AN: Hi everyone! The Reyder works continue!

Writing for Reyes here is a bit tricky because we don't have a tag for him yet - but thanks so much for your continued support and all the love!

I hope you enjoy this crazy little plot bunny that stopped me in the middle of something else in order to get itself written. And if you have any suggestions for me, I'm always happy to hear it!

Best,

~Voi

Reyes had been planning his confrontation with Sloane almost from the moment she had placed herself on Kadara's throne. The de facto queen of a criminal empire, Sloane represented every petty self interest Reyes knew he possessed. And yet he had loathed her, with a passion he felt for only a few facets of his life. Though he possessed many of her same traits, he also understood that any victory over their fellow human beings was a hollow one indeed.

It was not power he was interested in, though it was a convenient byproduct. Rather he wanted to be someone , with the influence to see his own vision of peace realized.

It was a dream that had seemed almost within reach when he met Ryder at Kralla's Song.

She became the catalyst for the final few steps, speeding the process with such skill that what had started as amusement became a budding respect before transforming into something that felt uncomfortably like affection.

Ryder was nothing like he imagined, a rigid stickler for rules and decorum even in the deepest bowels of Kadara's underworld. But she knew herself, and Reyes came to rely on her strength even as he found his own faltering.

He was a man of secrets, always had been. But she made him wonder if he might be able to share the shadows that clung to him with such regularity, the bits of deception that he turned with such skill.

In the end he decided there was too much risk, the fight for Kadara's future had to come first. And even if he dreamt of such things, of taking her in his arms and telling her the truth , all of it , there was too much at stake now.

Ryder would be furious, but he would ask her for forgiveness. He was not sure he had it in him to beg, but he had come to find there were few things he would not do for her.

And so he laid out his final play with all due haste, choosing to lure the Queen of Kadara out for what would be, he believed, his greatest triumph.

The rules would be simple, a trial by combat, a one-on-one fight to the death.

What actually happened was exactly as he had planned, but nothing like what he had prepared for.

And as he watched Sloane stagger back, shot through by a well aimed blast of a pistol rather than the bolt of his sniper's rifle, Reyes realized he had never truly factored in how truly potent betrayal could be, and how costly his own lies could be.

For in his confidence, his arrogance , he had underestimated the one woman who, above all others, he should have treated with caution.

He was a dangerous man, a master strategist, but in the end she had made the winning move.

"Ryder?"

He turned around just in time to see her holster her gun, her expression impassive as she looked up. Calm, collective, as if she had no idea that she had completely upended every plan he had made for the past eight months.

Why had she- Reyes shook his head. "I don't...understand."

"You lied to me." Ryder's voice betrayed nothing, and there was something unsettling in the calm way she addressed him so precisely, "And if it is one thing I cannot stand, it is when people do that."

"I did not mean-"

"What you meant is irrelevant now, Reyes Vidal." She gestured to where her turian companion was heading towards the cave entrance, hailing their ship.

"The Initiative will take Kadara now, the way it meant to. We'll establish a colony and resettle the Angara that came before."

Her plans were so inline with his own that he ached.

"Why?" He asked roughly, and they both knew he was talking about more than just establishing the colony.

"You know I don't deal in long odds." Ryder folded her hands behind her in a deceptively relaxed parade rest, "I was not going to trust the Initiative's fate on Kadara to a man who has looked me in the face for months and lied about who he was."

"I had good reasons." He protested.

His words brought a small smile to her lips, a sharp and bitter thing that twisted her serene features, "So do I."

His frustration mounted, "The Collective is mine , control of Kadara will be mine . "

Behind Ryder, the Krogran bristled, moving "Is that a threat you really want to try and carry out right now?"

But one gesture from her, one small flick of her wrist and his bluster went quiet, so still that the silence sent a chill down Reyes' spine.

And he watched as her eyes, now so flat and cold, traced over his shoulder to where the Collective sniper remained in the dark.

"If you plan on shooting me, then I suggest you do it now. You won't get another chance to kill me, and I promise that when I leave this cave, Kadara will be mine."

She watched the sniper, but the words were for him.

The decision, she left entirely up to him.

Was she a rival in his way, trying to goad him into revealing his final hand?

Or was this part of some greater plan that she was trying to get him to see?

"The exiles will never bow to the whims of the Nexus." He warned.

Her eyes glittered like chips of ice, "I know."

"You've destroyed all of my plans, for what?"

Her smile returned, a vague thing that reminded him too much of their night drinking on the rooftops, watching the sunset.

Soft eyes, and a tender heart beneath all that responsibility.

Someone who saw him.

And that's when he knew .

"Don't shoot!"

Turning with a shout, Reyes raised his hands to prevent it but he was too late.

He had hesitated a moment too long.

And there was no mistaking the sharp crack of the shot, no stopping it .

The cave echoed with the thunderous sound as his world came crashing down.

And that was the day, the moment, the Charlatan died.