“Finally came to see me, hm?” the woman said as she turned to look at her visitor. Hate lurked in molten gold eyes, but Liliana didn’t flinch. The woman sitting before her was not the monster that lurked in her mind. The nightmares she’d suffered from were fading away when confronted with the reality.

Imogen was a mortal woman, one who had finally been brought low, her weakness displayed for anyone to see.

“I wanted to have a real conversation,” Liliana stated honestly. Imogen snorted and shook her head.

“So you can lord it over me that you ruined my life? I always knew you would,” Imogen hissed.

“It didn’t have to end like this. You made your choices. These are simply the consequences of those choices,” Liliana’s voice was cutting, but if Imogen cared she couldn’t tell.

“Where’s my son?” Imogen asked instead of responding and Liliana finally let the smile she’d been fighting through, though it was a cold smile, not one born of innocent humor.

“You have no son. He’s forsaken you. He said you’re dead to him,” Liliana told the woman, leaning forward as she watched the words hit the woman. She wanted to see the moment Imogen finally realized she was utterly alone, abandoned. Liliana wanted to see the woman experience the very thing she’d forced Liliana through for so many years, heart crushing loneliness and the understanding that no one would ever be coming to help her. There were no knights in shining armor seeking damsels to save, not for women like her and Imogen.

“You’re lying,” Imogen spat, her eyes wide, panic finally edging into her eyes. Liliana huffed out a dry laugh.

“No, that’s your thing Imogen. I speak the truth, but I’m sure you’ll come to believe it over time. When years pass by, while you remain forgotten in this tomb and Alistair lives his life far from your influence,” Liliana told her, voice dripping with dark delight.

“You bitch. You turned him against me,” Imogen lunged forward, hands grasping at the bars of her cell. Liliana watched her for a moment, an unamused eyebrow raised.

“No, you miscalculated Imogen. You never did account for familial bonds, or love in your plans. At the end of the day his fear of you was weaker than the love my brother has for me,” Liliana told her stepmother before waving her hand, “As much as I’d enjoy telling you how much your oldest son hates you that’s not why I’m here. I came here to get an answer to a question a little girl wondered for years while you made her life hell. Why?” Liliana’s eyes sharpened to sapphire shards as she glared at the woman who had made her life pure misery for so long.

“Why? You want to know why?” Imogen asked, a harsh laugh busting out of her mouth. Liliana leaned back as she watched the once noble lady throw back her head and laugh. Had Imogen really gone insane? Had the arrest caused a psychotic break, or had she always been on the edge of insanity?

“I thought you’d figure it out. For power, you idiotic little chit. You were in my way. I was simply trying to remove you.” Imogen began to talk, words tumbling out following her mad laughter.

“No. What I wanted to know was this. You’re capable of love. You love the twins. You might’ve been an abusive bitch to Alistair, but I know you loved him. So why? Why couldn’t you love me?” Liliana’s voice broke a little at the end, and that’s the crux of her problems. The question a little girl had asked herself a hundred times to an empty room echoing with the sounds of her sobs. What was so wrong with her that she didn’t deserve love?

She had long ago given up hope of Imogen’s love. And truly, she hated the woman. If the woman repented today and began to love Liliana, it would change nothing. She’d still want her to rot away for the rest of her life behind these bars. But it was a question that needed an answer, for that little girl that still sat curled up in the recesses of her mind, praying for parents who would really love her.

Imogen stared at her for a long moment, eyes assessing, digging deep into the cracks the question had put into the girl’s mask. A familiar sneer of disgust curled her lip as Imogen shook her head, grabbing her chair and sitting herself down to face Liliana.

“Greedy. You’ve always been a greedy little bitch. I could see it in your eyes the first time I looked at you. You want more than you’re owed, more than you deserve. You should’ve been grateful to exist in a duke’s manor, but you just kept demanding more from everyone.” Imogen’s voice was harsh, degrading, but Liliana had repaired her mask and the words did little more than splash against her defenses, the venom in them dripping off her skin.

“I knew, looking at you, that one day you’d demand the duchy. I couldn’t have that. Alistair was too young when his father died, and by now his father’s holdings have already been portioned out to that side of his family. The duchy was his only hope for a future. My only hope for a comfortable life. But as long as you existed, asking, reaching, begging for anything you could wrap your dirty hands on, our future was unsecured.” the glare leveled at Liliana was one full of an old hate. A person looking at their nemesis, the cause of all their problems. Liliana knew, without a doubt, as Imogen’s eyes burned into her own, that the woman saw her as the villain she had once been fated to be.

“Then there was your father. He always indulged you, let you run around the manor. Spent the duchy’s funds on you, though you never showed a shred of gratitude for it. The food, the clothes he gave you. You didn’t care. Always wanting more. I knew he’d crumble to you, give you the duchy one day. You think I didn’t account for love? But I did. I was accounting for your father’s love of you putting you as the heir of the duchy,” Imogen kept talking, but Liliana’s mind caught on the woman’s words. This entire time, Imogen thought her father loved her?

Liliana couldn’t help it. Her laugh burst out, cutting off the woman’s words as she tilted her head back and laughed, and laughed. All these years, all this pain, all of it because the woman’s view of the world was irreparably twisted. Because the woman didn’t really understand love.

Liliana had been wrong. Imogen had never been capable of love. Anyone capable of love would have seen that Liliana’s father held no such feelings towards her.

“You think my father loves me? You’re truly deluded. My father might see me as an asset now, but when I was a child, I was nothing more than a responsibility.” Liliana finally spoke up, words punctuated by rampant laughter she couldn’t keep contained. Mania laced her laughter, but it was truly the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. Her father, loving anyone but his own power.

