Chapter 23: A Shared Nightmare

“Isola?” Alice barely dared to turn her head.

‘No, no, no…’

That warm sensation was undeniable. Alice could distinctly feel a face pressed against her back, and a hand resting gently on her shoulder.

They had been lying back-to-back on the large bed, each leaving a polite space in between to avoid any awkward physical contact. Now, however, Isola had deliberately closed that distance.

‘Everyone saw it,’ Alice thought. ‘She made the first move!’

To be fair, Alice, who was once male, lying in bed with the exquisitely beautiful Queen Isola—to claim she hadn’t fantasized about any intimate developments would be a lie.

Yet, fantasies remained just that. She had never truly contemplated acting on them. For one, as a girl now, she didn’t experience the same frenzied physiological urges. For another, the one sharing her bed was the Witch Queen, capable of effortlessly turning people to stone!

But this sudden, bold move from the Queen left Alice utterly flustered.

Her heart pounded as if it might escape her chest. Even though she and Isola were both girls now, the tension of such closeness was palpable, especially since she had never experienced anything like it in her entire life.

‘Could it be real, not just my imagination? Does Isola truly feel…’

Amidst her swirling thoughts, an internal battle raged, making her wonder if she should cooperatively turn to face the Queen.

Just then, she faintly heard Isola’s sniffling sobs.

So subtle was the sound that Alice initially thought she had misheard, until she felt Isola’s body tremble.

In an instant, all her wild thoughts vanished. Sensing something was gravely amiss, Alice cautiously turned her head, only to find Isola curled up behind her, seemingly terrified.

“Isola?” Alice shifted slightly, rolling over to face her. “Are you alright?”

Isola didn’t respond. Her eyes remained tightly shut, her brow deeply furrowed, and a sheen of cold sweat seemed to dampen her forehead.

‘She’s having a nightmare,’ Alice realized.

‘Should I wake her?’

Alice hesitated, when fragmented images suddenly flashed through her mind.

All these scenes shared a common backdrop: corpses strewn everywhere, cries of battle echoing from all directions, fires raging in the distance, and pervasive grey smoke.

Women dressed as witches appeared in these flashes, dying gruesome deaths. One screamed and struggled in flames, another’s body shattered under an inexplicable force, and yet another was pierced by countless arrows. The vivid crimson of blood seemed to stain every single image.

For some reason, Alice felt a profound familiarity with these women. They fought bravely, their final moments marked by either valiant shouts or tragic whimpers:

“Protect Her Majesty!”

“For the Goddess of Fate!”

“Ahhh, it hurts so much!”

“I don’t want to die!”

****

Only one figure was different.

“I’ve done everything I could. The rest is up to you. I can’t die here!” A woman in a white gown retreated behind a robed priest, clutching her chest, then turned and fled.

‘They’re dead, all dead…’ Faintly, Alice felt as if she heard Isola’s inner voice.

Alice realized she was witnessing Isola’s nightmare, her memories. Whether through Isola’s power or her own, seeing these fragmented scenes brought with it an overwhelming sense of heart-wrenching sorrow and profound, bone-deep hatred.

“Isola!” Alice rolled over and gently shook Isola, attempting to rouse her from the nightmare.

However, Isola only curled tighter, burying her face into Alice’s embrace.

Alice felt her trembling more distinctly, and with it, her utter helplessness.

It was then that Alice finally grasped a crucial truth: Isola might be a queen above all others, a fearsome Grand Witch, but she was not an unfeeling monster. She was a girl of flesh and blood.

Back in Maplewood City, Alice had heard of an imperial veteran who had drowned himself in the river. He had retired with medals, yet had lived in a daze ever since returning from service.

Whenever someone asked about his glorious deeds on the battlefield, he would only speak repeatedly of his tragically deceased comrades. Before his suicide, the old soldier had already begun to lose his mind, occasionally wandering the streets, muttering to himself and shouting at empty spaces.

Even battle-hardened veterans couldn’t always endure the psychological trauma of a blood-soaked battlefield. How could a young girl, witnessing the horrific deaths of her compatriots and the betrayal of her own kin in a brutal war, feel no pain at all?

In that moment, Alice felt as though she held nothing more than a helpless child in her arms.

Almost instinctively, she reached out, wrapping an arm around Isola’s shoulder and cradling the back of her neck. She allowed Isola to press tightly against her chest, clearly inhaling the scent of her hair.

“It’s alright now, everything’s alright,” she murmured, attempting to offer comfort, gently stroking Isola’s head.

To her own surprise, this clumsy, child-like soothing proved remarkably effective. Isola’s trembling slowly subsided.

Seeing this, Alice maintained the embrace, waiting for Isola’s whimpering to gradually calm.

She had intended to gently disengage once Isola was completely peaceful. However, as she waited, sleep gradually claimed her consciousness.

‘Just a quick nap should be fine,’ she thought—a notion she would later deeply regret. With that, she closed her eyes and drifted into slumber.

For the rest of the night, both slept soundly.

Then, the next morning, Isola was the first to wake.

The soft, warm embrace exuded a comforting aura, making her feel as though she were enveloped in velvet.

Isola’s first instinct was to close her eyes again and indulge in a little more sleep.

Two seconds later, she realized something was amiss and abruptly opened her eyes.

She lifted her head slightly, finally grasping the situation.

‘How did it come to this?’

A rush of blood sent warmth to her cheeks. She desperately rummaged through her memories, but her mind held only a vague impression of a dream, a nightmare, it seemed.

Regardless, she needed to separate herself first.

With that thought, she immediately shifted, carefully extracting herself from Alice’s embrace.

In her haste, however, she failed to notice that a section of her long hair had been pinned down by Alice, who had rolled over later.

“Ah!” The moment her hair was tugged, she instinctively cried out.

Alice’s eyes fluttered open at the startled sound.

Her vision was met with Isola’s face, now completely flushed crimson.

As their eyes locked, time seemed to stand still.

‘I’m finished,’ they both thought simultaneously.