Regina Sheridan, princess-to-be, had rarely thought of herself as commanding. As a young girl, she had always trailed in her older sister Ava's wake, happy to do whatever it was that her sister wanted her to. And after Ava's death, the last thing that Regina courted was attention - which meant she went to great trouble to seem as quiet and cowed as possible.

Yet as Regina pointed the stiletto of her heel at Robin Buren's throat, she suddenly realized how appealing it was to be in the position to command something from someone who had long vexed her.

"So," she said, her voice warm and pleasant. "Are you going to tell me more about why you spent so long attempting to murder me... or should I drive my heel into your artery and let it remain an eternal mystery?"

For a man, who was bound in her corset strings and garters, with her heel at his throat, Robin Buren seemed surprisingly relaxed.

In fact, Regina was unnerved by how warm his voice was when he spoke.

"As much as I enjoy mysteries," said Robin, "I do like your heel better where it is currently."

There was something... strange about that answer, but Robin was already speaking before Regina had the chance to understand what was bothering her.

"It is important," said Robin, "to make it clear that nobody originally intended to kill you."

Flashes of her still body in bed and in the treasure room filled Regina's vision as she felt her anger rise.

"Do you take me for a fool?" said Regina through gritted teeth, as she started to bring her foot down and blood bedamn Robin for still looking relaxed beneath her.

"Not at all," he said softly. "However, it is the truth. Initially, Duke Neville only wanted to disgrace you and the Sheridans."

Regina's foot halted… before she scoffed.

She did not believe the man beneath her, even if he was currently at her mercy.

After all, Robin Buren was an assassin for not just his family but the mighty ducal Nevilles as well - and one who was clearly very good at his line of business. If she had not had the gift of foresight, he would have murdered her a dozen times over - and as it was, she and Artem still barely escaped his grasp.

"How do you expect me to believe such drivel?" she said, disgusted by the lies he spewed even now. "I would be a fool to think a man who used his vines to try to pulverize me beneath chandeliers was trying to spare my life in the end!"

"It did not start with chandeliers," said Robin softly, "but then, you already know that, do you not, my lady?"

Regina froze suddenly, as if her blood had suddenly turned to ice.

Surely he could not mean what she thought he was implying-

"Perhaps," said Robin, almost musingly, "I am going about this the wrong way. I was never chosen for my ability to speak."

He closed his eyes for a second and when they opened, something had shifted.

"What," he said, "would happen if the Sheridans were granted a ducal title?"

Regina paused, wondering if he was trying to avoid her questions, but there was something about his tone that made her answer, almost in spite of herself.

"A duchy,” she slowly said, “would come with increased power in the Capital and a grant of land-"

"What land?" Robin interrupted.

Regina stared at him before she could answer.

"The Sheridans already have a considerable Western land grant as a marquessate, though it is mostly useless to us. The elders always wanted-"

She bit her tongue, both for answering too easily and because something else started to become obvious.

"-The most fertile, abundant land in Carcosa?" said Robin knowingly.

"Owned," Regina softly admitted, "by the Buren and Neville duchies… fertile, abundant land that is reserved for the duchies of Carcosa."

"The three duchies of Carcosa," said Robin. "With the Kuzeys trapped in the Northern territories that no one sane would wish to hold, that means-"

"That Neville and Buren duchies,” Regina realized, “hold the most fertile land in Carcosa's South.”

"So I ask you again," Robin softly said. "What would happen if your family - the Sheridans - were granted a ducal title?"

A terrible dread spread across Regina’s body as she finally realized why the Nevilles and Burens might want her dead.

"So your family," said Regina flatly, "tried to murder me because the Sheridan elders would annex their land if my marriage succeeded and the Sheridans were granted a ducal title."

"My family," said Robin, "wants whatever the Nevilles want and have no independent wants of their own."

"Are you implying the Burens are merely dogs for the Neville duchy?" said Regina in disbelief.

