“It was all for nothing,” I say, the words tumbling out in a voice that doesn’t feel like mine. “I changed it. I saw what was supposed to happen. I saw the fires, the blood, the bodies of fae. I stopped it. I touched whatever that thread was and rewrote the night so your people wouldn’t suffer.”
My voice breaks, not from weakness, but from fury so big I don’t know how to hold it.
“And you went and slaughtered the other side.”
The words fall from my lips but they’re still not enough. Not for the anger crawling under my skin.
“You could’ve stopped them without killing them all!” I snap, spinning to face him. “Yet you feel justified in this bloodshed.”
His expression hardens, but I don’t give him time to speak.
“You don’t understand what Isaw,Sylvin.” My voice trembles now, rising with every word. “Your people were going to die. Iwatchedthem fall as your lands burned to the ground.”
My hands curl at my sides. Tears sting my eyes and blur the room, but I don’t wipe them away.
“I gave that moment back,” I breathe. “Ichanged it. I saved your court.”
And then the dam breaks inside of me and I scream as tears fall, “I SAVED THEM!”
The words rip from my throat like they’ve been clawing to get out since the moment I touched that thread. My cheeks are wet now, burning hot despite the frost in the room, but I don’t stop.
“You didn’t just ignore that mercy,” I sob. “You undid it. You killed the humans like it meantnothing.”
I take a shaking step back, my throat raw as tears slip down my chin and soak into my dress that suddenly pricks at my skin. I don’t want it. I don’t want any gift from someone so callous and cruel.
“I tried to show mercy,” I whisper through clenched teeth. “And you gave them a grave instead.”
Sylvin doesn’t speak.
For a moment, he simply stares at me, like my words haven’t settled yet. His lips part slightly before closing again.
His bright blue eyes track my face, my shaking shoulders, the tear-streaked fury I can’t pull back into place.
He’s not unmoved by my confession, but confused.
“You changed…fate?” he says, voice lower now, almost quiet. “You saw what was going to happen and altered it?”
There’s a flicker of something else there. Not disbelief, but recognition.
He mutters, “I knew something felt off.”
But whatever emotion stirs in that moment, heburies it quickly as he stands slowly, every inch of him composed again.
He steps away from the table, his back straight, his voice cold and impossibly calm. “If you’re asking whether I regret what I did and if I’d change it, even knowing what you did…” He turns toward me fully. “The answer is no.”
His jaw tightens, the elegance of his features drawn taut by something dangerous.
“It was them or my people, and I will always choose mine.”
The words settle through my body, cold and final. They leave no room for question. No space for grief. Just a clean, brutal line between what’s his and what was lost.
He stands tall, elegant in the morning light, draped in the authority of someone who has never once doubted his own convictions.
“You don’t even feel it,” I say, and my voice is quieter now, steadier, but no less sharp. “The weight of what you did.”
Sylvin’s gaze holds mine, cool and unwavering. “I feel the cost, but I simply decided it was one worth paying, Wren.”
The words gut me.