“He left me to be raised by a maid my entire life. He knew what you were doing the entire time! I cried to him, begging him to stop you, and he didn’t care. He never loved me. If he loved anyone, it was you. He was willing to overlook so much of what you did.” Liliana leaned back, wiping tears out of her eyes as the laughter finally faded.

“No. He had to love you. Why else did he refuse to send you to the convent when I demanded it? He kept you from other nobles to protect you!” Imogen was truly deep in her delusions and Liliana just shook her head, lips tugging in a wide grin as she talked.

“I think you misunderstand a core part of my father’s personality. He’s resourceful. Anything that could potentially become a useful tool, he keeps close to him. That’s all I was. A fall back heir if Alistair failed or died, a trump card if he had no other choice. I assume at best if I hadn’t been a prodigy he’d use me for his militia, or try to marry me off when I came of age to build ties. I was always just another tool for him. He just hadn’t fully decided how to use me. He didn’t show me around other nobles because it would’ve lowered his standing, not until I had proven myself to be exceptional enough for the matter of my heritage to be inconsequential.” Liliana couldn’t believe she was the one explaining her father to her stepmother.

How had the woman been so blind she hadn’t seen this? Or had her father only ever been a mark for her? A rich, powerful man she could marry to cement her social position and guarantee a good life for her son?

“You targeted me, tried to kill me. Killed the only mother I ever knew, because you thought my father loved me? All of this pain, all this suffering, all the death, all of it because you made a mistake?” Liliana’s voice was rising in pitch, cracking as she struggled to come to terms with the revelation. Familiar rage was burning her veins and for a moment she wished the bars between them were gone. So she could burn Imogen the way her rage was burning her.

“Your father loving you or not, you were always a threat to me and mine. The second I walked into the manor, your fate was sealed. If what you say of your father is true, you are still a threat. Maybe he wouldn’t have given you the duchy out of love, but don’t for a second try to lie to me and say you’re not still in the running for heir,” Imogen had managed to distort the words Liliana had said to keep her twisted narrative whole in her head. Liliana would be impressed at the mental gymnastics the woman was performing if disgust and hate weren’t roaring in her ears.

“Don’t you get it, Imogen? I never wanted to be a duchess! I didn’t then, and I don’t now! I was never your enemy until you made me into one!” Liliana shoved herself to her feet as her voice raised, anger finally breaking free, the cold flames of hate licking through her words. Imogen finally seemed to show some fear, pulling back, eyes wide as she stared at Liliana standing before her, incandescent in her rage.

“Because of you, four childhoods are ruined! Don’t you get it? Don’t you realize the lives you’ve ruined because of your power grabbing? You made my childhood hell. You killed my mother! Alistair is struggling to come to terms with the fact that his mother is a murderer, a woman who tried to kill his sister. Not to mention the many ways you fucked him up with your manipulations. Because of what you’ve done Blaine and Beatrice will grow up with a criminal for a mother!” Liliana stalked forward until she was inches from the bars, her words half growled out as her hands curled into claws, her fanged teeth bared at the woman before her.

“N-No,” Imogen stumbled over her words at first before she seemed to find some inner strength, standing and facing Liliana. Both of them glared at each other, though Imogen’s hate seemed paltry in comparison to the all-consuming inferno that danced in Liliana’s eyes.

“You did this. You ruined my plans. You turned my son against me. It’s your fault I’m in here. You robbed my children of a mother! If you’d just died, we’d be happy. Tell me Liliana, is anyone happy with me gone? Or is it just you? You always were greedy, and your greed robbed them of their happiness. It’s your fault your maid died, Astrid, was it? The poison was meant for you.” Imogen hissed at Liliana. And these words, finally, snuck past her defenses, digging their claws into her bleeding heart, echoes of the very things she’d told herself. But rage roared louder than her guilt and grief did.

“Don’t you dare say her name!” Liliana roared. She could hear Polaris growling behind her. Imogen took a step back from the hate and rage that soaked Liliana’s words, but her lips twisted into a smirk. She knew she had something now, power over Liliana. Knew how to hurt her, even with the bars between them.

“When will you be happy? When will your greed be satiated? How many people have to suffer for your happiness? How many have to die for you? You have the favor of the crown, of your father, you got rid of me. You have power now. But when will it be enough for you? Or are you going to only be fulfilled when you’ve destroyed everything?” Imogen demanded, stepping forward until she was pressed to the bars, her spit spraying on Liliana’s face as she fired accusation after accusation at her.

Uncertainty almost forced Liliana to take a step back, until anger thundered in her ears, crashing over her and robbing her of any fear. She trembled as hate and rage burned her veins, scorched her tongue, and set her entire body alight.

Imogen wanted Liliana to be the villain? Fine. She’d be the villain in the woman’s tale.

“I want everything, Imogen. I’ll be satisfied when the Rosengarde duchy is nothing but a name in a history book, rubble forgotten in an overgrown forest. When your name is said for the last time, and your very family erases you from their memories. I’ll be happy when Alistair finds his own happiness, without your shadow looming over him. I’ll be happy when Blaine and Beatrice can’t even remember the bitch that birthed them. I’ll be happy when you have nothing, when you rot away, forgotten and alone in this prison cell turned tomb.” Liliana let a cruel smile onto her face, let herself finally indulge that dark part of herself she always kept locked up. When she stepped out of this room, she’d close the door on this part of herself the same way she would do to Imogen. But just this once, she could let the woman look into the eyes of the villain she’d almost made.