He sets the cup down, fingers long and elegant against the porcelain rim. Then, without warning, he speaks. “The humans tried to cross the ice last night.”
The words hang there, too casually delivered, as if it’s nonconsequential.
I didn’t see that in the thread I chose.
I blink, panic gripping my throat as I croak out, “What?”
He glances toward me, eyes catching the light. “They disembarked from the ships to walk across the ice we provided.”
I straighten slowly in my seat, the food forgotten on my plate, and the silence between us sharpens. I set my fork down gently, fingers curling into my lap to still the flutter in my chest.
“And what did you do?” I ask quietly, already feeling a sickening churn in my gut.
The easy composure he wears like a second skin hardens imperceptibly.
“I ensured they would never attempt it again.”
My breath catches.
I don’t speak at first. Just press my palms flat against my thighs and stare at the snow swirling beyond the window like I might find something to anchor my growing anger, but it doesn’t work.
“You mean…” I start, then stop, my voice catching before I can shape the thought. “You didn’t just stop them. You…”
He looks at me fully now. No smirk. No tease. Just that calm, unfaltering frost.
“They were halfway across the ice field when I arrived, armed and determined to not be deterred. I took that possibility from them.”
He killed them.
The knot in my chest pulls tighter. I blink and the room suddenly feels too bright.
“You could have turned them back,” I say, trying to hold my voice steady. “Created a wall of ice around the coast of your lands, or something. You didn’t have to–”
“They weren’t looking for mercy, Wren,” he cuts me off, voice low but firm. “They weren’t retreating, despite our initial compassion in just freezing their ships out at sea. They wanted to make us bleed, even if it cost them their lives.”
“How many?” I whisper as my heat flares inmy cheeks and my eyes sting with tears. “How many did you kill?”
“All of them. The ships and those on foot.”
The silence that follows is too loud. It rings in my ears like the aftermath of a scream. I stare at the plate in front of me, at the steam still rising from the eggs I no longer want. My hand trembles slightly as I reach for my tea, then I think better of it.
All of them.
The words settle in the air–soft, weightless, and impossible to scrub away.
I try not to react at first. I just sit there, spine stiffening inch by inch as my fingers tighten in my lap. My hands slowly uncurl, then clench again. The silence stretches, too heavy, too full.
He said it so calmly and devoid of empathy, as if he hadn’t taken hundreds of lives.
Heat begins to pool behind my ribs, slow and relentless. It rises into my chest, burning upward as memory flashes through me.
The flames devouring the forest. The fae bodies scattered in the snow. The scream of the earth cracking beneath the weight of violence. I’d changed it. Reached back and unstitched the error that set it in motion, all so it wouldn’t end in death.
I saved them.
I savedhispeople.
I stand, sharply enough that the chair scrapesagainst the stone floor. My breath comes too fast now, my chest rising and falling like I’ve just run uphill.
