The princess lowered her hands.
For the first time in a thousand years, the clock above the kingdom stopped.
Not slowed.
Stopped.
Every gear froze. Every flame in the restored castle stood perfectly still. Even the snow suspended in the air refused to fall.
The princess looked around in confusion.
She had expected the kingdom to return.
She had not expected anyone to return with it.
A single bell rang from the highest tower.
Once.
Then again.
And on the third strike, the enormous castle doors slowly opened by themselves.
Behind them stood a man dressed in black armor.
He looked exactly as he had on the day the kingdom was destroyed.
The princess froze.
It was impossible.
She had watched him die.
She had buried him herself.
The man slowly raised his head and looked directly at her.
“You should never have turned back time.”
Her glowing blue eyes widened.
“Who are you?”
The stranger smiled.
“You really don’t remember me?”
The golden magic around her hands suddenly turned black.
Fragments of memories began flashing through her mind — a burning throne room, a crown covered in blood, a little girl crying beneath the castle, and herself standing beside a dying king.
Then she saw something that made her blood run cold.
She wasn’t the princess in the memory.
She was the queen.
And the man standing before her was the one she had ordered executed.
The castle began to shake.
The enormous clock above them started moving again.
But this time…
the hands were not moving backward.
They were moving forward.
Too fast.
The stranger stepped closer.
“You didn’t restore the kingdom,” he whispered.
“You brought it back to finish what it started.”
The princess looked toward the castle.
Thousands of windows suddenly illuminated at once.
Behind every window stood a human silhouette.
Waiting.
Watching her.
And then every silhouette turned its head in the same direction.
Toward the princess.
She finally understood.
The kingdom had not been destroyed by an enemy.
It had been destroyed by her.
