The Saintess and the Villainess

Chapter 104

"That doesn't clarify anything," said Corvina, clearly a little snippy, and Anne couldn't really blame her. The Goddess had been talking in circles for days now, and Anne didn't feel any closer to understanding what was actually going on.

When Anne had first arrived in this world, everything had seemed so simple—subvert the story, save Corvina. That was such a clear goal, even if she hadn't really known how to get there at first. Now it was all so... convoluted.

"What does that even mean, that we have to put it back the way it was?" asked Corvina, voicing Anne's thoughts.

"Yeah," Anne added. "I thought we were trying to break the story. Or expand it, or whatever. Not restore it."

"Well, yes." Cory set several plates full of pancakes down on the pink kitchen table, where they were all gathered for breakfast. "But the harder you try to break the story, the harder it tries to restore itself, you know? Like how if you pull a rubber band really far back and let go, it'll just snap back even harder, right? But if you kinda... lure it into a false sense of security, and then break it all at once at the end, then it will be like a dam breaking and, like, the river of the story will overflow itself. And that's how we expand the world. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!"

Cory was smiling brightly and triumphantly, like she'd finally solved a difficult problem, but Anne was more confused than ever.

Corvina let out a short, annoyed breath and pushed her plate of pancakes away. "I'm really getting sick of this," she said. "No more mixed metaphors, please, just tell us in plain terms what it is we actually need to do, on a practical level."

"Um, well..." Cory was still smiling, but her smile seemed a little strained and nervous now. "You know all those big plot events you were trying to prevent before? You gotta kinda, like, redo those. You know, burn down the Sacred Forest, assassinate Prince Sebastian, marry Anne off to Duke Marshal, get Quellinia to invade, all that stuff."

Anne and Corvina both spoke at once.

"What!? We can't kill Sebastian—"

"I am not going to let Anne marry that—"

"No, no, listen!" Cory interjected. "Those events don't necessarily have to be exact, as long as they're close enough on a plot level. Like, if they'd have the same general effect on the world. Cause the same things to happen in the long run. So if most people thought Prince Sebastian had been assassinated, that would work, sort of thing. And either Anne could marry Duke Marshal, really. I think."

"Either Anne?" asked Anne, an increasingly sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Oh shit, you wouldn't know, would you?" Cory lightly hit herself on the head, like she couldn't believe she'd been so forgetful. "It's honestly so inconvenient how not everyone is omniscient. Anyway, after you got away from Eva, she actually murdered Bishop Geist and used that life force to transform her vacated body into an identical copy of the original Anne and then pulled Anne's soul back from that alternate dimension and put her inside that new body. Quite the involved process, and Eva had to use some of her own life force to supplement the sacrifice of the Bishop, cause it wasn't quite enough power otherwise, but both of you Annes are fully just back in this world now. So, you know... there's options."

Anne was horrified. The Saintess, the one who had appeared in her dreams, the one who had brought her here, had been so desperate to escape the story and go anywhere else. That was what had started everything. And now, to have been forced back again...

"And what exactly is the point of doing all this?" asked Corvina. She had a hard, determined look in her eyes. "If we follow your instructions, what does it get us, exactly? What's the end goal?"