The world was burning.

The world was burning and Regina realized that everything she had thought she knew was wrong.

As if her body was detached from her mind, Regina felt herself ducking behind a pillar, pulling her sleeve over her mouth to avoid inhaling the smoke.

All her mind could seem to think was ‘Not Artem, NOT ARTEM, notartem, notartem’

“Where are you?” said Robin Buren, his voice echoing over the flames. “You are very clever, princess.”

‘Not clever,’ thought Regina as she quietly, carefully began to move. ‘Not clever at all. Why did I not realize that the nobles had more reason to want me dead than even the Alpins or my own family? I even thought as much earlier but I was so stupid and afraid…’

She braced herself, trying to determine if she could reach the next pillar without being seen, trying to listen to the footsteps getting closer since she had stupidly greeted her killer and he knew where she was-

The worst of it was that she had enjoyed talking to Robin and dancing with him. He had seemed so interested in her thoughts and verbally sparring with her-

Regina froze, her eyes widening.

There was a flash of light out of the corner of her eye, separate from the flames that would die back all too soon, and Regina knew what she needed to do.

“So many noble families hate the Sheridans,” Regina said carefully, slowly, quietly inching forward.

It was the biggest gamble of her life.

The footsteps stopped.

Regina firmly pushed away her faint burst of hope and kept moving.

“We rose so fast,” she said, almost conversationally. “Commoners who reached the rank of marquis in less than two generations.”

“It was an incredible rise,” said Robin, further away than he should have been. Further away than he should have been when he could have killed her before she even saw him or his flowers.

Regina bit her tongue to avoid letting out the high-pitched exhale, kept her voice calm and even.

“Then they somehow convinced the Alpins to make me the crown prince’s fiance,” she said, in the voice that most resembled the colour beige, as if she was talking about how to best place wood paneling. “It was very likely that a duchy could be given to them if they succeeded… as well as the land that would come with that title.”

“Except,” said Robin, and oh, that was curiosity in his voice, “while everyone knew you were to be engaged to Crown Prince Aaron, that was not the announcement that was made.”

“Of course it was not,” said Regina, her voice calm, even as her shaking hand fumbled for the next pillar in the shadows of the flames. “Do you think I am a fool?”

“Anything but that,” said Robin Buren, deadly plant assassin who had tried to kill her dozens of times and scion of a noble family that wanted her dead.

The worst part was that he sounded sincere.

The flames were so hot and the smoke so acrid, but Regina knew she had to keep going, close to their edges. They would burn through soon enough and she would have no more time.

So, like that ancient Alpin princess, she needed to tell a story so interesting that-

“Who,” she said, voice firm, hands shaking, “would marry a man who would rule you when-”

Her voice trailed off because even as a story, even as a distraction, she could not lie like that, could not disrespect Artem when she had already betrayed him so thoroughly.

“-When you could marry a man that you could rule.”

Fortunately, Robin was willing to lie for her.

“A man you could make the crown prince,” said Robin and that was admiration in his voice.

Regina closed her eyes, felt them stinging in a way that had nothing to do with the smoke and everything to do with her own self-loathing and lack of understanding of how she had been seen as she continued to carefully inch forward.

She had trusted no one, not even Henrietta fully, and now she had sent away the two people most precious to her. She had sent them both into danger and she was alone, stripped of any future knowledge, against the most dangerous assassin sent against her. If she failed, they would die too.

Perhaps this was the last gift she could give them.

One way or another, Robin Buren was never going to kill anyone else again.

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“Yes,” said Regina, the calmness of certainty settling over her, “a man I could make the crown prince.”

Artem and his smiles and his dancing and his killing and his kindness and his papers to save her life and give her the life she wanted.

This much she could do.

Perhaps it was all she could ever have done.

“I was so sad that it was you,” Regina said, and found herself meaning it.

There - she heard the footsteps falter and a soft inhale.

She was not wrong.

“I enjoyed our conversations,” said Regina, a truth amongst the lies, “even when you were wearing a mask and asking me personal questions. You were the most normal person I met.”

“So you knew it was me even then?” said Robin. “Your standards for normalcy are very strange, my lady.”

He was not wrong.