"Whoof whoof," said Robin, with a smirk that was far too confident for a man lying underneath her foot.

"Even," said Regina, trying desperately to regain control of the situation, "if I believed you, and I am not saying that I do, I was engaged to a second prince! That marriage would never have granted the Sheridans a ducal title because it would have threatened the actual crown prince!"

"Ah," said Robin, "but you were not originally meant to be engaged to the second prince, were you?"

"I do not know what you mean," said Regina, feeling her lips start to pale.

"If your entire house had been as discreet as you are, my lady," said Robin with a weary sigh, "we would not be here now."

Regina stared at him.

"Every noble family in Carcosa knew that the Sheridans planned to propose a bride to the crown prince," said Robin with a shrug that was somewhat hampered by the many strings around his arms. "When the engagement was declared with Prince Artem rather than Prince Aaron, everyone knew that the Sheridans were a greater threat than they had ever imagined."

"How?" cried Regina, nearly tearing up in frustration. "Artem was never going to be king!"

“You are a marvel,” Robin said, his admiration sounding strangely sincere. “You even manage to tremble when you say such things.”

“Stop speaking in riddles!” Regina shouted, feeling sorely tempted to dig her heels into him.”

"Everyone knows that you made Artem Alpin into your puppet," said Robin, staring her straight in the eye. "He is but a malleable boy with the backing of an upstart family with unknown magic… and a bride who knew how to make him move to her will."

"No!" said Regina, feeling an uncomfortable prickling in her eyes. "Surely they could see I never intended-"

"My lady," said Robin, not unkindly, "when have intentions ever mattered for people like us?"

Something felt as though it were rising into Regina’s throat – a mixture of rage, wonder, and dread.

"So you and your own decided to strangle me in my bed?" Regina said at last, trying to hide all that she felt. "Or to asphyxiate me under my fiance's golden mask at the ball for our engagement?"

"Is that what you saw when you…?" Robin said before trailing off. "No wonder..."

Regina stared at him in complete confusion.

He smiled and it almost seemed sad.

"They wanted you disgraced," said Robin. "Not dead."

"What?" said Regina, dumbfounded once again.

"For the first attempt,” Robin flatly said, “you were meant to be found in bed with another man. You would not have been assaulted, but even the implication would have been enough to infuriate the Alpins. As for the second, with the golden mask…”

He sighed before adding, “You were meant to have been discovered attempting to steal the Alpin treasure while drunk and passing out in the process."

Regina did not want to believe a single word that Robin Buren - professional assassin - had to say.

And yet –

Yet if she placed Robin's words besides the first vision she had ever experienced - the one where he as Lord Grass Hair had watched her be condemned as a villainess during her engagement to the crown prince...

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Lady Regina will hopefully live,” Lord Grass Hair said, “and given her youth, may even receive a relatively lenient charge. She is someone else’s puppet so what need is there to harshly punish her?”

...Regina's heart felt as though it were being squeezed by a vice once again.

“So at first,” Regina said through barely parted lips, “you planned to make both the Alpins and the Sheridans lose all respect for me. After all, once disgraced, I could never become an Alpin bride or a queen, and elevate my family to a duchy. I would simply be shunted aside as a disgrace to polite society. That is what you planned for me!”

Robin almost snarled his next words.

"I planned none of this!” he hissed. “I was brought in when all their foolish previous plans failed. My job is not to be clever, my lady. My job is to remove targets while my fancy flowery cousins make bouquets as ducal heirs. There are always different kinds of dogs in a kennel. The ducal heirs keep their hands clean, while the rest of us..."

As someone with enough family drama of her own, Regina did not have a lot of time or energy for other people's dysfunctional families.

"So they brought you in," she said coolly, "because they decided to stop disgracing me and decided to start murdering me."

"The Nevilles brought me in as an assassin," Robin admitted, "but also a large number of more incompetent hired mercenaries."

