Kiara's POV
I didn't even realize I'd gone silent.Like…completely still.
My fingers were wrapped around the teacup, but I wasn't drinking anymore. The warmth had faded into the background. My head was somewhere else entirely—stuck in that memory, in those voices from the past, in that sick, crawling feeling of something inevitable closing in.
And Lysander…just kept talking.
Like nothing had happened.He had no clue that I had just mentally spiraled into those nightmares from years ago.
"There was a time," his smooth voice fell back on my ears, almost… distant, "when my kind lived in complete harmony with nature."
I blinked slowly, dragging myself back to the present.
My eyes shifted to him.
He wasn't looking at me anymore.
His gaze was somewhere far off, unfocused—not in a distracted way, but like he was seeing things I couldn't see with my eyes.Images he had lived.
"Fae," he continued, "were not rulers… not conquerors. We were keepers."
