Tinea swung astride Molly and settled into the saddle as Elric got on his own horse. The two of them headed out of the stable and towards the trail, and Elric hummed as he led his horse through the pasture towards the back.

“So… You’re ten?” he asked, and Tinea was silent. “I remember when I was ten.”

“That’s good for you,” Tinea muttered as they strode through the pasture.

“You’re so prickly,” Elric teased, and Tinea bristled. “Relax. It’s just a ride.”

“I don’t want to bond with you,” Tinea said, flat. “You’re going to be gone soon back to the magic tower, anyway.”

“And? That doesn’t mean we can’t exchange letters,” he said, and Tinea sighed.

“I’m not going to write you,” she said, because this man was utterly impervious to hints.

“Well, you should. There’s all sorts of juicy gossip at the tower, and Beau doesn’t like to indulge me,” Elric complained, and Tinea twitched. Right. She was going to be in the middle of that. “Why don’t you want to be a noble, anyway? Most little girls your age would dream of the dresses.”

“I’m not that shallow,” Tinea said, flat, and Elric laughed.

“My, my, you’re so severe on your own sex,” he teased, and Tinea rolled her eyes.

“Most girls my age dream of being witches in the woods,” she said, and Elric tilted his head.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Hm,” he said, and they reached the gate at the back of the pasture. Magic circles appeared on the back of it, pushing it open, and they proceeded through it and onto the trail. “Even so, it’s still strange that you’d be so resistant to this.”

“That’s because the life of a noble lady is misery,” Tinea declared. “I’ll probably have to get engaged to a lout of a husband, and I don’t want to do it.”

“Arranged marriages are…” he trailed off, and then he shook himself. “Well, you could always call it off. Father would let you, so long as you tried to get along with him.”

That wasn’t true. Her only purpose here was to get engaged to Adrius. It was not something she wanted to do. It had spelled her death too many times, and she wanted nothing to do with it. He was useless, only interested in Delfina when he felt like he was doing something wrong, and she almost pitied all the versions of Delfina that had to be tied to him. It was probably not a life she envisioned for herself.

With a sigh, she looked up at the trees hanging over the trail, the sun dappling through the leaves, and a butterfly drifted past her face, landing on her nose and flaring its wings. Elric paused at the sight, and the butterfly took off, fluttering away from Tinea and her nose.

“You know, butterflies are the sign of the Oracle,” he said, and ice ran through Tinea’s veins. “Did you know that?”

“No,” she murmured, and he tilted his head.

“The Oracle is… hm,” he said and looked up. “They’re saying they found the new one, after the old one passed. It’s been ten years since the last one died.”

“Oh,” Tinea said numbly, and Elric glanced over at her.

“She must be your age. You’ll probably meet her when it’s time for your debut,” he said, and Tinea was quiet. “You won’t be able to be friends with her, of course. The Inistors don’t get along with the church.”

Yeah, she could imagine why. The church was only mildly corrupt, and Inistor had never been able to get a foot in the church to expand its influence. They were locked up tight, and she imagined it frustrated her father. That’s probably why he didn’t fight all that hard when she was falsely accused. He knew he didn’t have the sway to protect her.

She sighed quietly, and Elric was quiet as more butterflies drifted through, a suspicious amount of them, but Tinea ignored that.

“Do you know why butterflies are the symbol of the Oracle?” Elric asked, and Tinea shook her head no. “It’s because they are the sign of metamorphosis. The Oracle has to awaken her powers, and it’s said that the Oracle is the one that resides over change. Her power is… Well. The Oracle must remain unchanging, while the rest of the world goes on around her. It’s said a true Oracle will remain the same throughout her life, to keep the balance of the world.”

Tinea was silent, thinking of how Delfina never changed. She made the same decisions every lifetime, and every lifetime, Tinea was the scapegoat. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Tinea was the sacrificial lamb, and the Oracle was the same in every life.

She knew the Oracle never changed.

Elric didn’t have to tell her that.

With a huff, she spurred her horse forward to trot ahead of Elric, since the trail was narrowing and only allowed for one horse at a time, and Elric let her go.

Delfina was going to kill her again. And she would just have to accept it. No matter. She was going to have as much fun as possible until that point. There were no other options.

She could get to the magic tower in two years, and she would probably spend three years there before her father demanded she return. That was all that mattered. There was no fighting Delfina, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a blast this lifetime and enjoy herself as much as possible. Her execution loomed over her head, and she knew she should fear it more, but she was just so… tired. She was so tired.

….

Delfina walked through the butterfly garden in silence. The greenhouse was in the center of the temple, set up for the Oracle, and only her and her attendants could come in this place. It was one of the few places she found solace. It was beautiful, and she felt at peace here.

She had gone through Tinea’s past, and she was pretty sure Tinea had reverted this time at five years old. That was when she started practicing magic, and Delfina couldn’t help but wonder why she was practicing magic when she was so clearly capable of killing anyone, at any time, with just her moths. If she wanted revenge, she didn’t need to do any of that.

There was a stream running through the butterfly palace, and Delfina took off her socks and shoes and sat on the bridge with her feet in the water. A butterfly landed on her head, and she closed her eyes and tried to breathe through the panic clawing in her lungs.

She could still see it. Her body, laid open like she was being presented for a feast, with her organs pulsing in her torso. Her leg, half eaten away. Tinea had completely lost it, and she was disturbed by how the girl had managed to do something so horrific. The executions had broken her brain, clearly. She was capable of more than Delfina would ever be prepared for, and Delfina…

Didn’t want it.