‘Ah,' Regina reflected, feeling oddly light-headed. 'At least I was correct when I assumed there was more than one assassin attempting to murder me.'

She almost counted it as a victory, given how wrong she had been about so many other things.

Yet as she stood before Robin Buren, she realized the truth of his words. For though he had plotted her murder, everything he said made perfect sense.

After all, in her very first vision, the Nevilles and Burens had clearly plotted to disgrace her as a villainess to break her engagement to Crown Prince Aaron Alpin. For once that engagement was broken, her family would never again get the opportunity to wed into the royal family and become a duchy... or steal the fertile southern lands of the Nevilles and Burens.

It was not as though the Nevilles and Burens had any particular hatred of her after all. For all they cared, she could live in house arrest forever.

And if she had been killed in a suspiciously timed carriage ride on her way to eternal disgrace at the Sheridan family manor…

Despite herself, Regina began to laugh... and laugh... and laugh…

A sight which caused Robin to frown and look almost... worried for her.

"My lady?" he asked softly. "Are you..."

"Do you remember," she interrupted him, “our first dance together at my engagement ball?"

Robin's smile was fleeting but almost... sweet.

"It would be," he admitted, "hard to forget what it felt to have you next to me."

Bypassing his false flattery, Regina said, "You told me something that remains in my memory. You told me..."

She closed her eyes, trying to recall his exact words.

"You said... Carcosa is a cursed land because all the nobles in it endlessly jockey for power. Families go to war with one another to be the greatest power in their little fiefdom, then ally or war with other families for yet more. And then you asked..."

"Whether your family was an exception to this shining standard of noble conduct," Robin finished for her. "My lady, did you get your answer?"

"Yes," Regina said, as she realized just why she had died in her first, never-experienced life... as well as what Ava had died to save her from. "Yes, I did."

Then she crouched down and dragged her brooch's blade across Robin's cheek, perilously close to his eye.

"Now I just need a few others."

"I am," said Robin Buren, still infuriatingly calm beneath her, "entirely at your disposal."

"You were not always so compliant," said Regina, pushing away the knowledge that her family had murdered her in the future that never was, the future where she had been engaged to the crown prince. "You were brought in to kill me and apparently taunt me in the process. Was that why you showed me the oleander during our dance?"

Robin smiled faintly. "It truly was just a pretty flower, my lady and it would have looked beautiful in your hair. So long as you do not touch it with bare hands or eat it, you would not be poisoned. There are many beautiful things that are only dangerous if you handle them incorrectly."

Regina stared at Robin.

"Are you," she said in disbelief, "flirting with me right now?"

"Is it working?" he said hopefully.

Regina stabbed her brooch less than breath from his ear.

"Keep. Talking," she hissed through gritted teeth.

"You were too dangerous to let live," said Robin, not a trace of laughter or charm in his voice. "Every attempt to disgrace you resulted in your increased popularity. It was obvious that you were the Sheridan that the older noble families had doubted could exist – one with both ambition and the brains to enact it. They had thought that no commoner merchant bloodline could be a threat and once they realized it could... Disgracing you was not enough."

"So your Neville masters wanted me dead," said Regina, "because I became too popular. Then, once their stupider minions proved ineffective, they brought you in to do it."

"They brought me in to kill you," said Robin, "but I noticed things that they, in their arrogance, could never have perceived."

Regina had to fight to keep herself from trembling.

"I realized very quickly," said Robin, "that whatever your family's powers were, you had a power that allowed you to sense danger."

It was not quite the truth but it was closer than Regina wanted especially as she realized -

"You tested me," said Regina flatly. "Every time we danced or you made an attempt on my life, you were trying to see the extent of my powers."

"How else," said Robin, "could I determine what I needed to do?"

Somehow, Regina had the strange suspicion that he was not speaking of killing her… even as a more horrifying realization dawned on her.

