Half an hour later, Regina found herself almost falling asleep in the warm bath that the maids had prepared.

“I should have slept more last night,” she drowsily told herself. “Even if I am young, I cannot stay up forever. So after I finish my bath, I will take a nap and then let Henrietta and my mother bully me into looking half-way decent for the theater…”

Yet in the next moment, Regina found herself amidst a crowd of finely dressed folk while wearing nothing more than a few suds of soap.

Shrieking, Regina covered herself up in horror at the thought of being caught undressed among so many strangers… before she realized that no one was paying attention to the naked woman in their midst.

“Another vision,” she murmured, before her eyes widened and she realized she did not even remember falling asleep.

“Then why am I here?” she cried, before she whirled around to see the sights and realized she had no idea where here happened to be.

Indeed, as Regina twirled around to determine her latest location, she could feel an impending headache. After living in the secluded Sheridan estate for her entire life, she was used to quiet, mundane surroundings filled with quiet, terrifying people whose quiet, dull routine was only interrupted by the occasional death.

This place, however, was an extravaganza of light and color – filled with sparkling chandeliers, gilt-trimmed finery, golden wallpaper, and a wide variety of people. She could see everyone from nobles dressed in silks and jewels to commoners wearing far more outfits and decorations.

Regardless, everyone she could see seemed enthusiastic about catching a glimpse of something – and as she heard the crowd mutter about the ‘princess-to-be’ and her outrageous act of ‘discarding all the engagement gifts she received’...

…Regina had a terrible idea of just what she would see.

Steeling herself, Regina followed the path of chatter up a staircase ringed by royal guards that she easily pushed through… before she saw a fully dressed version of herself sitting with Artem in what had to be the plush royal box of the theater.

Yet if this box was meant to keep her away from the peons of Carcosa, it was not doing its job. So while she could see Artem stare adoringly at her, the Regina of her vision looked as though she needed sleep to fend off her urgent desire to throw herself off the royal box’s balcony.

Then again, since the vision-Regina was obviously tired of hearing her noble callers tell her that she was “so refined for tossing out gifts from those beneath your station as princess – of course you do not need anything beside what Prince Artem will provide!” –

Currently naked Regina did not blame her.

In fact, currently naked Regina thought it was admirable that her other self did not throw those noble callers off the balcony in response to their sarcasm and barely disguised bullying.

(Some part of Regina was even disappointed at how crude the words of her new noble rivals were. From the romance novels Henrietta had shared, Regina had assumed that noble rivals would be far more subtle and cutting with their catty remarks… but no. Apparently romance novels exaggerated events for the sake of a good story. Regina felt very deceived!)

Sighing in disappointment, naked Regina slumped over and saw all the usual noble callers come to visit her and Artem in their royal box with alternates to their previous gifts.

Duke Neville came in to offer Regina and Artem a chance to tour the lush Neville forest to select several trees to plant in their new estate, Lord Robin Buren came in with an offer to give them precious floral cuttings straight from the Buren gardens, and Duke Kuzey offered to help them see a feet fish – an offer that the clothed Regina hastily turned down before an eager Artem could accept.

Naked Regina nodded in approval as clothed Regina gently turned down each new gift offered – noting as well how Artem smiled adoringly at her every word.

So far, naked Regina thought, the scene seemed normal enough. Perhaps she was only seeing a vision of the rather awkward but otherwise unlethal night to come?

Unfortunately, before she could relax further, she saw another caller come in –

And he was none other than Crown Prince Aaron Alpin – her newest family member.

“Do not mind me,” the crown prince said as he bowed to his brother and sister-in-law-to-be upon entering the royal box. “Please, do not even get up out of your seat. I am only here to serve as a chaperone to make sure you two do not get…”

Prince Aaron then leveled a cool look at Regina and Artem’s interlinked fingers before Artem begrudgingly pulled his hand away.

“Too intimate before the wedding,” Prince Aaron concluded dryly.

From there, Prince Aaron had done just as he said. He took a seat on Regina’s other side and silently watched as Regina and Artem had been swarmed by callers, politely deflecting any attention drawn to himself by redirecting it to the ‘happy’ couple.

Yet though the clothed Regina was too busy fending off attempts at presents and praise alike to notice, the naked Regina next to her could see that while Prince Aaron was silent, he was still watching…

…And that the Crown Prince never took his eyes off of Regina at all.

Shivering, naked Regina looked away for the moment to stare at something far less worrisome – like the view from the royal box. As befit something made for the highest family in Carcosa, it had the grandest view imaginable – not just of the stage and the crowd but also of the two dozen gleaming chandeliers scattered throughout the theater –

Chandeliers so beautifully wrought of metal that they had to have been created by the Alpin’s special metallurgic magic.

“By the blood,” Regina muttered, feeling disgusted, “is this how the Alpins spend our tax dollars?”

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

After shaking her head, Regina craned her neck up to look more closely at Alpin’s ridiculous display of wealth.

“Those chandeliers are very beautiful,” she begrudgingly admitted. “That intricate floral motif around their base looks a bit like the carvings Artem did for my last necklace. I wonder if he knows which relative did this?”

Yet before she could look any further, she heard her other self sigh and tell Artem that she needed to attend to her toilette.

“I will ask Henrietta to accompany me,” the very-tired-sounding Regina murmured to a concerned Artem. “Unlike everyone else in this theater, she will give some privacy. Besides, I will be but a few steps from her at all times so that she can assist me if needed. You need not worry for me.”

