Regina had been aware for a long time that she and Artem shared more in common than she had ever wanted to admit.

  She had never hoped that the misery caused by their own magic would be one of their commonalities.

  Almost unconsciously, Regina's eyes strayed to the space once occupied by Queen Natasha's body.

  When Queen Natasha had been stalking her, Regina had been far too frightened and overwhelmed to dwell on the words of Artem's mother.

  Yet between Artem's complete lack of surprise over the horrors of Regina's family due to their magic and the Queen's words about Artem being condemned to death from the moment he was born…

  Slowly, Regina lifted her eyes to look at Artem, her beautiful and beloved goldfish. Her heart ached as so much about him suddenly made sense.

  "Oh Artem," Regina said, and took his hands in her own, even as her fingers trembled. "All this time, I did not realize you were like me... that you too had to conceal your powers to survive your life."

  Artem suddenly leaned forward, and Regina felt his forehead press against hers, even as he kept their hands clasped between them.

  "I knew you would understand me once I confessed this to you," he said, and his voice trembled. "This is why I waited so many years… even after I began to fear that you would never come for me."

  Before Regina could begin to process that thought, he continued, his voice more flat and even the worse the words he was speaking became.

  "I was born," said Artem, "for only one purpose. I was to be the whetstone that sharpened my brother’s blade before falling to it in turn."

  Regina closed her eyes against the pain of those words.

  "Before I was born,” Artem said in a strangely detached voice, “my ‘father’ - the king - had three sons. Yet the two eldest sons killed one another in their pursuit of the position of the crown prince. I was told their mother died of grief soon after.”

  Something about the coldness of Artem’s words made Regina wonder about that last death.

  “The third and youngest son - Aaron - only survived by being too young to be of notice,” Artem said, “and my father in his infinite wisdom decided that in the absence of existing sons, that remaining son needed to be… strengthened.”

  Regina swallowed, even as she tightened her hold on Artem’s shaking hand.

  “The king met my mother when she tried to assassinate him in his bedroom,” Artem continued. “He was impressed by her ability to remove or outwit his entire guard and decided that after she stopped attempting to kill him, she would make for a fine bodyguard and queen. He ensured her loyalty with his powers so that she would never endanger his life or the life of his heir, Aaron Alpin. Then, when I was conceived and then born…”

  “He named you Artem,” Regina said, suddenly realizing with cold rage what the king had done to the man she loved. “A name that marked you as a future contender for the throne… and yet, a foreign name that made it clear you were not from Carcosa either.”

  Artem laughed and for the first time, there was something in the sound that was… chilling.

  “Yes,” Artem said. “Yes, my father is a brilliant man who, in producing and naming me, accomplished so many things. He gave my brother someone with martial skills to train against, even as he forced my mother to make sure I could never actually overthrow Aaron. What is more, by giving me a foreign name, he determined that I would have no way to ascend the throne even if I desired the position. After all, he and everyone else assumed that as someone of foreign blood, I would not have the magic needed to compete with full-blooded Alpins."

  "Only," Regina realized as she remembered all the wonders that she had seen Artem create before, "you did have powerful magic!"

  "I did," said Artem. "When I was tested for the strength of my magic as a child, my father realized I had even more power than Aaron, his designated heir… all while I was meant to be Aaron’s stepping stone to power.”

  Regina briefly closed her eyes even as Artem’s voice faltered.

  "Suddenly, I became the target of every member of Aaron's faction except Aaron himself,” Artem quietly said. “My brother did what he could to shield me… which made many of his allies assume his tender feelings for his family were holding him back from being a ‘proper’ king. This only made them attack me more often. Eventually, Aaron had to distance himself from me just to get some of them to leave me be…”

  Artem’s mouth twisted into something between a smile and a snarl.

  “Only that meant that other Alpins from lesser branches began hunting me. They realized that if they could goad me into killing Aaron, my ‘contaminated’ blood would make me an heir they could more easily usurp. So I became vulnerable in ways that Aaron could not support. I had to fend for myself.”

  "How old were you when all this began?" Regina asked, her voice trembling.

  "Five," Artem replied, and Regina realized that of course he was. Five was the age in which all Carcosan children were publicly tested for the strength of their magic.

  Her family refused to allow their children to be tested because they feared that the test might also reveal the nature of the Sheridan magic, though the tests only showed power not kind. How they had managed to avoid the tests even commoners were forced to take, Regina had no idea.

  Yet Artem was a royal prince so his magic would naturally be tested and the results released to the public… despite all the horror it would bring him from such an early age.

  "The only reason I still live," Artem continued as Regina’s heart ached for him, "is because my mother raised me to survive."

