Sophia woke again.
This time, however, she woke free of any pain, and she could feel her mind working as strongly as it did before.
Thank the lord that Anastasia was such a gullible, naive little fool.
Just as Sophia was beginning to fall asleep during Anastasia's visit, she remembered feeling the sensation of a hand covering hers. She must have healed her with her divine, Saintess powers, and then left.
Sophia didn't plan on sending Anastasia a thank you note. There was no way Sophia, who wasn't supposed to know about Anastasia's miraculous healing powers, could have figured out that her sudden recovery was thanks to her anyway.
She had other problems to deal with now. Mainly, Selene. After Sophia's recovery, she went down to have a family meal, only to encounter the new (or old, technically) Selene. This Selene was, to put it mildly, a menace.
She glared at Sophia the entire dinner, made some snide comments about her whenever she could, and even tried to trip her when they were on their way up the stairs.
Their parents didn't have much to say about this behaviour. If anything, seeing Selene and Sophia not get along was probably more normal for them than to see them acting close.
Sophia was beginning to hate Selene the more they had to spent time with each other. The horrible thing was that no matter what Sophia tried, none of it got her Selene back. Sorcery seemed to be a dead end, as no matter what the magic did, none of it seemed to be able to swap souls, let alone bring Selene's specifically back.
It was quickly becoming clear that she would have to continue on her journey without her Selene, only, ruling Astrum didn't seem nearly as appealing now that Sophia had to do it without her.
She spent her days drifting with an almost listless quality to her, even the current Selene didn't seem to want to bother her much while Sophia was acting that way.
Without Selene's presence there to ground her, it was as if Sophia was floating adrift, without anything to anchor her to earth.
Neither Henry or Lillian knew what to do about Sophia. They knew she wasn't sick anymore so her behaviour didn't make any sense to them, and no matter what they said to her, she continued to act strange and lost.
Desperate, they eventually ended up calling Julius. Seeing as he was her fiancé and seemed very in love, they figured if anyone could help, it would be him.
And it did work, but perhaps not in the way they had hoped.
When Julius suddenly showed up, Sophia was surprised, and that surprise had momentarily pulled her from her depressed state. Seeing him did not make her happy, however, and instead just made her angry.
She didn't care about Julius, and she wanted no part of his faux loving gaze or sweetness.
In a fit of rage, she ended up undoing the enchantment she put on him. There was no point in it being there anymore, anyway. She was no longer going through with the plan to take over Astrum.
"What... What did you do to me? What have you been doing to my mind?! I-" The moment Julius was free of the enchantment, he started to yell.
Sophia watched on with a disinterested expression. Now he was as angry as she was. Good.
"How have you done this? What are you?"
Sophia opened her mouth to reply, but Julius seemed to change his mind at the last minute and drew his sword against her instead. The tip of his sword was pointed against her throat, blood dripping from where it lightly pierced her skin. Sophia reacted only by laughing.
"I will kill you for what you've done to me you... you witch!"
Sophia didn't even bother with looking at him anymore, instead she was looking towards the ceiling, wondering if beyond there, in the skies, Selene was waiting for her somewhere.
She shut her eyes, anticipating the killer blow, but it didn't happen. Instead, there was a strange thudding sound and then she heard the sword clattering to the floor.
She opened her eyes again only to see Julius on the floor, James now in the room.
Ah, she'd forgotten about him.
"You were just going to let him kill you."
Sophia shrugged carelessly. "I suppose I was."
"Why?" He asked.
Sophia scoffed. "Because what's the point of being alive still when Selene is gone?"
"She's not gone, she's here-"
"-She's gone." Sophia insisted, even knowing that he wouldn't understand what she meant.
For a moment they stood there, neither of them saying a word. James looked at Sophia carefully, as if he was thinking of some way to save her from herself.
"What would help? What do you need?"
She laughed harshly. "What I need? What I need is something you can't give me. I need my Selene back, and I need this one to disappear."
James frowned. "I don't know about the first part... but the second part should be easy enough to do."
"What do you mean?"
"If you want Selene to disappear, just kill her."
Sophia was about to tell him it was a stupid idea, but actually, wouldn't it be fine if she did? It wasn't her Selene anyway, and admittedly, a small part of her was hoping that if this Selene died, her Selene might come to inhabit her body again.
To think that James would be the one to give her this answer.
Very quickly, Sophia set to work placing another enchantment on Julius, this time a memory enchantment, one that would make all his memories of Sophia fuzzy and unclear. Sorcery wasn't able to erase anyone's memories completely, but was able to make it hard for them to access certain memories, and would confuse them if they tried to remember it.
Once she was done and sent a confused Julius out the door, she finally turned to James again and looked him straight in the eye.
"Let's go murder my sister."