Regina's POV
We'd been on the road for a while. I drifted in and out of consciousness, but every time I woke, Luna was there. Watching me. Still like a loyal dog staring at its master—her face caught between fear, concern, and something she didn't dare name.
Mother once told me I had an illness, but she promised she'd cure it. She promised. And then the Church took her from me. Father… did nothing.
Ah. A dream again. Let's see where this one leads.
I was back in my room—books, paints, and half-finished projects scattered across the floor. The air was heavy with roses and turpentine. I love roses. Mother loved them too, and she said red was the most beautiful color.
I adored her. She always said the strangest things—clever things, full of hidden meaning. When she died, Father tried to be more "involved." A pointless effort. I could not forgive him for letting her go.
One day, I overheard the maids whispering. "The late mistress was a witch. I saw her once in her workshop, with blood…"
"Do you think she made a deal with the devil to even have a child?"
My hands shook. Rage burned. Then one of them muttered, "It's a good thing she's dead. Heaven have mercy."
I lunged before I even thought. My paintbrush pierced her thigh—red spilled down white fabric. Through cloth, through flesh. Beautiful. Just as Mother said it would be.
That day, I learned crimson was lovelier than any paint. The rabbit I gutted. The maid I forked. Slash by slash, I began to see life differently.
The head maid reported me. Father recoiled, called me mad, left me to rot in my solitude. He never understood.
But Mother's notebooks whispered secrets. Water was my element—and water carried currents. Currents that carried the flow of fate.
The first time I used it, I saw her. Silver hair. Porcelain skin. Venus through my telescope. A vision of what must come.
It wasn't difficult to arrange her arrival. Aunt Rose only needed a nudge, a whisper. And when she came into my life, she was more than the vision promised. Resentful, yes—but resentment was fertile soil.
I knew she carried something I could use. Something that would bring Mother back. I don't know how. Not yet. But I will find it.
"Alpha," Omega's playful tone sharpened, her eyes flicking toward the carriage where I lay asleep in Luna's lap.
"As the God of the Perfect End, why don't you lend a hand? If mercy means anything to you—help her."
Mésos, who seemed asleep, opened her eyes, voice flat. "Silence. You can't even keep your own powers quiet, let alone your mouth."
"Scary," Omega muttered with a chuckle, though her eyes betrayed unease.
But Alpha said nothing. She only stared into the fire, watching it crackle, as the soldiers murmured in the dark. Her thoughts—distant.
And the more time I spent with her, the more my plan slipped like sand through my fingers. I told myself I'd use her, bend her, make her the key to Mother's return. But instead—she began to bend me.
It was like standing before a shattered mirror. I no longer saw the version of myself I hated—yet still clung to because Mother loved it. I saw her. Silver hair. That fragile defiance. She looked the way I must have looked when Mother still lived.
Would I be no better than Father, pushing her away just to stay true to my obsession? That way I'd keep my path—but lose something real. But Mother wouldn't have wanted that.
She once told me: roses are beautiful because they wither. Their end proves they were alive. Artificial flowers may last forever, but they will never grow, never bloom, never wound the heart.
Beauty lives in the promise of its end. Bring me flowers when I die, Mother said. But never bring me plastic ones.
But what if I brought you back? That would be worth a bouquet of real roses, right? I am right, am I not?
"Mother!" I jolted awake, breath ragged. Around me, soldiers stirred. Something had broken the night—something darker than the usual twilight disarray.