His life.
From the time he was a child, Donghyuck had been able to step into his dreams, to feel them as if they were real. The warmth of a summer breeze, the sting of a scraped knee, the taste of honeyed bread, he lived each moment fully, as though sleep was another kind of waking. And when he woke, he carried the memory in his bones.
It started out small, dreaming of an arithmetic lesson taught by his tutors and waking up the next day and seeing the same handwriting on the board with the same tutor looking over his desk. Oddly enough the same gestures as well. Even at the young age of 8, Donghyuck had disregarded such vision as a coincidence. Until it happened again. This time with a lashing from his stepmother. Another coincidence his young brain decided as he wiped the tears and harsh words that had carried on from the night before. But it kept happening- conversations, actions and even the weather. He dreamt it and it would come true.
Donghyuck was awed.
At first, it was a gift. He could rehearse conversations, avoid scoldings, even rewrite regrets. His dreams were a second world, one he could shape and walk through freely. He felt powerful in a way his normal life did not provide him. For god sake, he could see the future. There was no better blessing for an unwanted bastard child. He felt unstoppable.
But everything changed when Donghyuck turned sixteen. When he presented as an omega and went through that godawful heat. He had expected it, dreamt of it a month before. Had hoped in a tiny part of his brain that it was a hoax, and he would end up presenting as a beta or alpha, something that wasn’t weak..But nonetheless he felt prepared for what was to come.
Although maybe not the full force of it. Because his dreams changed after that- they morphed into nightmares he couldn't run away from.
He dreamt of a wedding. A velvet robe dyed in crushed roses, silk that felt like thorns choking his throat. An older man beside, older than he should be, much older than Donghyuck’s 20. Later he would learn the name Hyunjae. He had a cruel look about him and later he would also learn that it was not just a look.
The days, months and years that followed every time he dreamed were horrific. The bruises hidden beneath lace. The pleas that went unanswered. The slow unraveling of who he was.
Each night, he returned to that life. Not as a spectator, but as a prisoner.
And for the next 3 years, pieces of that dream bled into reality.
He saw the wedding robe in a tailor’s window. He heard Hyunjae’s name whispered at court. He felt the silence settle around him like dust. He was no longer steering his life, just watching it unfold. He didn’t have any control- he was a bastard omega that was destined to live his abuse in both his dreams and his reality.
Now, at nineteen, he had reached the end.
Last night, he had lived his death.
At 32, he would be killed for that old fucker’s gambling debts. Apparently his dear husband would pass away, and not before marring Donghyuck with bruises and debts that echoed across every future he foresaw, a petty curse that even a seer couldn’t sidestep. Even in death, his husband could not give him an illusion of freedom.
He dreamed of being killed and killed again by debt collectors and his life ending with nothing just as it started.
How utterly pathetic. To think he had once believes these dreams were gifts, now they just seemed like slow and excruciating torture. It was like watching a train barrel toward his bound body again and again - seeing the impact coming, feeling the inevitability of it, and being powerless to change a single thing. That was what his visions had become: reruns of his own doom.
Donghyuck put his head in his hands as his bedside candlelight flickered. Why was Donghyuck paying the price for something he had never asked for. He had never asked to be born, married, or mourned. He wanted no needed to find a way to change his future. To change the vision of his dreams. But as he had learned, not all dreams were equal.
Some were soft, malleable—like clay warmed by the sun. He could shift them, reshape them. Change the color of his shirt before a banquet and avoid a spilled drink. Step left instead of right and dodge a spilled drink. These dreams were gentle warnings, glimpses of what might be. They bent to his will, if he was careful.
But others were fixed.
These dreams didn’t care what path he took- they only cared about the destination. He could change the setting, the timing, even the people involved, but the ending would always come.
Once Donghyuck had dreamed of chasing a dog through the orchard, the thrill of the wind in his hair, the sudden snap of bone as he fell. When he woke, he avoided the orchard for weeks. Refused to run and chase. But then, during a riding lesson, his horse spooked. He fell and felt the same pain on the same leg. The dream had come true, only the path had changed.
And this wedding, this life with Lord Hyunjae, was one of those dreams.
He had tried everything. Worn different colors. Spoken different words. Avoided events where he knew Hyunjae would be present. But none of it mattered.
Because he had been born a burden, a child his father had never wanted, borne from another burden- a lowly maid whose dying wish was that Donghyuck’s was taken care of. It was a brave request from an omega who had nothing to her name, to a man who it seemed had everything. An alpha who could throw the child on the street before her body was cold. But maybe somewhere inside his heart he felt pity for the omega lying in her own blood as the babe that was to be the reason for her death cried while being rocked by the chambermaid. So despite the new lady of the house that was to arrive in 3 months, or the inevitable damage that would be caused to his reputation, Lord Lee Doonseok, accepted her terms. Because he was a responsible man, and supposed he had a responsibility and debt to this dying woman. And he supposed, to her child as well.
And now his debt was paid off, he had clothed, fed and educated the child. Given everything save for affection. Donghyuck did in a way feel thankful, most nobles would have discarded a bastard child like him, the fact that Donghyuck had been given the privileges that he had was a miracle. Because despite his position, or his stepmother’s hatred or the desperation in his heart that begged, pleaded and despaired for some form of love from his father - he was thankful because it truly could have been worse. He truly realised this, when comparing his current life to his inevitable future.
Because his father could now finally wash away the burden that had ailed for the past 19 years of his life. Now that Donghyuck was a fully matured omega, his father would just sell him to the highest bidder. And that highest bidder- in every one of his dreams was Lord Hyunjae.
Donghyuck knew what was coming. The wedding wasn’t a celebration, it was a transaction. A way to rid the house of the son who had never been wanted.
And Lord Hyunjae—old, cruel-eyed, distant cousin of the royal line—was the perfect buyer. Widowed for nearly a decade, his estate was cold and quiet, his reputation colder still. And he needed a new mate.
The bruises hadn’t come yet. But they would, and they terrified Donghyuck. He knew now that he would marry that man and just as he walked down the aisle towards him, Donghyuck will walk to his death.
Unless he found a way to burn the book.