The blizzard howled outside, but Pierro barely felt the cold anymore. He knelt in the ruined chapel, hands trembling not from the frost but from the weight in his chest. His mask was gone — cast aside in a fit of rage hours ago — and his face, so carefully hidden for years, was now raw, unguarded.

He hated her.

He hated her.

The rival queen — the Tsaritsa's ancient nemesis. The woman who defied Snezhnaya with that infuriating calm, that saccharine smile laced with steel. Every meeting, every battle of words, she had looked at him not with fear — but with something worse: understanding.

Pierro gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. He had spent years cultivating contempt for her. Letting it fester. Feeding it. How dare she pity him? How dare she see the broken man beneath the Jester's mask?

And yet—

When all had crumbled — when the Tsaritsa's armies had fallen back, when the weight of failure crushed his shoulders — he had found himself here. In her domain. In her city cloaked in false springtime. His enemies should have slaughtered him the moment he crossed the border, but instead...

Instead, she stood before him now, silent.

Candlelight danced against her figure. No crown upon her head tonight. Only a simple robe, and a sorrowful gaze.