My head was still reeling from the revelation as Vivianna guided me inside. We sat at the dinner table — the same one where we'd once shared a meal with her mother and Robin — but now its polished surface bore faint scars of time, tiny knife-marks and pale rings like faded memories.
Vivianna moved about the kitchen making tea while I tried to calm myself. The crimson moon leaked through the window, casting its strange tone over everything, as if even light itself was judging me.
"Would you prefer tea or coffee?" she asked, setting two teacups down and waiting for the kettle to boil.
"The Pale Monarch…" I muttered, half to myself.
"What was that?" she asked, worry flickering across her face.
"Hm? Coffee, please." I snapped back to the present.
After a while we both sat at the table.
"So… do you want to tell me what happened to you?" she said, passing me a cup.
"Do you remember when I asked you to suck my blood?" I blurted out, not sure how to start.
"Yeah. Your disappearance made me feel like I was the cause," she said with a thin smile, sipping her tea.
"Ah! No. You did nothing wrong," I said, standing too quickly and almost spilling my cup.
"Okay…" she replied, but her eyes held a skepticism she didn't voice.
"But wait — before I go on, where's Rob and your mom?" I asked, noticing at last how alone she seemed.
"Oh, Mother went to the Jade Eclipse Palace. Robert…" She hesitated. "I'm not sure about him."
"The Jade Eclipse Palace…" The name gnawed at me. Her silence gave no answer.
Vivianna had told me the Church had come for us and left with him. If I wanted to find him, I had at least one clue.
"So," she quipped. "On with it. What happened to you?"
I hesitated, then: "When I stepped out… I was brooding — when some script, some sort of writing appeared — and I read it aloud. It summoned… something." I paused. The image of the entity hung in my mind like smoke. "I wonder if it's still there," I mused.
"Hello? Are you okay?" Vivianna's voice interrupted my spiral.
"Yeah," I said, already standing and pacing. "There was this being. I'm trying to remember the summoning."
The words didn't come slowly; they poured out of me, slick and inevitable:
"O Rider upon the pale steed, O Reaper before time, arise.
Thou who gatherest kings and beggars alike,
whose scythe was forged in silence, draw nigh."
—
Vivianna's POV
Her hair was wrong. It had turned black, the tips bleached to bone-white. If not for her face, I would have assumed this was an impostor wearing Victoria's shape.
And she had noticed I was alone. That shouldn't have been possible. Something was off. I know strange — I am strange — but this…
Her mouth moved, but no sound reached me. The world muffled, like cotton in my ears.
Then the air shifted. The atmosphere turned cold and metallic. My vision swam. My nose dripped warmth; I wiped it and saw blood.
"Goodness," I whispered, panic breaking through my ancient calm. I summoned flame to my hands, but the fire felt thin. "I don't think you're Victoria," I warned, but something invisible stopped me from stepping closer — an unseen wall, soft yet unyielding.
"What the hell are you doing?"
My heart skipped as the shadows deepened and the temperature dropped. Flowers began to sprout around her feet — bright, impossible blooms — only to wither and bloom again, a grotesque clock made of life and death.
Then it appeared.
Tall, taller than it should have been, draped in black as if mourning itself. Just its gaze killed the flames in my hands, snuffing them like candles before a storm.
I have lived a long life. I have seen saints rise and fall, monsters crawl from the deep places. But this… this was not ancient. This was not divine. It did not tempt, it did not demand worship.
It simply was.
Inevitable.
And Victoria, my Victoria, stood at its center — weeping blood as reality bent like glass around her.
"Ah…" I heard myself whisper, stepping back — not to run (running was useless) but to give space for what had come. "The jest of life, my death."
The being moved once, and the room breathed with it.
Vivianna's POV
The being shifted, and the room breathed with it.
The air went still — not quiet, but still, as though sound had forgotten how to exist.
Even the crimson moon outside froze behind the glass.
-"Victoria—" I tried, but her name shattered in my mouth like broken glass. I wanted to run to her, to shake her free, but the being's gaze pinned me like an insect.
She turned her head toward me, and her eyes…
They weren't human anymore.
They were mirrors, reflecting something vast behind her, something older than the stars and newer than grief.
The Pale Monarch raised a hand — and though it had no face, I felt it look at me.
I fell to my knees, fire guttering out in my palms. My body screamed to worship, my mind screamed to run.
And then… it spoke.
Not aloud. Not even in words.
Reality itself rippled, and the meaning entered my head like a dream you don't remember but can't forget.
The seed was sown in her blood.
Now it shall bloom.
The Monarch extended its hand toward her.
A withered chrysanthemum bloomed in its palm, each petal black at the edges, dripping faint light.
It pressed the flower against Victoria's chest — right above her heart.
The bloom sank into her skin.
Her scream tore through the silence.
It wasn't pain — it was too vast to be that. It was recognition.
Her veins glowed faint green, spreading like roots. The withered flowers around her feet burst into color — white, yellow, and red — then turned to ash again.
And then the voice came from her, layered, doubled, as though two people were speaking through the same throat.
"Life is no mercy. Death is no punishment. All is the turning of the wheel."
The Pale Monarch lowered its head.
The shadows collapsed inward, folding the world like pages closing.
In one heartbeat — it was gone.
The room returned to its pale, tired silence.
Victoria collapsed forward, gasping. Her eyes were human again — mostly.
I caught her before she hit the table. Her pulse… stuttered, like two hearts trying to agree on a rhythm.
When she exhaled, white mist curled from her lips, cold as winter.
"Vickky?" I whispered.
She blinked, sluggishly. "He gave me something."
"What?"
She smiled weakly. "A mirror."
She tapped her chest. "Inside."
Her reflection no longer followed her — because now she is the reflection.
And when I looked at her reflection in the window — there was none.
Only a shadow, crowned in bone-white petals.
And in that absence, I understood: life had played its jest, and death had claimed the punchline.