Luna's POV
I woke up like a door slamming shut inside my own head.
For a moment, I didn't know where I was. The light felt wrong—too soft, too clean, like sunlight filtered through stained glass. Not dim, not dark. Just… edited. As if reality had been retouched and no one thought to tell me.
The air didn't smell of blood anymore. Or ash. Or bile. Or fear.
It smelled of grass.
That was what unsettled me most.
I sat up slowly and realized I was in a carriage. Not the carriage. A similar one. Same kind of wood. Same kind of craftsmanship. But the details didn't match. The grain was wrong. The ironwork too new.
A copy. Close, but imperfect.
Regina is gone.
The thought arrived fully formed, calm and quiet, like a line of text printed in my mind. I understood it instantly. No confusion. No denial.
But my body didn't react.
No shaking. No sobbing. No scream trying to claw its way out of my throat.
The grief was there—I could sense it, like a shape behind fog—but something smothered it before it reached the surface. As if my emotions had been wrapped in cotton and sealed behind glass.
Earlier, I would have broken.
Now, I just… noted it.
I looked down at myself.
My clothes had changed. Sister Hilfe's uniform. The fabric was clean, but not really—faint stains darkened the seams, scrubbed at again and again until they had become part of the cloth itself. Like ghosts that refused to wash out.
Someone had tried very hard to make me presentable.
I stepped out of the carriage.
The forest was alive.
Too alive.
Sunlight spilled through the canopy in golden shards. Birds sang. Insects hummed. The air was warm, rich with the smell of damp soil and flowers and green things growing.
Reality felt sharper, more saturated. As if someone had turned up the resolution of the world.
It was beautiful.
And I felt nothing.
"Ah. You're finally awake."
The voice came from behind me.
Omega.
She stood a few steps away, arms full of sticks and twigs. She wore a plain tunic now—coarse, practical. Gone was her eternal white gown, the one that never stained, never tore, never aged.
Seeing her without it felt… wrong. Like seeing a statue blink.
"Where's Alpha?" I asked. "And Mésos? Did anyone else survive?"
My voice sounded steady. That scared me more than if it had cracked.
"Mésos is fishing," Omega said.
She smiled.
It was the kind of smile people use when they don't want to answer the rest.
We sat around a small campfire later. The flames flickered low, shadows stretching long and warped across the trees. Smoke carried the smell of roasted fish.
It looked like fish.
It tasted like fish.
My tongue insisted it wasn't.
"So," I said eventually, staring into the fire, "when were you going to tell me that the three of you aren't exactly… normal?"
Mésos didn't look up from the fish she was turning. Her movements were slow, precise. Ritualistic.
"And what would you have done differently?" she asked.
I hesitated. "We could've helped more during the—"
"We?" she interrupted softly.
Her eyes lifted to meet mine.
The word hit harder than it should have.
I swallowed. "I mean… you. You could've helped more."
Omega poked at the fire. Said nothing.
"You misunderstand," Mésos replied. "The help was never meant to come from us."
"Then from who?" I asked, sharper than I intended.
She tilted her head slightly.
"From you."
I laughed, a short, broken sound. "That's funny. I have no power. None of this is even mine. These abilities, this body—this life—it's not me. It's like I'm borrowing someone else's existence."
My hands trembled as I raised them, fingers curling uselessly in the air. "I don't even know who I am anymore."
The panic surged up.
And then—just like that—it vanished.
Smothered.
My chest went still. My heartbeat evened out. The emotional wave collapsed before it could break.
I sat there, calm again.
Empty again.
Mésos watched me closely.
Then she said, casually, "Alpha is dead. You could say."
The words slipped into me like ice.
"What do you mean, you could say?"
Omega looked away.
"Mortal death," Mésos clarified. "She no longer exists in this realm."
"So she's… gone?" I whispered.
"Not exactly," she replied. "Just not here."
Not here.
The phrase echoed too neatly, too cleanly.
I stared into the fire, my reflection trembling in the flames. "That thing… the night I passed out. During the Frost Lock."
Mésos's gaze sharpened.
"You remember it."
"I remember something," I said. "It felt like being looked at by an idea."
For the first time, Mésos smiled without warmth.
"That is closer to the truth than you realize."
"What was it?" I asked.
She stood.
The forest went unnaturally still.
No birds. No insects. Even the fire crackled more quietly.
Mésos leaned down until her face was level with mine.
"It was not a being," she said.
"It was not a god."
"It was not alive in any way you would recognize."
She paused.
"It was a rule."
My stomach twisted.
"A… rule?"
"One that noticed you."
The cold crept back in.
The air thickened. The world dimmed at the edges, like a lens frosting over.
The Frost Lock was here again.
How long had we been talking?
I stood abruptly, my chair scraping against the ground. The sound felt too loud, too sharp, like it didn't belong in this moment.
I drifted toward the carriage where our weapons and supplies lay, my body moving on instinct.
Behind me, the fire continued to burn.
But I could no longer feel its warmth.