Regina had not known for sure that the masked man at the masquerade had been Robin, but having it confirmed allowed her to confirm nearly everything else.

“You were kind,” she said, “when nearly everyone else was cruel or wanted something from me or treated me like some kind of circus performer.”

He had also been present in the location of nearly every one of her deaths, but Regina was past the point where she could berate herself for that truth.

“You deserved kindness,” said Robin and Regina hated that he sounded sincere. “I had hoped that-”

Regina did not want to hear his hopes.

It would only make things more difficult.

“Your bouquet of flowers for my engagement,” said Regina, hardening herself as she thought of her fear and terror, of Artem’s deaths, “the flowers on the chandelier at the theatre, the ‘mold’ on the wainscoting in the orphanage, the vines that poisoned Artem above the fountain-”

“No one else has ever noticed,” said Robin and Regina ignored the tone of his voice, ignored the way his words shook.

“You were not responsible for all of the murder attempts,” said Regina, feeling for the place where the columns changed to the stone of the wall, feeling for the wall lined with the Alpins’ ever-burning torches. “There were so many other, more incompetent assassins.”

Incompetent assassins that were killed.

Unless Robin had multiple bodies, he obviously had not been involved.

“I tried to convince them to stop sending the others,” said Robin. “They were getting desperate.”

Of course he was not in charge, Regina realized.

It did not change her plans, even if she would have liked to warn Henrietta and Artem.

After all, if she succeeded no warnings would be necessary.

“You wanted to kill me that badly?” said Regina, trying to keep her voice light.

“I knew you could-” said Robin and then his words stopped abruptly.

Regina felt a wave of horror pass over her as she realized what Robin, clever, clever Robin must have realized.

“It was not you anymore,” said Robin, almost pleading. “I convinced them that so long as your prince-”

There was a dull, distant noise in Regina’s head as she realized that she was the reason Artem was under threat.

She was why he had been targeted.

She had thought he was just an accidental part of the attempts on her but it had been-

“It is me now though,” said Regina, as the final piece of resolve slid into place, as her hand reached the opening on the wall she had been trying to find. “They could not let me actually marry Artem.”

The silence outside the slowly dying flames was deafening.

“It is you now,” said Robin, and Regina did not understand why sounded almost anguished as he appeared in front of her out of the flames. “The Nevilles will not…”

Well that answered a question that Regina had not even realized she had.

“Unfortunately,” said Regina, looking him directly in the eyes, “I am no delicate blossom and I will not die as one. I would rather take my own life than grant you the privilege of killing me!”

With that Regina tossed the second vial from her skirt, pulled the cord…

…and smiled in utter satisfaction as the wall of flames sprang up between her and Robin, even as the ones behind her were starting to subside with only stone to sustain them.

Even through the flames, she could see the horror on Robin’s face- and that made her laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh –

Her removed skirt – with all its terrible, stiff, and flammable cloth – started to burn and caught the nearby burial clothes and bones in the alcove aflame as well.

Regina ran.

She ran to the darkened pillars out of range of the flames, tucking herself into the darkness.

Yet Robin had no way of knowing that at all.

Not when all he could hear was her mad laughter as it echoed through the stone archways and danced along the flames…

Right before it abruptly died.

Her burning skirt, Regina noted with satisfaction, really did look like a crumpled body.

Even better was that without it, in nothing but her shift, she could move more easily.

She would need every advantage she could get to finish what she had started.

Regina looked at Robin collapsed in horror, ignoring the flames beside him, genuine shock on his face.

She did not know why he was even more surprised than she expected, but it gave her the opportunity she had been seeking.

Regina grasped the last bottle in her skirts and took a deep breath.

She had destroyed the lives of those she loved.

So long as she was alive, they would be in danger from those who wanted “Princess Regina Sheridan”, symbol of Sheridan power, dead.

It was the only gift she could give them.

She was not powerful enough to kill an assassin, but, if she was very very quick and clever and quiet…

…she was powerful enough to kill a distracted assassin and herself.

‘I am sorry, Ava,’ thought Regina, her sister first in her thoughts as she took the final, fatal steps forward. ‘I do not think I can keep my promise to live for you.’

As she took the step that would bring her into the light, into the final position-

-an angry QUACK sounded and the world froze.