The Villainess Wants Her Prince to Live!

Lady Regina Sheridan spent the night before her official engagement to Prince Artem Alpin trying not to get murdered.

In retrospect, Regina decided that it had been sheer madness on her part to believe that life would give her a reprieve from lurking assassins simply because she changed the man she would marry.

After all, though she should have become a less attractive target for murder once she went from being the future wife of the Crown Prince to the future wife of a second prince that everyone agreed was a sweet idiot…

Regina closed her eyes and groaned.

…When had life ever handed her that kind of easy victory?

Even so, she had spent the first few weeks after she had met Artem in an almost optimistic daze – one where she was continually amazed by how simple her life suddenly became. Once her parents had apparently convinced the Sheridan elders that Regina should be matched to Artem rather than his more powerful brother –

(“It was surprisingly easy,” Regina’s mother had mused while tossing her knife in the air. “After seeing you at your coming out party, even the elders agreed that you have the social skills of a dying seagull and would make us a laughing stock if you became queen.”

“Thank you, mother,” Regina replied, trying to hold onto her last shred of dignity.

“Still, the second prince is such a simpleton even you can twist him around your little finger,” Regina’s father added, “which hopefully makes up for your revised dowry costing us another two years of earnings.”

“I truly thank you both for your support,” Regina said – and meant it even if their words did sting).

Thus, Regina’s flowery path to happiness seemed set, as even Artem’s awful cousins now seemed to be keeping their distance.

In fact, that last part about Regina’s flowery path was not even a metaphor! After their engagement had been set, Artem had actually sent Regina a small carpet that had been embedded with dozens of exquisite golden roses that he had crafted with his own metallurgic magic, alongside a note that said, “May my future bride always step on roses by my side.”

Henrietta had whistled when she saw the beautiful present Regina had received, the first of many from Artem in the last few weeks, and asked, “What did you do to this man to make him so moonstruck over you?”

Regina mentally reviewed her first meeting with Artem, in which she had saved him from his cousin using her cunning and ability to blend in with the bushes, and said, “I will tell you when it comes time for you to be married.”

Henrietta stopped asking about Artem after that, no matter what extravagant presents he sent every day in the course of his wooing.

Unfortunately, life after her engagement did not exclusively consist of opening presents that Regina’s handsome and wealthy royal fiance sent to her. Regina did not even get to see Artem very often, much to his dismay, because her days were taken up with memorizing the entire history of Carcosa from the very day of its founding.

“Remember,” her father sternly lectured her while Regina tried not to die of boredom, “that as a member of the royal family, you must know the alliances and abilities of every notable noble family in Carcosan society.”

“Oh yes,” her mother added while smirking. “Blood forbid you forget the high-and-mighty Duke of Neville can grow some trees, while his Buren lackeys are in charge of the birds and the bees –”

“The ducal Burens are known for their ability to grow beautiful and medicinal flowers,” her father snapped, “and their long-standing alliance with their fellow plant-mages of the Neville Duchy has brought both families acclaim, protection, and some of the most fertile territory in Carcosa. Our family would be lucky to have half their blessings!”

“I would love to have the blessings of any family but my own,” her mother returned dryly.

Then, taking a glance at a worried Regina, her mother sighed and said, “Regina, you do need to study up on all the noble arse-lickers you are about to be surrounded by. The Nevilles can grow trees and bushes, the Burens raise up pretty flowers, the Kuzeys play with water and are the strangest bastards ever, the Poissons can capture and freeze fish and will never let you forget it, the La Belles enchant people with their prettiness, and the Alpins –”

“I know what the Alpins can do,” Regina said, remembering Artem’s scuttling brooch from their first meeting. “They can shape and even conjure metal to do as they please.”

“Do not underestimate the Alpins’ abilities,” her father sternly replied. “All you have seen is the baubles your little prince made. However, as lucrative as his works are, they are nothing to the power of his other family. In his youth, King Alan Alpin could have decimated a legion of enemy soldiers by sending their own blades through their throats, while Crown Prince Aaron…”

“Yes?” Regina asked, suddenly interested in boring lectures about noble families.

Yet that hope was crushed when her father irritably said, “Never mind. I do not want you to be so awed by Prince Aaron’s powers that you change your mind again about which prince should be your groom. Do you want to know exactly how much gold it cost to get the Alpins to change your engagement?”

Since Regina had no interest in being harangued for saving her life, she fled.

Still, though she would never tell her parents, she had seen Artem’s ability to work metal in both real life and her dreams.

Every night, she saw a vision of Artem frolicking amidst flowers and creating pretty baubles for her, and Regina could only thank fate that none of those visions contained scenes of her being condemned or killed in a suspicious ‘accident’.

