"You're sure about this?" Evangeline's voice didn't shake, but it was thin, nearly drowned out by the heavy thud of the mob breaking through the doors.
"Yes," Silver said. He wasn't smiling anymore. There was a terrifying stillness in his eyes, the look of a man who had already left the world. "To die by your hand... it's the only way this ends well for me."
Evangeline didn't give him a poetic smile. Her lips just twitched, a bitter, jagged motion. The screaming outside became a distant hum, unimportant. She took the dagger. Her skin was ice; his was still warm. That contrast was the only thing she felt.
"Thank you," she rasped. The 'Majesty' was gone. They were just two ghosts waiting for the blade. "To use your steel on myself, Silver... it's the only favor I'll ever ask of you."
She gripped the hilt until her knuckles turned white. Her hand jerked. It wasn't fear of the grave—it was the sickening weight of the life she was about to end. His life.
"Don't hesitate," Silver muttered. He didn't wait for her to find her courage. He reached out, his grip iron-steady, and forced her hand toward his own chest. He slammed the tip of the steel against the fabric of his tunic, right over the beating heart.
"Right here," he snapped, his voice dropping to a low, lethal command. "No pity. No tears. Be the Queen they hate one last time."
Evangeline stared at him. He wasn't the fool in bells anymore. He was the only thing that had ever been real in her kingdom of lies. She didn't find a bittersweet smile; she found a hard, final clarity.
"Goodbye, Silver," she said. It wasn't a whisper. It was a fact.
"Goodbye, Silver," she said. It wasn't a whisper; it was a surrender.
She didn't wait. She drove the cold steel into his chest. At the same moment, she forced the jagged, forbidden incantations out of her throat. The words felt like swallowing broken glass, tearing at her vocal cords.
The blade sank. Deep. Blood, hot and thick, drenched her hands and his tunic, a shared, sickening crimson. Silver gasped—a spray of red hitting his lips—but he didn't pull away.
A single tear tracked through the grime on his face. This man, who had lived only for her smile, was dying for her sins. He didn't flinch; he leaned into the knife, pushing it further into his own heart as the violet light of the spell began to claw at them both.
"Farewell… my… Queen," he rattled. The sound was hollow, the noise of a body running out of time.
Then, the world simply broke. Violet light exploded into a blinding void, erasing everything: the screams of the mob, the stench of smoke, the freezing steel. The last thing Evangeline felt was the crushing weight of Silver slumping against her. Then, total, heavy silence.
Evangeline choked, her lungs searing as if she were inhaling shards of glass. The world was dissolving into jagged fragments of violet light. She reached out, her hand shaking, just wanting to touch his cheek—one last time. A final, desperate bit of tenderness for a man she had realized she loved far too late.
She reached for him, but her fingers never made it. The doors didn't just open; they disintegrated. From the wreckage, a rebel's rusted sword lunged, catching Silver from behind. The steel tore through his back and burst out of his chest, a jagged, blood-slicked spike. Silver's lungs failed. He coughed once—a spray of hot red—and hit the marble floor. Hard. He looked like a puppet with its strings snapped, lying in a heap at her feet.
"Found you, you royal whore!" the first of them screamed, scrambling up the dais. Their faces were ugly, distorted by a self-righteous hunger for blood. "We're going to show you a kind of hell you never imagined. You're going to pay for every tear we ever shed!"
Evangeline stood up. She didn't flinch. She didn't plead. She rose with a cold, terrifying stillness that froze the air in the room. She looked at them—a Queen of wreckage, drenched in blood—and let a slow, mocking smile touch her lips. She raised Silver's dagger. The hilt was warm, slippery with their combined blood. She pressed the edge deep into her own throat.
"Good luck with that," she muttered. Her voice was steady, sharper than the blade.
"Stop her!" a man roared, his face turning from triumph to pure panic. "Don't let her cheat us! Grab her!"
Before they could touch her, before a single dirty hand could stain her skin, Evangeline pulled the blade. She didn't hesitate. She dragged the steel across her throat, ear to ear, in one jagged, final stroke.
