She's going to vomit. No matter how many times she swallows or sucks in a deep breath of the stifling air in the ballroom, she can't seem to banish the feeling that she's going to vomit.

Watching the people around her, Alicia makes certain her distress doesn't show on her face. She stands like the stone statues that litter her ma's sprawling gardens at her mansion, features unshifting, blinking slow, measured blinks, wary of any sort of glint of panic that could shine within her eyes.

She knows her tells. She makes certain her teeth don't gnaw at the inside of her cheek. She keeps one hand folded over the other before her so she doesn't pick at the long since healed calluses on her palms.

All she has to do is pretend to be unaffected. It was easier when her life wasn't unraveling like a ball of yarn tumbling down a staircase.

"What do you see, Alicia?"

Nearly choking on the fear that claws its way up her throat, it takes all of her willpower not to tense and scamper away from the grand duke who towers beside her, having approached her without her realising as she focuses too heavily on herself. "Many beautiful dresses," she replies, her tone measured, her voice as smooth as honey.

The duke looks down at her, his gaze making her skin prickle. "You have the eyes of a hawk, don't insult me by pretending otherwise."

Forcing a chuckle to spill from her lips, Alicia smiles up at the grand duke even though it feels like a serrated blade has been slipped between her ribs and is slowly being dragged out, catching on flesh and bone as it does, nearly taking her breath with it.

All she can think about while looking at him is the queen's last words to her and the black veins that inched along her skin.

"I wish it were so, but no, I was merely lost in my thoughts."

Everyone in this room likes to feel superior, likes to feel as though they're the smartest amongst the crowd. Alicia hasn't met many people that are truly intelligent, just manipulative. But she knows the grand duke isn't an ordinary vulture.

Sergey Volkov isn't someone Alicia wants looking too closely at her lest he see through the cracks in her mask. They get wider each day she's here.

"Where's the queen?"

"I believe she retired for the night with a headache," Alicia replies without missing a beat. Hesitation will kill her, or worse; leave her an exile.

They both know she's lying through her teeth, but in front of all these people he can't do anything about it. The grand duke may be the second most powerful man in Muovea, but even he must tread carefully lest he ignite a powder keg already waiting to blow.

He knows she knows what he did, but he also knows she has no way to prove it. She's not a threat to him. At least, not in the way he thinks she could be.

"I hope she gets well." The smugness in his deep voice nearly sends Alicia reeling back.

She meets his forest green eyes and doesn't cower beneath his stare. He doesn't know she was in the tunnel that day. He doesn't know she knows about the Ghuls that are in those tunnels or his deals with the Ronavics. He doesn't know that she's very aware of the type of monster he is.

He also doesn't know the things she's done, the monster that she is.

"I assure you, Grand Duke, the Queen of Muovea will survive."

A twitch in his lip reassures her that he knows exactly what she's referring to. Alicia may have raged against her betrothal to Sebastian, dreaded it, but the crown will fall into her lap, whether she wants it or not, whether the duke wants it to or not.

Alicia will be Queen of Muovea. Unless he finds a way to exile her.

When the shout rises towards the ballroom doors, a part of Alicia is already prepared for it. She expects it. News has a way of rushing through the nobles like a waterfall, and it doesn't take long for the queen's death to reach Alicia's ears.

But as she steps away, a sharp grip around her upper arm halts her. She glances up at the duke as he leans close, his fierce eyes spearing into her.

"Before the war, Muovea was soft. We will never be soft and weak again." He lets go of her but his fingers may as well have been embers with the brand they leave behind.

Scurrying away from him, she shoves his words from her mind before he can see the panic in her gaze and follows the tide of people that take her to the queen's chambers as she's expected to. Staying back will draw gazes to her. So, she doesn't turn away even though her heart pounds against her ribs and her nails dig into the smooth skin on her palms.

People rush past her and someone crashes into her shoulder in their haste. She grabs onto the wall to find her balance, using it as a crutch as a sudden unsteadiness quakes through her. It's beginning to sink in what she's walking towards as she hears panicked whispers, a cry reaching her ears. Someone sprints past her, yelling.

She continues onward because she has to, because she's just another noble, another faceless vulture and that's all she was ever supposed to be when she first walked into these halls.

She wasn't supposed to search for Samantha Safronov. She wasn't supposed to scheme with the queen. She wasn't supposed to inspire or build hope. She wasn't meant to be anything but another ploy to gain fame and riches.

Alicia turns a corner, knowing these halls now like she knows her own name, but stops when she sees the group of people outside the queen's chamber, some even weeping as soldiers hold them back.

Approaching, the Reaper seems to whisper in her ear, seems to cackle at her. He reminds her that no matter how hard she fights, how many pieces of herself she buries, it'll never be enough to appease him.

She knows death. She's looked into the eyes of the Reaper and stared back unflinchingly. But this... This might just break her.

From this angle, she can just see the queen and the black veins that now make up her skin. Her eyes are wide open, black like they've been drenched in ink. Her lips are curled away from her teeth in a feral snarl but her neck... her neck has been slashed open, blood of a lacklustre grey drenching the plush carpet beneath her.

How many nights did she spend in this very room, sharing a bottle of wine between her and the queen as they sat on that same carpet before the fire? How much did she confide in the woman and how much did she confide in Alicia?

Reyna taught her what a mother was supposed to be.

The uneven thud of footsteps draws her attention and Alicia glances over her shoulder to see the prince shoving his way through the people, a wildness in his eyes Alicia hasn't seen before.

This will destroy him.

The queen may not have been his mother by birth, but she raised him. She was his mother in the ways it counted.

"Sebastian," she says, stepping into his path and planting her hands against his chest. She feels his raging heart fluttering against her palms. "You don't need to see."

He doesn't look at her before shoving her out of the way like she's just another noble crowding the hall. What she was meant to be.

Advancing towards his mother's chambers, Alicia doesn't try to stop him again. If she sees the horror in his face, she knows she won't make it out of that corridor without crumbling.

Sebastian's words from just the other day echo in her head. I don't love you.

Those words are in the forefront of her mind and for a moment she stands there, watching him fall to his knees, a cry spilling from his lips, and she contemplates leaving him there. It'd be so easy to turn away, to delve her hands into the tasks that weigh on her shoulders, but she doesn't.

Alicia has been left alone in the dark for so many years that she can't stomach doing it to someone else.

Even though he shoved her away, Alicia kneels by Sebastian's side and drapes her arms over his shoulders, shielding him from the pain that surrounds them like no one ever did for her. She settles her chin on his shoulder and lets him cling to her.

There's little else she can do, but it's more than anyone else will ever offer him now that his mother is gone. Alicia is all Sebastian truly has now, but she knows she's not enough for him, not while she's still trying to pick up the broken pieces of her soul.

This battle may be lost, but the war is still ahead of her.