  Even as Regina bit her tongue so hard it nearly bled to avoid saying something unhelpful, she tried not to let Artem’s words pull her own trauma to the surface.

  After all, perhaps nobody but Regina could have realized the full horror of those words.

  “Since I was a small child,” Artem said after taking a deep shuddering breath, “my mother made me realize that I would have to adapt… or die. My brother does love me. My mother raised us to be as close as two brothers could possibly be. However, I was always a potential dagger at his back. Even purposely failing every magical spar I had with him would not save me.”

  Artem paused, obviously consciously regulating his breathing, even as Regina’s heart ached.

  “My mother taught me,” Artem said, “that I had to be my brother’s man in every way. If I was to live, it would be only as a contrast to him. I had to be ridiculous where he was respected, foolish where he was brilliant. Even if my family knew of my abilities, I had to be so silly that only the most stupid Alpins, even if there were more of them than expected, would try to remove me.”

  “So to survive,” Regina realized, some part of her heart audibly breaking for him, “you had to become a frolicking dandelion!”

  "It was not all bad," Artem said, a tired but honest smile spreading across his face. "I enjoy frolicking!"

  "Just as you enjoy brooches and dancing and smiling," said Regina, understanding the truth even as its horror washed over her. "Just as I love quiet and peaceful company and being as bland as a bowl of oatmeal."

  For she did love those things.

  She had to.

  It had been the only way to survive her own family.

  Now, Regina could not imagine a world where she had been allowed to love anything other than her survival strategies.

  She wondered if Artem felt the same.

  As if that was not horror enough, Regina realized the rest of the truth as a mirror to her own.

  “Both your brother and your mother were not allowed to visibly help you, were they?” Regina said over the lump in her throat. "From the time you were young, even when you were targeted, all they could give you was advice. You had to fend off the attempts by yourself."

  "Yes," Artem said, his relief coming across clearly. "You understand what it was like and what kind of life I had to lead."

  “Of course I do,” Regina softly said. “I know just what it is like to know that no one else can fully save you… even if they love you.”

  After all, Regina now knew her parents and her sister and her cousins loved her…

  Just as his mother and his brother loved Artem.

  Yet that was not enough to save either of them.

  For a very long time, since they were very young, they had had to rely on themselves.

  “Only there is one person,” Artem whispered, “who both loved me and saved me.”

  Regina started at that, only to see Artem smile.

  “I waited for you all my life,” Artem explained gently, “for you were the only one who would ever directly shielded me.”

  Although she felt his joy as though it were her own, Regina had to almost smile at the ridiculousness of his words.

  "Artem," she gently pointed out, "if you ever used your true powers, you would not need any saving."

  Artem was the child of a deadly assassin with even more deadly powers of his own.

  Had he needed Regina to save him in the first place?

  Robin Buren was a very clever assassin. If Regina had not been capable of seeing the future, he or an equally clever assassin could easily have humiliated or murdered her.

  Yet if Artem's powers were strong enough to make him a threat to his elder brother at the age of five...

  If Artem was strong enough to perform the amazing magic he had shown to save their lives in the theatre and the orphanage…

  Had Artem ever needed Regina to help him at all?

  Perhaps something of her skepticism shone through to Artem, as he seemed almost eager to explain.

  "You have to understand," said Artem earnestly, suddenly seeming exactly as the dandelion that Regina had previously seen him, "that my powers are unusual even by Alpin standards. All the test can do is to determine the strength of powers but not their nature or scale."

  He closed his eyes briefly before opening them with a determined gaze.

  "My mother realized very early that I could do things that none of the other Alpins could do, which somehow got even more powerful after I used the feet fish mask the Kuzeys gave to her."

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  Privately, Regina wondered if Artem was mistaking the growth of powers as he aged with the powers of his apparent ugly golden feet fish mask… but she was too wise to interject.

  "The Alpins," said Artem with a strange determination, "can normally only manipulate one type of metal and then only in very specific ways. So far as my mother was able to tell, I am the first Alpin in any of the records to be able to manipulate multiple metals and with as much control as I can wield."

  Regina took a step backwards in true shock.

  “Yet what of your family’s displays?" she cried, trying to understand. "At every Alpin gala, your family showcases all of their lights and metalworks and –"

  "Most of it is a fraud,” Artem replied, smiling grimly. “Before their powers manifested, the Alpins were metalworkers. It is amazing how much you can seem to accomplish with metalworking skills and some sleight of hand to make people believe you have power you do not."

  Regina could not believe that Artem was sharing this actively treasonous knowledge with her.

  If anyone outside of the Alpin family knew of such a weakness…

  "Even when members of my paternal family do have limited powers over metal," Artem continued, "such powers still require tremendous energy, enough to incapacitate a normal Alpin should they try anything challenging."