Her body hit the floor—a heavy, wet thud. The blood didn't just flow; it pulsed out of her in rhythmic, frantic bursts, soaking the white marble. As she lay there, fading, she didn't give the mob the satisfaction of a glance. She ignored the fire and the screaming. Her eyes were locked on Silver's body, lying just inches away, cooling in the heat of the burning room.
She watched him until the light in her vision splintered, then flickered out, leaving her in a heavy, suffocating dark.
Then came the knocking.
A sharp, rhythmic tapping that dragged her back from the nothingness. She tried to fight it, wanting to stay in the silence of the grave, but the sound was persistent. Obnoxious.
"My Lady? Breakfast is ready. Shall I come in?"
Evangeline's eyes snapped open.
The grave didn't feel like stone. The air didn't taste like smoke.
Instead, Evangeline was staring at her ceiling. The same vaulted, arrogant mural of intertwined roses she had looked at every morning for years. A single petal—either loosened by a draft or just decaying—drifted down and brushed her cheek.
She touched it. It wasn't ash. It was soft, cold, and hideously real.
Her heart didn't sting like the blade anymore; it slammed against her ribs with the frantic, messy pulse of someone who was very much alive. This is too vivid for hell, she thought, her throat tightening until she couldn't breathe.
She kicked the silk sheets aside—the sound of the fabric was like a sharp hiss in the quiet room. She lunged for the mahogany desk, her limbs heavy and uncoordinated. Her hands shook so violently she nearly tore the cover off her leather journal. She scrambled through the pages, her eyes searching the ink for a date. A number. Anything to stop the world from spinning.
The blood left her face. She went ghost-white.
The ink was dry. The date was clear. Two years. Two years before the fires. Two years before they tore her palace down and Silver died at her feet.
The knocking wouldn't stop. It felt like a hammer hitting the inside of her skull, matching the frantic thud of the pulse in her throat.
"Enter," she snapped. Her voice was wrong. It was too clear, too young, but it felt like it was coming from someone else—someone who had crawled out of a fresh grave.
The door creaked, and a maid scrambled in. The girl was shaking so hard the silver tray in her hands sounded like teeth chattering. She didn't just bow; she collapsed, her forehead slamming into the carpet.
"My Lady... your breakfast. Please, mercy! Forgive me for the intrusion!"
Evangeline leaned forward, her eyes cutting into the girl. Then, the air left her lungs. It felt like a punch to the gut.
She knew that face. How could she ever forget it? This was the girl she'd sent to the gallows on a bored whim. Luna. Executed because she had made too much noise while Evangeline was trying to sleep.
"You're Luna, aren't you?" Evangeline's voice was thin, a dry rasp.
The girl flinched as if Evangeline had swung a blade at her. A strangled, pathetic sound escaped her throat. "Y-yes, Your Majesty. That is me."
Evangeline couldn't stop looking at the girl's neck. That same neck she'd watched stretch and snap in a noose. Now, it was just... there. Pale. Unbroken. Moving as she breathed. A wave of nausea hit Evangeline, hot and thick. She could practically hear the echo of the snap she'd ordered, a ghost-sound in the quiet of the morning.
"Get out," she snapped, her voice cracking. "Go. Get out. Now."
Luna didn't ask questions. She scrambled up, nearly face-planting over her own skirts, and bolted. She ran like the devil was reaching for her, terrified that this sudden bit of mercy was just a cruel joke that would end with her head on a pike.
The second the door slammed, Evangeline's legs turned to water. She hit the mahogany desk hard, her head in her hands, fingers digging into her temples. The smell of jasmine drifted in from the window—sweet, clean, and disgusting. It tasted like a lie compared to the copper tang of blood she could still feel on her tongue.
"I'm back," she choked out, her breath hitching. "It wasn't a dream. I wasn't losing my mind while I bled out. I remember the steel. I remember the smoke. I remember the way Silver looked at me..."
She yanked her hands away from her face and stared. No blood. No scars. No callous from the hilt of the dagger. Just soft, royal skin that hadn't done a hard day's work in its life.
A jagged, broken laugh tore out of her throat. It wasn't a pretty sound—it was the sound of someone losing their grip.
"The magic," she whispered, her eyes wide and wild. "The damn thing actually worked."