Content warning: car accident, death

The guards seize the assassin, and he doesn’t make any effort to resist them, but the dagger is no longer in his hand. I didn’t see where it went, whether he found some way to dispose of it or hid it somewhere on his body, but the most incriminating piece of evidence is missing from the scene of the crime.

“Help the Queen, you fools,” he says. The authority in his voice is natural, like he’s used to not only giving orders, but having them followed. The guards—who’ve moved onto lashing the assassin’s arms behind his back—share a glance, and then one of them motions to the rest of the guards surrounding the doorway.

A strong pair of hands finds my arm, and for a brief moment, I relax. Then, my arm is being twisted behind my back. My scream sounds different in the voice belonging to this body, but the searing pain in my shoulder feels the same.

“Let go of me,” I cry, trying to shake out of their grip.

“That was a direct order from the Queen,” the assassin says, surging forward to try to get to me. Why is he the only one trying to help me?

A large, grizzly man with a scar running down his eye steps forward. “Our orders come from the Emperor and the Emperor alone.” He glances at Evren’s body, still on the bed, and turns his attention back to me. “As for Her Majesty, well…”

The guard grabs my other arm and twists it as well. A pair of cold cuffs clamp around my wrist, the metal tight enough to bruise.

The guards lead the assassin and I down the halls of the palace. Nobles and servants alike mill about in the halls, watching us being hauled away. They whisper amongst themselves and lower their gazes whenever I try to catch someone’s eye.

I don’t know how I got here, fear clinging to my skin more intimately than any lover, shame coursing through my veins as I’m paraded around like a spectacle.

Yesterday morning, I woke up and went about my day the same way I have for the past two years; I brushed my teeth and examined the dark circles no amount of concealer could ever fully cover up. I took the subway to work and kept my eyes glued to my flats, greeted the security woman standing outside of our building, made Mr. Dickerson’s coffee and hoped he wouldn’t notice that we were out of his favorite creamer, trudged my way to my desk, where Molly was waiting for me with a bright smile, a pile of paperwork, and plans for drinks that night. She left the office half an hour before I did, because Mr. Dickerson made me sit in on a meeting he didn’t want to pay attention to.

I left the office feeling like I could lay in bed and not get out for the next ten years, but I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, because I knew exactly what Molly would say if I tried to bail: “Nothing a margarita can’t fix, Annie.”

The city was sweltering that late into the summer, so I stopped to take my blazer off and pull my hair up. The last thing I remember was the small relief of the breeze on the back of my neck, a loud screeching breaking through the din of the evening, and a dark blue car, swerving towards me.

And then, nothing.

When I woke up, it was on the floor of a room I had never been in before, with a woman I had never seen before peering down at me. I thought it was a dream, or maybe the afterlife. Maybe all stressed, overworked twenty-four year olds were whisked off to live inside a fairytale when they died too soon. It felt right, that everything I didn’t have in my day-to-day life, I would get in the afterlife: a beautiful husband, the most stunning gowns I had ever seen, a feast thrown in my honor.

But this, now, being dragged down a hallway, my bare feet cold and sticky as blood dries against them, my wet sleeping gown sticking to my body, being forced to walk next to the man who took my fairytale away from me—it feels far too real.

One of the guards opens a door and pushes me into a seat. The assassin gets shoved into the seat next to mine. It’s an awkward fit and I have to scramble to keep myself in the chair, because my bound arms take up so much space.

Then, the guards leave, shutting the door behind them and enveloping the room in a darkness so heavy I feel the weight of it on my chest.

“Your Majesty,” the assassin hisses.

I turn in the direction of his voice, but can’t actually see him in the dark.

“This isn’t going according to plan, but we can still get out of this without them suspecting us. Just follow my lead.”

I can’t bring myself to say anything. My throat feels parched, my lungs deprived of air. Who is this man and why does he insist that I’m involved in him ending everything I thought was going to be my happily ever after?