  "Only your powers," Regina realized, "do not!"

  Artem replied, equally softly, "Yes, as you have seen. Despite my ‘contaminated’ foreign blood, I can do all the things that the other Alpins merely pretended they could… which made almost all of them hate me.”

  "So you hid your powers," Regina realized, thinking how she had never, not for a minute, considered sharing her powers with any of her family.

  She had never even told Henrietta that she could see into the future, let alone that Artem was her focus. Even with those she loved, Regina had never trusted.

  "So I hid my powers," Artem quietly agreed. "If I needed to fend off attackers, I did it with anything but my magic."

  Pity and tenderness both rose up in Regina, even as she realized just how miserable and exhausting and lonely Artem must have felt for years.

  She had only had to hide her magical abilities for half a year. She could barely imagine how it would have felt to do so from the age of five.

  Then Regina realized something else that struck her like lightning.

  Artem had been trained from his childhood to hide his magical abilities… but he had stopped doing so once Regina had entered his life.

  Indeed, in the last few months, Artem had openly displayed his great power not just to her or his family but to all the important nobles in Carcosa.

  “You finally started displaying your magical abilities,” Regina numbly murmured, “in the last few months even though you knew it might harm you. Yet you did it because… because…”

  "Because," Artem said, in a voice that seemed to echo from the past, "you asked me to… and I have been waiting for you for most of my life."

  Regina felt something like a feather stroke her hand for a moment as the final pieces slid into place.

  "You were waiting for me,” Regina said softly, “because you were the prince who came to visit my family over a decade ago.”

  Artem blinked at that before smiling in what seemed like wonder.

  “I had no idea you knew that,” he said. “I thought that you did not know about me until we met in person.”

  “I did not… remember being told about you until recently,” Regina replied quickly. “My... my sister Ava mentioned you in a… well, in passing. She said she saw you in our family's garden and that in response to your pretty manners, she told you a story."

  Artem smiled at that. It was a smile so sweet that Regina’s heart ached for the innocence she had never seen in his younger self.

  "I am not sure," he confessed, "that my manners toward your sister were very pretty. I threatened her when we first met because I thought she was another assassin trying to murder me."

  "Believe me," Regina said, "that is pretty manners by the standards of my family."

  "Then I am grateful for the story your sister granted me," Artem replied, "for it was one that gave me hope for over ten long, lonely years. She told me that one day I would meet the most kind and beautiful girl in the world and this girl would be the princess of my dreams."

  Regina laughed softly at that, even as she felt the weight of all that her sister had given up for her.

  "I am not sure," Regina confessed, "I was worth all those years of waiting. You keep saying I am so brave, Artem but... but I am a coward. These last few months, I feared our deaths at every turn and only was able to barely save us using every skill I had."

  Regina gave another hollow laugh before she continued.

  "My sister said I would rescue you," she murmured, "but I could barely even rescue myself. It was luck more than skill that supported me... and even then, I would have run from danger if there was any opportunity."

  Her hands fell from Artem's as her eyes fell to the floor, afraid to look him in the face anymore.

  "Even if you spent many years waiting for me," she quietly admitted, "I do not know if I deserve your kindness. If anything, you would have been better off simply showing your power instead of hoping I could save you every time. I – I nearly –"

  ‘I nearly sacrificed you to save myself,’ Regina could not bring herself to say. ‘I doubted you, I ran from you, and I almost got you killed.’

  Horror and guilt rose up in Regina in equal measure, warring to see what would first overcome her.

  "I do not deserve your love," Regina said at long last, her hand forming fists at her side. "I do not know what I deserve but - but I know you deserve better than me."

  Artem took several steps back from Regina, creating the greatest distance there had been between them since they had reunited.

  It would have been kinder if he stabbed her.

  Regina felt all the agony of both her own poor decisions and the fact that Artem agreed with her assessment.

  She began to turn away, to try to hide the grief of her loss, but then Artem's voice froze her in place.

  "I was so lonely," Artem said, and the pain in his words tore at Regina as she turned back to him.

  "I was so lonely every day," Artem said. "My mother could not spend time with me other than to train me and I had to serve my brother, not play with him. The only people who touched me were the people who were trying to kill me. Sometimes I considered letting them."

  "No!" Regina cried, the words torn from her throat even as she felt the horror of her own childhood echo within Artem.

  “Yes,” Artem said, as if all joy had been drained from his heart. “Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to die on my own terms than to live my whole life waiting for someone to overcome me.”

  “Artem…” Regina began to say before the words dried up in her throat.

  For what could she say in response?

  Then Artem smiled and the light came back to his eyes, a light that was fierce.

  “All of that changed,” he said, “the day I met a dark haired princess of ducks who told me a story about a girl who would save me one day… and gave me something to survive for.”

