“That’s not an answer,” I reply, and the words come out harsher than intended, but I can’t help it. “That’s a reason to look for proof, not a reason to die quietly with everyone thinking you killed forty-seven thousand people.”
His eyes narrow slightly, not in anger, but in something like pain.
“Selene,” he says, using my name in a way that feels too direct, too human in this room, “the Coalition was ready to retaliate. The ceasefire talks were held together with spit and fear. If I accused the League of override interference without documentation, Coalition hawks would have used it as justification to mobilize. The war would have reignited.”
I stare at him, feeling heat climb into my face, my chest tight with a pressure that wants to become either sobbing or screaming.
“So you sacrificed the truth for stability,” I say, voice trembling with contained rage.
“I sacrificed a suspicion,” he replies, voice steady. “For the chance that the guns would finally stop.”
The words hit, and something in me breaks just enough to let the real anger through.
“You chose personal execution,” I spit, and the sound of it in my own mouth shocks me with its bitterness. “You chose to get yourself hanged like a neat little ribbon tied around the war so everyone could clap and say the universe is fair.”
Rhyx does not react outwardly, but his jaw flexes once, muscle shifting under scaled skin.
“You think this is neat?” he asks quietly.
“I think you made it easy,” I fire back. “You made it easy for them to pin it on you, package it, broadcast it, and move on. And you did it like it was… noble.”
His gaze hardens. “It was not noble.”
“Then what was it?” I demand.
A long pause stretches between us, and in that pause I hear the hum of the security fields, the faint distant footfall of officers in the corridor, the whisper of air recycling through vents. I smell antiseptic, cold metal, and the faint animal warmth of him—something earthy beneath the sterilized air, like heat stored in stone.
When he speaks again, his voice is lower.
“It was the fastest way to stabilize the ceasefire,” he says.
The sentence lands like a blunt instrument.
“You believed accepting blame would keep the peace,” I say, more quietly now, as if the volume might make it less true.
“Yes.”
“And you were okay with that,” I whisper, and my throat tightens. “You were okay with letting the record say you sent my parents into a kill lane.”
Rhyx’s eyes do not move away from mine. “I was not okay with it.”
“Then why?” I press, voice cracking at the edges despite my discipline. “Why let them write that story?”
His hands tighten against the table, binders humming softly. “Because the alternative was to ignite another war on an accusation I could not prove. Because if I had spoken then, without evidence, no one would have believed me except the ones who already wanted blood, and they would have used my words as fuel.”
I feel my eyes sting. I blink hard, refusing tears.
“You still chose yourself,” I say, and it’s unfair, and I know it’s unfair, because this isn’t really about him choosing himself—it’s about him choosingan outcome, and me hating that my life had to be collateral in that outcome. “You chose to be the villain so the adults in the room could sign papers and call it peace.”
He exhales slowly. “I chose to be the villain because someone had to absorb the blame, and I was already carrying it.”
“God,” I mutter, pressing my fingertips to my temple. “That’s… that’s insane.”
“It is war,” he replies.
I let out a short, humorless laugh. “No, this is politics. War is at least honest about what it costs.”
Rhyx’s gaze flicks briefly toward the recording node, then back to me. “The tribunal is accelerating sentencing because you filed your memo,” he says, voice low. “They are afraid of what you will find.”