Therefore, the night before the day of her official engagement to Artem, Regina had expected to receive a vision of him creating a new present for her with his metallurgic magic.

In fact, she had been charmed to see him carefully package his newest gift – a bouquet of golden roses large enough to defend oneself against a horde of attackers.

“You,” Regina had told Artem with admiration she was too flustered to admit to in person, “are probably better than I deserve but I promise I will repay your kindness to me. Once we are wed, I am going to hire the fastest coach I can to bring us to the farthest country estate I can find.”

Smiling as she saw Artem put the finishing touches of several precious gems on her roses, Regina added, “We will be away from this madness soon and then you can frolic amongst real flowers without anyone saying you are stupid or silly!”

(If there was one thing that enraged Regina, it was seeing people sneer at Artem – sometimes to his face. Although Artem himself did not seem to mind or notice their disrespect, Regina always got upset on his behalf. It was so needlessly cruel to sneer at sweet, harmless Artem, as much as it would be to kick a puppy through one of the Alpins’ many gold-framed windows.)

However, Regina did get alarmed when Artem took his present and instead of handing it off to his butler for delivery…

…Carried it to a carriage that he then boarded to take a ride through the Capital’s cobblestone streets…

…Before ending up at the gates of the Sheridan townhouse where Regina and her family were staying.

“Er,” Regina said as she saw Artem gaze cheerily at the imposing locks barring entry into the Sheridan residence. “You could always leave that package at the foot of the gates, Artem. A guard will pick it up and deliver it to me eventually. You do not actually need to –”

That was when Regina discovered that Artem could use his brooches as lockpicks to shimmy open locks that would otherwise take a very specialized set of keys.

“Oh,” Regina said in admiration as she watched Artem excitedly wiggle in through the newly opened gates. “You know, you would make for an amazing thief… though your habit of whistling and doing little jigs as you work might make that an impossible career.”

Even so, Regina watched with mounting admiration as Artem managed to stealthily whistle-jig his way to the Sheridan residence, expertly dodging the patrolling guards and then make his way to her balcony.

“Still,” she told him, “though you have come far, flight is not a power your family possesses – that would be the now-extinct House Corvidae’s specialty. So surely you will need to stop –”

That was when Regina learned that while Artem could not slaughter a legion of enemies as his father did in his prime, he could make his way up to her balcony by turning his jewelry into climbing clamps for his hands and feet.

“Oh my,” Regina said, blinking hard as her ghostlike dream-self slowly floated up to watch Artem make his way towards her room, his body writhing in some… interesting ways as he did so. “Those romance novels were right. The size of the ship is not all that matters. Sometimes it is about the motion of the ocean!”

In any case, Regina kept watching Artem make his way up to her balcony… and suddenly felt a flush of heat against her cheeks as she wondered if that meant that he… he wanted to…

“I suppose,” Regina slowly said, “that I would not be averse to a little… intimacy before we wed, since we still have to wait six months from the engagement to the wedding. In fact, I have been reading quite a few romance novels in preparation and… well…”

Regina shyly smiled as she watched the motion of Artem’s ocean as he finally leapt over her balcony and came to her window that had been left open to let in the cool summer breeze.

“You,” she admitted, “are about the most kind and beautiful boy I have ever met. I would not mind getting to know you better even before the wedding!”

Unfortunately for Regina, it turned out that while Artem was many things such as beautiful, generous, kind, and optimistic… he was not exactly discreet.

In fact, Regina had to wince as she saw Artem stop at the foot of her bed and, instead of gently rousing her so they could share a late night conversation and their first embrace…

He pulled out a note from his jacket pocket and began…

Singing.

“You know,” Regina said, after watching Artem soulfully serenade her in a lovely tenor that managed to rhyme Regina and my queen-a several times, “I think I will make it a point to be awake before he starts the singing before tomorrow night. Perhaps I can even get a few kisses and a chance to revise that lyric sheet.”

That made Regina wonder why her other self had not woken up yet, given the unmissable sound of Artem’s song.

As a sudden chill descended down her spine, Regina felt an overwhelming burst of dread spread over her.

Breath caught in her throat, she moved closer to the bed looking down at her own face…

…and realized that the Regina in the bed was as still and pale as…

…death.

Slowly, numbly, Regina turned to stare at the still oblivious Artem and realized something even more horrifying.

The dead Regina was not yet rigid and could pass for living if you were not close enough to realize the truth.

That meant that she had been killed very recently and…

…Regina swung towards the shadows and swallowed a gasp at the very faint movement coming from the darkest corner.

Apparently, Regina was going to be murdered the night before her engagement, shortly before her fiancé came to serenade her-

–And her assassin was still lurking in the shadows, watching poor, helpless Artem sing to his never-bride’s corpse.