Clothed Regina then got up from her chair, gave Artem a weary smile, and began to make her way down the stairs that the royal guards obligingly cleared for her.

True to her words, Henrietta had been loitering near the stairs while talking to some blue-haired noble woman with fish stamped all over her dress. Upon seeing clothed Regina slowly descend down the stairs, Henrietta immediately came to lend a hand... even as Artem began to discreetly trail behind her.

“Are you all right?” Henrietta asked, clearly concerned as clothed Regina rested almost her entire body weight on her. “You look like you are about to faint!”

“I absolutely will if one more noble tells me how elegantly I threw gifts out the window last night,” clothed Regina sighed. “In the meantime, please help me visit the powder room. I need a moment to rest before another wave of condescension and backstabbing.”

Henrietta laughed at that and helped clothed Regina move along, both real Regina and Artem trailing along in their wake.

Yet as naked Regina watched her clothed counterpart, she became more and more worried.

While Regina knew she had been fatigued from too little sleep and too much stress… surely she could not be that exhausted?

Unfortunately, as her vision self continued to stumble, it appeared that she was that exhausted. However, it soon became obvious that clothed Regina was under the influence of something beyond a mere lack of sleep.

When the clothed Regina finally made it into the powder room with Henrietta, she abruptly collapsed. Henrietta immediately dropped to the floor, frantically moving her hands over Regina’s body…

…before screaming that Regina no longer drew breath.

The last thing Regina saw before her vision faded was Artem’s horrified face as he let out an otherworldly howl –

Which was when Regina woke up right before she could drown in her bath.

~♦♥♦~

Regina had once seen a cousin of hers drown in a small rain puddle. It would have been impossible for a rain puddle to drown a healthy young man…

…If it had not been a puddle carefully “prepared” by another family member to serve as a trap.

Now, struggling to pull her head out of the water as she flailed around in a panic, Regina wondered if her poor cousin had felt this disorientated and terrified before death.

Luckily, after a brief struggle, Regina managed to right herself enough to make death by drowning impossible, even if her vision had just taught her that death could easily come by other means.

“It does not make sense,” Regina muttered, even as she forced her body to rise from the now cold bath. “I should not be a political threat to anyone due to my absurd antics! Nobody in their right mind would want me to be their queen! So who would want to kill me so badly that they poison me right in front of hundreds of potential witnesses?”

After all, what else could make her go from a healthy, if tired, young woman to a corpse in a matter of a few hours?

One of her visitors must have slipped her a poison while they were attending to her… perhaps prepared the poison for her in the royal box before she even appeared.

Another thought struck her with the force of whatever poison was meant to kill her in the theater.

“Someone wants to kill me,” Regina muttered, “and they want to do it in a way that sends others a message. Why else would they serve me such a public death that is so obviously an assassination? Yet what message could they be trying to send?”

Regina closed her eyes and shuddered at the thought of the dead Regina in her dream.

“Even better,” Regina whispered, “who is meant to receive that message? Perhaps it was-”

She thought of Artem’s anguished howl as her dream self had died and sighed.

“So much,” Regina grimly said, “for trying to be too stupid to kill.”

As Regina slowly toweled herself off and made her way to her bedroom to rest before the theater preparations began, another horrible thought struck her.

“Did I really fall asleep in the bath when I had that vision?” she asked herself. “I know I have been tired as of late but nodding off so much I practically drowned does not seem like something I would do. Does this mean --”

In retrospect, it was pure luck that Regina had managed to make her way to the bed by the time she had this epiphany. Otherwise, she might have hit her head on the floor when she collapsed and saved her assassin much work.

“Does this mean I am going to start having visions of my impending death even when I am awake?!” Regina cried as she fell onto her bed in despair. “If so, I will be a wrapped and signed present for every assassin that comes for me!”

After she had taken the frustration of that possibility out on her pillows, Regina sighed and tried to concentrate on the most immediately important task.

“I can worry,” she grimly told herself, “about when my absurd Artem-based murder-perceiving magic is going to manifest after I survive tonight. Yet I need to figure out how to do that, especially since…”

Regina groaned and cursed her family for what had to be the ten-thousandth time in her life.

“Since I know I cannot fake being ill to cancel attending this play! Father and mother are convinced I need to keep Artem happy so even if I tried, they would bring some quack to ‘visit’ me and I would be forced to go eventually. Whoever is planning my assassination among the dozens of nobles who visited me or the dozens of attendants at the royal box before I arrived will be able to strike as planned, no matter how I try to avoid attending.

“I need,” Regina slowly said, “to find some way to survive this theater engagement besides not attending at all. So what can I do to make it impossible for my assassin to strike in the way I foresee…?”

Regina stared blankly out into her bedroom, wondering when even the Sheridan manor seemed like a safer place than her current cheery room.

It was hardly the room’s fault that people were trying to murder her.

After all, it has lovely furnishings, some much less lovely vases, the giant dress that her parents had somehow decided was in style and equipped with panniers the size of a small carriage in a way that would make it difficult for someone as unfortunate as Regina to walk-

Regina paused, a smile that, even to herself, looked evil appearing in the large ceiling-length mirror.

“Well,” said Regina, trying hard to sound virtuous, “I do enjoy helping the unfortunate.”

Standing up from the bed, and laughing giddily, Regina clapped her hands together. “How very fortunate for me that I am the most unfortunate of them all!”

After all, she thought righteously, it was only fair that she transferred some of her misfortune to the people who were trying to kill her.

“Yes,” she said, “I do think that you are about to have the most unfortunate night of your lives.”