Luna's POV
I woke up, my mind snapping back into my headspace like a door slamming shut. At first, everything felt… off. Not wrong, not broken, just different enough that my instincts bristled. The light of the sun seemed dimmer, like it was filtering through smoke or stained glass. But my rational mind whispered: no, you're just imagining it.
The air wasn't heavy with blood, ash, bile, and dread anymore. It was almost… clean. Yet the absence itself felt unnatural, like a phantom limb. My view of the world had shifted—not just tilted, not a subtle distortion—but ripped apart. The protective film was gone, torn away. The rose-colored glass had fallen, shattered, and now the world stared back at me bare, unpainted, too real.
I sat up, realizing I was in a carriage. Not the one I remembered, but a cousin to it—similar wood, similar construction, but not the same. The details didn't line up. My stomach twisted. Ah. Regina. She's… gone. I knew it, I understood it, but my body refused to summon the grief. The ache was there, but hollowed out, muted. Earlier, I would have wept or screamed. Now, the silence inside me was louder than any cry.
I inhaled. The air smelled of sunlight warming grass, of flowers, of damp soil and greens. A pastoral lie painted over everything. I looked down and noticed my clothes had changed—Sister Hilfe's outfit. Familiar, but alien on me. Stains darkened the fabric, scrubbed at but never erased. Someone had tried to cleanse them with devotion, but some ghosts don't wash away.
And then it happened again: a spike of emotion, sharp and raw. The grief, the loss, the urge to wail—then… dampened. Flattened. Something inside me smothered the flame before it burned. I wanted to sob, to rage, to collapse—but instead I was calm. Too calm. So calm it made my skin crawl. The composure was so still it felt manufactured, like my soul had been pressed under glass.
I stepped out of the carriage. A vibrant landscape opened before me. The forest stretched in living green, sunlight filtering through the canopy in shards of gold. The air shimmered with warmth and the trill of birdsong. Insects hummed. Small creatures rustled unseen in the brush. The forest smelled richer than it ever had before, almost intoxicating, as though someone had cranked reality up to a higher resolution.
Where am I? I wondered. The thought wasn't curiosity so much as evasion—something to focus on, so I wouldn't have to face the hollowness yawning inside.
"Ah. You are finally awake. Slept for quite some time."
The voice came from behind me. Omega.
I turned and saw her standing at a distance, arms full of sticks and twigs. She wore a plain tunic—templar-like, functional, coarse. Gone was her pristine white gown. That dress had been eternal, impossibly spotless, no matter the battles we endured. To see her without it felt… wrong. She smiled faintly, but it wasn't the kind of smile that reassured—it was a veil, stretched just enough to hide whatever truth she carried.
"Where's Alpha… and Mésos? Did anyone else survive?" My voice cracked, thin. I took a step toward her, then another.
"Mésos is fishing," Omega replied at last. Her smile twitched wider, a fragile thread. She didn't answer the rest. Not really.
The campfire flickered. Shadows danced against the trunks, long and warped, as though the forest itself was watching. Smoke carried the scent of charred wood and roasted fish. I nibbled on my portion—it looked like fish, tasted like fish, but my tongue insisted it wasn't quite.
"So," I said between bites, trying to sound casual, though my voice betrayed me, "when were you going to tell me… well, that the three of you were some sort of deities?"
The question hung in the air like a thrown blade.
Mésos, sitting across from me, did not flinch. Her hands moved with slow precision, turning the fish in the fire. Her voice was calm, as always, measured to the point of cruelty. "And what use would that information have been?"
I froze, fish halfway to my mouth. "We could have helped more during the—"
"We?" Mésos cut in sharply. "You are correct about the need for aid. But that help should not have come from us. It must come from you." Her eyes found mine—serene, steady, merciless.
Omega said nothing. She poked at the fire as though it held all the answers, her silence as sharp as Mésos's words.
