“I was wrong,” Calyx said, stepping into her path. “But I did love you. I still do.”
Seren didn’t slow her pace at first. The corridor outside the east chamber was narrow, lined with old stone and silence, meant for discreet exits and quiet strategy. She had walked this hallway hundreds of times, usually in the shadows of others. Today, she walked alone. But now, Calyx was there, blocking the way with a voice she had once known too well.
She stopped three paces from him, spine straight, arms folded across a slate-gray folder. The silence stretched long enough for her to speak first.
“You’ve sent three petitions.” Her tone didn’t waver. “The answer was no. That hasn’t changed.”
His hand twitched at his side, as if debating whether to reach for her or stay still.
“I had to try again,” he said, softer now. “You won’t see me in session. You won’t return my requests. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“You could have respected the boundary,” she replied coldly. “It’s new to you, I know.”
Calyx took one step forward, slower than he used to move when confronting her. “Seren, please. I know I failed you. I know I should have handled things differently. I was wrong—about you, about everything. But don’t think for a second that I didn’t love you.”
She didn’t blink. “You loved control.” His mouth opened, then closed. She walked past him until they were nearly shoulder to shoulder, then stopped.
Then she turned slightly toward him, her voice low and sharp. “You loved that I was quiet. You loved what I looked like beside you: agreeable, convenient, dressed in colors you approved. You loved what I represented. Not what I was.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said, the words tumbling fast. “The gala, the announcement—it got away from me. I thought I could manage it better. I didn’t mean for it to unfold like that.”
“You didn’t mean to get your hands dirty,” she replied. “You wanted it clean. A clean exit. A clean switch. I was never meant to be part of the ending.”
He looked away for a second, then turned back, searching her face for something softer. “It was never about getting rid of you.”
“No,” she said. “It was about replacing me without the consequences.”
Calyx stepped closer again, his voice more desperate now, as if the moment might slip away if he didn’t grab it.
“But look at where we are. You have power now. You have position. People listen to you. This could be the start of something better—for both of us. We could rebuild, not just for us, but for the Dominion. You know what’s at stake. We’d be stronger together.”
Seren stared at him for a long time. She didn’t speak immediately. Her hands stayed still at her sides. She studied him like a man she had once loved in theory, and now barely tolerated in memory.
Her voice, when it came, was soft but lethal. “Stronger for whom?”
“For the court. For the Federation. For us,” he said, too quickly, too hopefully. “We could find a way forward.”
“We?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re asking me to undo your betrayal for the sake of your reputation.”
“I’m asking you to think strategically,” he said. “To think long-term.”
“I am thinking long-term,” she replied, voice hardening. “That’s why I’m not making the mistake of believing you again.”
He stepped back, wounded pride flashing across his face. “This isn’t how I thought you’d be.”
“That’s because you never saw me,” she said. “You only saw who you needed me to be.”
For a moment, he looked at her with something almost like regret, almost like sorrow. But she didn’t soften, didn’t let it in.
“I don’t want to be your enemy,” he said quietly.
“You already made me one,” she replied.
He opened his mouth again, reaching for another angle, another chance. “We could rewrite this story—”
She cut him off without any doubt.
“You made a choice,” Seren replied. “Now you can live with it.”