She did not want it to happen again, but she didn’t know how to prevent it.

The way the visions worked was they were more accurate the nearer they were in her mind. So, in the case of Countess Gratia, it was spot on and perfectly done. Something years in the future, though? She would see a variety of possibilities, and she had to parse through them to figure out which one was accurate. She hadn’t even bothered to look in the future last time, convinced Tinea was going to try to poison her at the tea party, and she would beat it. It was miserable, to be poisoned. Delfina had nearly died multiple times, and it was worth nothing. Nothing at all. She had put her life on the line to get back home, and it had meant nothing.

She was frustrated. This world was hellbent on keeping her here, and she wanted to go home. She had to go home.

When she first read this novel, she had thought it trite, overdone and boring. She hadn’t been impressed with it, not in the slightest. She read a lot of villainess transmigrations and regressing stories, and she had been curious about the genre that started the craze. It hadn’t impressed her. The book was boring and stale. She couldn’t even remember the title after so many regressings. It was…

Well. It was boring. She knew the plot beats, the way it was supposed to go, and she had thought Tinea a boring and uninspired villain. She wasn’t clever, wasn’t special, was kind of a green tea bitch right up until the point where she poisoned Delfina and sealed her own doom, and Delfina…

Delfina didn’t know how to quantify that Tinea with the Tinea she had seen that night. It was like Tinea had sprung from the pages of the novel and come to life. She felt more real than anyone so far, and that scared Delfina the most.

The fact that Tinea might be real.

She had been present for all her executions. The horses stuck with her the most. The way Tinea screamed as her limbs were ripped from her body, the blood spraying, the way she was left in the square to bleed out, blood pooled all around her. The stumps of her limbs. It was the stumps that disturbed Delfina the most.

Delfina… was the villain, she realized.

She was the villain.

It was an uncomfortable gut wrench. She had never really considered any of these people real, but Tinea was challenging that. The way she lost her mind, the way she hissed and drawled, her eyes alight with insanity. She had broken, and now she was in her fifth life, and Delfina didn’t…

“I don’t want to do this,” Delfina said out loud, and no one responded to her, because she was alone. The stream continued to bubble and babble, and she stared down at her feet in the water. It was… she didn’t know how to feel. She did not know how to feel.

She didn’t want to do this anymore. Maybe this life, she would just rest. It would restart again, anyway, and she was sure she didn’t have to do anything. She could leave Tinea alone this life. There was always the next one to try again. Maybe a ceasefire was in order. Her gut twisted, and she swallowed. She didn’t…

What was she thinking? Tinea wasn’t real. None of these people were real. They were all figments in a story, and she was alone here as the sole real person. Who cared if Tinea was ripped apart by horses, poisoned, killed over and over again? Who really cared? She wasn’t real. None of this was real, and Delfina thought she was losing her mind.

She was truly losing her mind.

The door to the greenhouse opened, and she looked over as Isabella made her way in.

“Oracle, it’s time for your studies,” she said, and Delfina pursed her lips. She was sick of her ‘studies’. This was the fifth time she had been educated, and she wished there was just a way she could test out without making a mess of things.

“I’m skipping today,” Delfina said, and Isabella frowned.

“Your Holiness…”

“I’m skipping,” Delfina repeated, and Isabella paused.

“Are you getting a lot of visions?” she asked, and Delfina was quiet.

“Yes,” she murmured, because all of this was just one big vision, never ending, circling around the drain, and she was tired. She was so, so tired.

Tinea had screamed for hours as she bled out. She had never gone quietly into the night. She had screamed and screamed her frustration to the heavens, and Delfina would never forget the sight of her laying in the square, bleeding out from her limbs. She had personally thought they should have taken her head, too. There was no reason to drag it out. She had screamed and screamed, cursing them all, professing her innocence, and everyone had just watched.

Anger.

That’s all Delfina knew Tinea as. Pure anger and rage, railing against this unfair world they were both victims of. They were trapped together, moving in tangent together, orbiting each other, and Delfina wanted to sever the chain that kept them bound. She wanted to free them both, but it ultimately was her or Tinea. It was her or Tinea, and she would sacrifice a fictional character every time before she sacrificed herself.

She missed pizza. She missed burgers. She missed her bedroom. She missed her home. There was a cat she left behind, and she wanted to come back, with her cat just as she left her. It was unfair. It was unjust. She could barely remember what her cat looked like. She was a tortoiseshell, and had been unnaturally clingy. She thought she was dying if she wasn’t in Delfina’s lap, and Delfina missed her desperately.

All of this was unfair. It was unfair, and Delfina and Tinea both deserved better. Delfina could feel the seeds of bitterness take root. It was endless, unending. There was no escape, and she didn’t know what buttons she had to press and knobs she had to twist to get out of here.

Isabella was staring at her, and Delfina looked down into the stream.

“I’d like to be left alone, please,” she said, and Isabella pursed her lips.

“Yes, Your Holiness,” she said, and then she turned to make her way out of the greenhouse.

A butterfly landed in Delfina’s hair, and she was suddenly reminded of moths in her hair, eating holes in her scalp and skull. She shuddered and stood, picking up her stockings and shoes, and made her way out.

Not even the butterfly palace was a solace anymore.

Why did everything have to be taken from her?