"Help? How can I help anyone?" My voice cracked, shrill. "I have no power. I am weak, but you—"
"You have no power?" Mésos's tone shifted, cool as river stone. Her gaze pinned me in place, daring me to say it again.
The words spilled out like a confession I didn't want to give. "Those abilities… they're not mine. Not my life, not my strength, not even my body. I'm not even me. This isn't mine!" I screamed, thrusting up my hands. My fingers curled desperately, like claws raking at empty air, trying to grasp something that wasn't there.
And then—like a punctured skin, all the fury hissed out of me. My chest deflated, my voice died, and calm settled back over me like a coffin lid closing. I sat still, face smooth, heartbeat even. A puppet again.
Mésos said nothing more.
But then, without transition, she dropped the blade: "Alpha is… dead, you could say."
The words pricked. A knife slipped between my ribs. I waited for more, for her to soften it, to offer something—anything—to hold on to. But she gave me silence.
"You mean like what?" I asked, my eyes on the half-eaten fish in my hand, my throat suddenly dry.
Omega stayed quiet. She had been dodging this all day.
"I mean she was killed," Mésos added finally, gnawing at her food as though it were the most mundane thing in the world.
Killed. The word rang in my skull. I searched her face, desperate for more. Nothing.
After a long silence, she said, "Well, her mortal being is deceased, and she is no longer in this realm. That counts as death, doesn't it?"
My eyes darted to Omega, begging for confirmation, denial, something. She looked away.
"Well," Mésos continued, almost casually, "she's still alive. Just not here. Not in this plane of existence."
My head snapped toward her. My eyes widened. "What? You mean like a spirit in heaven?" I asked, my mouth slightly agape.
"Do you remember that entity—the night you passed out?" Mésos asked concluding the previous topic and ignoring my question.
"Yeah. During the Frost Lock. What about it?" I muttered, biting into my fish with a bit more force, just to keep my hands from shaking. The taste was ash in my mouth.
"The Page of Swords."
My stomach dropped. My mouth went dry. "The… what?"
"You are aware of the Tarot from your previous world, yes?"
My jaw fell open. My eyes went wide even more. "How—how do you—what do you mean?"
She looked at me with that infuriating smile, the kind that promised mockery if I dared press further.
Omega cut in then, her voice soft, her eyes unreadable. "We were mistaking on our relationship. Beings with power, mythical creatures of some sort. But it seems we were mistaken. She said with smile and looked away. The facts some made itself known." "Eventually, you would have your answers in your hands."
I turned to her, desperate for clarity, but Mésos pressed on.
"As there is the Minor Arcana, so too is there the Major Arcana."
The words hooked into me, pulling me closer.
"They are not gods. They do not require worship or prayer. They are not spirits. They are not even beings. They are axioms. Living laws. Concepts made flesh. Not in the physical sense of blood and sinew but something more. Beyond flesh, beyond spirit. They are conscious concepts." Her voice grew heavier with each word, the weight of it pressing against the firelight.
I had no words. I sat frozen, staring.
"Take the High Priestess, for example," Mésos continued. "She is not knowledgeable. She is knowledge. She is intuition. Everything you know, everything you don't know, everything you cannot know. She does not hold that truth. She is it. You don't fight gravity with a fist, do you?" She chuckled faintly, a brittle sound that broke on the cold air.
I raised an eyebrow, unsettled but unwilling to interrupt.
"The Magician," she went on, "is not power. He is cause and effect. Causality itself. Conscious creation. The force that makes the wheel turn."
My mind reeled. My lips parted. "But… that would—"
"Ah." She silenced me with a raised hand, eyes gleaming in the firelight. "Not yet."
I fell quiet. The forest around us had grown darker, shadows lengthening unnaturally. The air grew colder, too still.
The Frost Lock was here again.
How long have we been talking?
I rose slowly, clutching the remnants of the fish, and drifted toward the carriage where the weapons and supplies lay. My footsteps felt too loud.