The thought of the morning feast made her stomach turn. The revelation of her return hadn't just taken her appetite; it had replaced it with the lingering, metallic tang of her own blood. She could still feel it coating her throat, thick and suffocating. No amount of bread or wine was going to wash that taste away.
Steady yourself, she hissed at her reflection. She leaned against the cold mahogany of the vanity, her nails digging into the wood. This wasn't the time for a breakdown. Hysteria was a luxury for people who weren't already dead once.
If the gears of time had truly ground backward, then the rules had changed. She wasn't the victim waiting for the steel anymore. She was the architect now. She had to find the vipers who had led the mob—the ones who had smiled to her face while sharpening the knives for her back. She needed to find them while they still thought they were safe.
She turned and swept toward the door, her crimson silk robes trailing behind her like a widening bloodstain. The moment she stepped into the corridor, the palace staff snapped into a frantic, terrified rhythm.
Servants dropped into two silent rows, their heads bowed so low they were staring at their own feet. Others scrambled ahead of her, their hands trembling as they unfurled a heavy carpet of red silk over the black marble.
It was her most erratic decree—a law born of pure, arrogant vanity: the Queen's feet were never to touch the bare stone unless it was shrouded in her signature color.
Before, she had demanded the red silk because she thought it made her look like a goddess walking on clouds of fire. Now, as she watched the fabric hit the floor, she saw it for what it really was. It wasn't a carpet. It was a trail of blood she was leaving behind, a reminder of the massacre that hadn't happened yet—but was already etched into her soul.
She marched toward her study, the click of her heels muffled by the red silk. Everything was preserved with an agonizing, sterile perfection. The scent of fresh roses made her want to gag; it was too sweet, too clean. The grandeur that had once been her sanctuary now felt like a mausoleum—a tomb built of gold and silence.
A frantic, uneven rapping hit the study door. It wasn't a knock; it was a spasm.
"Enter," she said. Her voice didn't just drop; it froze into the cold, regal bite of the woman they all feared.
The door swung open, and White practically fell into the room. The Royal Advisor was vibrating. His hands, hidden in spotless white gloves, were a blur as he obsessively snapped his gold pocket watch open and shut. Click. Snap. Click. Snap.
The charcoal circles under his eyes looked like bruises. He was a man possessed by gears and seconds, a slave to a schedule that didn't matter in a world that was supposed to be ash. He bowed so low his forehead nearly struck the floorboards.
"What is it, White?"
He sprang up, scurrying toward her desk like a frantic insect. His breath was shallow, stammering.
"Your Majesty... you are—you are forty-three seconds behind schedule!" He didn't just speak; he leaked anxiety. "The tribunal commences in exactly nine minutes and seventeen seconds. We must hasten! The schedule, Majesty! We must!"
Evangeline didn't move. She just watched the watch in his hand. Click. Snap. In her mind, she saw that same gold watch lying in the mud of the rebellion, crushed under a peasant's boot. She remembered White's screams—they hadn't been rhythmic or scheduled at all.
"Forty-three seconds, White?" she asked, her voice a low, dangerous crawl.
He froze, his thumb hovering over the watch's latch. "Y-yes, Majesty. A grave oversight. We can still recover if we—"
"Quiet," she snapped. The silence that followed was heavy, enough to make the air in the room feel thin. She wasn't annoyed by the time; she was disgusted by the insignificance of it.
In the courts, they whispered the name "Mr. Tick-Tock" behind his back. To White, a lost second wasn't just a mistake; it was a sin. He lived and breathed by the rhythmic pulse of his pocket watch, a man who would rather lose a limb than a minute.
The courtroom was a coffin. The air was stifling, thick with the dusty, sour scent of old parchment and the cold, unspoken dread of the nobility. They sat in the pews like statues, their eyes tracking her every move, waiting for the first sign of blood.
Evangeline adjusted her fur shawl, pulling it tight. It wasn't for warmth; it was a suit of armor. In her previous life, these trials had been a boring cruelty—a daily ritual of blood and iron where she signed death warrants with the same mindless ease she used to breathe. Today, every breath felt earned.
She marched into the hall, White fluttering behind her like a moth obsessed with a dying flame. As she took her seat on the elevated throne, her crimson eyes cut through the room. She didn't just look at them; she dissected them. Her gaze landed on the three pillars of her crumbling realm, starting with the man who had eventually led the charge against her gates: the Duke of Spades.
He was the "Blade of the Kingdom," but "The Butcher" would have been more accurate. He sat to her right, a mountain of a man whose skin was a jagged map of scars earned in the mud of a hundred border wars. He didn't move. He didn't blink. He just watched her with a frozen, stony silence. But Evangeline knew better now. Beneath that glacial exterior, she could feel the heat—a simmering cauldron of fury just waiting for the right moment to boil over and drown her.
To her left sat the Duke of Diamonds. He leaned back with a serpentine grace, his long violet hair spilling over his shoulders like a silken trap. He wore a smile that never quite made it to his eyes—eyes the color of molten gold, cold and predatory, reflecting the darkness of the mines he owned. He didn't look like a man about to commit treason; he looked like a bored socialite waiting for a play to start, hoping there would be plenty of blood in the third act.
In the center was the Duke of Clubs. Ancient. Withered. He was draped in so much silk he looked like a pile of expensive laundry. His face was a mask of calculated indifference, the "wise neutralist" who never took a side. Evangeline knew better now. His silence wasn't wisdom; it was the loudest form of betrayal there was.
The heavy atmosphere shifted, not because of power, but because of a distraction. The doors swung open and in walked Julian Hart, the King of Hearts.
He was disgustingly beautiful. Sunny, blonde, and glowing with a kind of ethereal light that made the torches in the room look dim. His eyes were the color of spring grass, wide and innocent. He was the "Golden Dawn" to Evangeline's "Dark Midnight"—a marketing lie they'd been selling the kingdom for years.
As he moved through the crowd, the suffocating dread in the room seemed to lift. He handed out smiles like spare change to the frightened nobles, and they practically basked in his warmth. They saw a savior; Evangeline saw a hollow shell.
He slumped into the throne beside her, his movements clumsy and lacking even a shred of royal dignity. He didn't sit; he collapsed.
"You are late, Your majesty" Evangeline said. Her voice was flat, dry, and devoid of any affection.