Alex lay on his bed, staring up at the dark wooden beams of the ceiling. The room was quiet except for the faint crackle of the dying fire in the hearth. His heart hadn't stopped racing since the conversation with Elara earlier. She wanted him dead. Not in some vague, political way, she wanted the countship, and she was ready to kill him for it in three days.
He remembered the game clearly. The original Alex, the one whose body he now wore, had won by poisoning her wine the night before the duel. Slow-acting, tasteless, something only the count's private stock had the antidote for. Alex had walked away with the title, the lands, everything. And then, not long after, the original had died anyway, some stupid side plot, some "hero" route he never finished.