"It is one thing to try to kill me," she said in utter rage, "but you nearly killed dozens of orphans with those chandeliers! You – you monster!"

Robin's face went smoothly blank for a moment before he replied in the flattest tone Regina had heard yet.

"How many people, my lady, " said Robin, "were hurt in that theatre?"

Regina paused… before her eyes widened in realization.

"Did it really seem," said Robin, "as if those chandeliers were not fully under my control?"

"You put on a show to match the one on the stage," said Regina, even as anger and fear and guilt warred with her. "You and your damned flowers!"

"I never intended to kill you," Robin returned, “though I needed to make Duke Neville believe my attempts were sincere. I swear upon my own heart, my lady"

Regina closed her eyes, visions of the horror and terror of the orphanage, of running until she thought she would die, of the fear and pain and nights spent in nightmares-

"I thought I was going to be killed," said Regina.

"I am," said Robin, and he had no right to look that sad, "so very sorry."

"It took the orphanage," he continued, while Regina tried to collect her scrambled thoughts, "for me to persuade Duke Neville that you were too powerful and too canny to kill - and there was no use making any attempts on you.”

Something terrible began to coalesce in Regina’s mind once again.

“Yet the attempts did not stop,” she slowly said. “It is not as though the danger passed.”

“No,” Robin admitted. “No, Duke Neville would never let you truly go. So in the end, I persuaded him to change targets. After all, you could not be a princess... if you had no prince to marry."

For a moment, Regina froze in horror, even though Robin was merely confirming what part of her already knew.

Then she raised her hand and slapped Robin so hard, it was a wonder his cheekbone did not shatter.

"Be grateful," Regina coldly said as Robin struggled to breath after her blow, "that I was not holding my brooch. It was one thing for you to go after me! But to go after Artem -"

A strange mixture of guilt and grief felt as though it were overwhelming her, even as she struggled not to tear up in front of her enemy.

"How dare you," Regina said, and hand to tighten her fists to keep from striking Robin once more.

"I think," said Robin, and there was that strange mix of wry sadness in his voice that he did not deserve to feel, "that if anyone at all had understood you, many things would have been... very different."

"But we did not," he said, softly, almost dreamily, despite the large bruise blooming on his cheek. "Least of all me, who thought I understood the most. I told Duke Neville that if he sent me to kill Prince Artem, it would eliminate the Sheridan path to power."

He looked up at Regina then, eyes dark. "You would not have been able to marry a higher level noble if you lost a fiance that powerful. However-"

He took a deep breath. "-I would have offered for you, if you would have had me."

Regina stared at him.

Robin stared back, almost defiantly.

"You," said Regina in utter disbelief, "are the- the- opposite of a potato man!"

"You have not seen me at the end of the day," said Robin, almost hopefully, "when I have not yet dined."

"No," said Regina, in an almost snarl. "NO! You... you... not-potato! You tried to kill Artem! You strung him over a fountain so that he nearly slept with the fishes!"

"And I failed," said Robin, awe clear in his voice. "I failed every time. I never fail when I am actually trying to assassinate someone."

Regina tried not to think about what any of this meant, but before she could gather her thoughts, Robin continued, as merciless as the knife she did not have.

"It made me realize the truth," said Robin and Regina knew that she needed to stop whatever he was going to say next but somehow her voice did not work-

"It was not," said Robin, slowly and deliberately, "that you could sense danger. No matter how brilliant you are, you would not have been able to thwart the specifics of every situation with just a sense that something would go wrong. After all, a blade needs to only succeed once. For you to thwart death that consistently and thoroughly-"

"No," Regina said – pleaded. "No."

"You can see the future," said Robin.

Regina stared at him in horror.

She wondered if she had to murder him now.

She – Her entire family –

They would all be destroyed if this was known –

"It made me hope," said Robin, his voice shaking slightly, "that you knew and realized that I planned to fake your death and help you escape Carcosa with me."