Knight Commander Leblanc sighed, rubbing his eyes.

His office was bright and spacious, with large windows and expensive furniture. The walls were covered with decorations, honours he had earned over decades of service, and various memorabilia. In the center of the wall, a sword was hung, its hilt encrusted with gold and covered with precious gems.

Decades ago, he couldn’t even dream he would end up in a place like this. Not having to sleep on the cold ground, dine on scant rations, and march hour after hour to fight the Monster no man managed to slay.

But he has done it. He won. They all have – he made sure that not a name was forgotten.

Still… then and again, some strange sort of melancholy came over him, a longing for the times long gone. At times, he almost wished there was a new Monster for him to fight, his trusty sword in hand.

Foolishness, of course.

Sighing again, Leblanc reached for another stack of papers on his desk. Looking over the top one – some meaningless official form – he flipped it over, and then noticed that there was something inserted between the papers.

A playing card. A jack of hearts.

“Huh?”

‘Is this some kind of a joke?’ Leblanc thought. He reached for the card-

“Hello, my brave knight.”

- when the voice he least expected to hear said these words, and as Leblanc raised his head, he found himself face to face with her.

The young woman walked up to his desk, as Leblanc tensed. He wasn’t sure about his chances if he were to face her even in his prime, and that was some time ago. She, on the other hand…

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he said, watching the woman cautiously.

“Oh, I have,” she responded casually. “I was quite different yesterday… or however long ago it has been for you. Case in point…”

She covered the card on the Knight Commander’s desk with her hand.

“Your card is beaten, I’m afraid,” she said cheerfully.

It took too long for the meaning of her words to set in – because of shock, perhaps, or because of how terrifying it was.

“You’re… a Queen now,” he said at last. His eyes went to the sword on the wall – the only weapon he could use to harm a being like her. It was just a few feet away, but with the woman standing right in front of him, the sword might as well have been on another planet.

“The Queen,” she raised her finger in admonishment. “Using the correct article is important, I think.”

“You managed to kill both of them?” he couldn’t help asking. “In the name of- how?!”

“Oh, it was quite an adventure,” she remarked, flipping a lock of hair over her shoulder. “I would love to talk about it over a cup of tea… if you weren’t the one responsible for it, I mean.”

Leblanc wondered if his hands were shaking. He didn’t dare look, though, and never took his eyes off the figure in front of him.

“Are you wondering if I’m mad, perchance?” she asked, taking the card from his desk and flipping it though her fingers. “Because, well, I am. It’s quite hard not to be, after being down there.”

“I did not have a choice,” he said, trying to keep his voice firm. “It was the only way to defeat him.”

“Oh, of course it was,” she waved him off. “And now we are naught but names under your feet, o Hero, while you stand tall over the city, basking in your glory… the glory you stole.”

The jack of hearts caught fire in the woman’s hand; in a moment, it was just a pile of ash.

“Believe me, I thought long and hard about it when I fell – and I was falling for quite a while, in fact. And was one more thing I realized that I don’t think you ever did.”

She smiled, as if amused by some private joke.

“The reason you had to betray me and push me down that hole. It’s quite simple, you see, if you think about it. You might believe the Monster was gone for good once you’ve slain him – but such a thing is impossible. There must always be a Monster.”

The woman’s smile changed, stretching impossibly wide. It was no longer a smile that belonged on a human face, and if there was a place someone could have seen such a smile, it would have to be the other figure on the Monument of Victory.

Leblanc jumped from his desk, backing up against the wall.

“I will grant you one thing, though,” the woman continued, as if nothing happened. “You did take care of Diana, like you promised. Therefore…”

She waved her hand in the direction of the nearest window, and it changed before the Knight Commander’s eyes. For a moment, he saw his own reflection – a deathly pale man in expensive clothes, a knight’s chain on his neck – and then he could see a road in it, a pathway among a sea of grass.

“Better waste no time,” the young woman cautioned. “To rephrase someone I knew once, sometimes it takes all the running you can do… just to stay in one piece.”

Without hesitation, Leblanc leapt through the former window. He landed on the other side and started running as soon as his feet hit the path, not looking back even once.

The woman waved her hand again, and the window was once again a mere window. She twirled on her toes, looking around the office, before walking to the wall and taking the Vorpal Sword from it.

After that, the woman disappeared from the room, as if she was never there.

Her smile followed a moment later.