  Regina stared at him, watched Artem straighten, his voice fervent and confident.

  "So I waited for the girl who would save me," said Artem. "I waited and waited until I thought perhaps it had all been a lie or a dream… but then I met you. You were the first person in my life to put yourself in direct danger to save me… and then you kept on doing it despite the costs it might bring.”

  Artem’s eyes held all the love and light in the world as he continued speaking.

  "I love my brother and my mother," said Artem, "just as I know they love me. Yet even they needed me to sacrifice and hide myself so that they too could keep surviving. Yet you…”

  Artem’s eyes shone.

  “Regina,” he said, his voice trembling, “you are the one person in the world who wanted me just as I was. You are the one person who loved me for myself and who protected me from the world."

  Regina could say nothing, even as she hoped her eyes conveyed what her tongue could not.

  "You alone,” Artem continued, “showed me that I could be someone more than my brother's shadow. You alone made me realize that I could share my gifts and not have to hide from the world. You alone showed me that I could be who I was and still be loved."

  Artem raised his hand and she saw he wore his engagement ring still.

  On his finger, it shone like the light in Artem’s eyes.

  “You are the bravest person I know,” he said, “and it was not fate that made me love you, no matter what story I was told.”

  Oh, Regina realized. It really was that simple.

  "I love you too," she said.

  Finally she understood why he had replied that he knew when she told him she loved him.

  For as far as Artem was concerned everything she had ever done to save him had been a sign of love.

  He was right.

  It was.

  "You love me," he said, "and I love you too... enough to want you to live as you have always desired."

  Regina stopped, the strange look on Artem's face holding her fast for a moment before she could say, "What do you mean?"

  "I want," he said, "you to do more than just survive by my side. Regina, I want you to be happy."

  He lowered his eyes, a pensive look on his face.

  "I overheard your conversation with your parents," he murmured, "and what they shared about your safe life abroad... a life you cannot lead if I am there to endanger you. So if you still want to leave Carcosa..."

  "Artem!" Regina cried out, even as a dark realization started to build. "Are you telling me –"

  "If you want to leave Carcosa after all," Artem said, still not looking at her, still attempting to smile, "I will assist you however I can... and I will not follow. After all..."

  He smiled at last and she was reminded of the child she had seen in her family's garden. For a brief moment, she could see again the boy who had grown up much too soon, who had never known a moment of peace.

  “Love is not about possessing someone,” he murmured. “It is about making sure they live freely.”

  Regina stood there, trembling, even as she tried to understand Artem’s words.

  That he was willing to let her simply walk away from everything even after they had shared so much, even after she had learned the secrets of his family, even after he had revealed that he had spent most of his lifetime waiting for her was – was –

  By allowing her to walk away from him, he would lose.

  He would lose everything.

  He would lose everything because he cared more about Regina than he cared about anything else, even his own wellbeing.

  Regina could barely breathe over the lump in her throat.

  As if Artem sensed her hesitation, he smiled even more broadly and said, "Of course I could always follow after you, if that was what you wished."

  It was the first time Regina had ever heard Artem lie to her.

  After hearing of his past, Regina knew that Artem would never get to leave the cage of his royal family. After she left, his wings would be clipped even further than they already had been because his great magic had been revealed.

  He would never, ever be free.

  Regina looked at her prince, and the ring he wore on his finger, and realized so many things.

  ‘Originally, I wanted my prince to live so I could live the life I have always dreamed. Yet now…’

  She took one step, and then another, and then another, until her lips met Artem’s once more and the rest of the world stopped.

  ‘Now,’ Regina realized, ‘I want my prince to live more than I want the life of my dreams.’

  Regina took a step back and smiled at the man she loved without doubt or fear.

  "I want," said Regina, "to be with the ones I love. I want to have the power to protect them and to make their lives better than what their lives have been."

  Artem stared at her.

  "Most importantly though," said Regina, gathering all her courage. "I want to be with you."

  With a final farewell to her dreams of a quiet country life and an anonymous potato man, Regina felt her determination rising.

  "I have been a villainess," said Regina. "I have been a coward and a fool and a weakling. Yet I live, my prince.”

  She took a deep shuddering breath and said, “I want you to live without having to ever hide yourself again and I want you to live freely with me."

  Regina took a step forward and reached out to Artem with a trembling hand even as he reached out to her in turn.

  Their fingers met and his engagement ring pressed against her flesh… just as her engagement ring pressed against his.

  "I want," she told him, "to spend the rest of my life with you, however long or short it may be."

  His eyes met hers and there was so much love there that it nearly took her breath away.

  "Come, my dove," said Regina, her hand intertwined with his own. “Let us go get married.”

  Save the Villainess.