The silence that followed Rex's mockery didn't just stretch; it festered. It was a thick, poisonous thing that filled Helena's lungs until she felt she might choke on it. In that suffocating quiet, her mind became a battlefield of conflicting memories, each one a blade twisting in her gut.
She could feel the entire foundation of her faith grinding against the reality before her eyes. She remembered Rex holding Lily's hand during the plague years, whispering promises of safety.
She remembered him taking a poisoned blade meant for Elliot's heart without flinching. She remembered him standing before the Goblin King, a lone bulwark against a hail of stone and steel, catching a boulder that should have reduced her to crimson paste.
She had trusted him with the sanctity of her home; she had shared wine with him across her own table, treating him as more than a friend as a brother.
And now, he sat there, drenched in the evidence of his betrayal, watching her unravel.
