Day 45:

There was peace for only a minute, before the preciously-bought breathing space collapsed beneath Father's words. As all peace must.

Even as her walls went up—an automatic response to any strong surge of emotion—he studied her face. He shut his eyes and exhaled slowly.

"So it is true," he breathed, not looking at her.

They stood, still, on the steps in front of the Citadel where a dozen Crownsguards and her retinue watched with thinly veiled interest. The former she cared nothing for. They might have been part of the architecture for all it mattered what they did or did not know. But the others. Cor, Iris, Ignis. What would they say when they learned the truth of what she was?

Ardyn stepped up beside her, laying a hand on her shoulder.

"Tell them, little Dreamer. Turn around and face yourself in the mirror," he whispered in her ear.

She shut her eyes against the world. For years she had done as his voice whispered in her ear. Usually he didn't give good advice. But he often spoke what she could not bring herself to see.

"Very well." Reina opened her eyes and the world resumed.

Father gave her a sharp look. "Not here. Come."

He swept up the stairs, his rapid gait betraying his agitation. Reina followed.

"What's he talking about, Rei?" Iris kept at her side. Behind, the others trailed, doubtless as keen for the answer as Iris was.

"A truth you would prefer not to know," Reina said. "But if you choose to do so, I will not stop you. And if you turn away from me, once it is known, it will not be the first time."

Even as she spoke the words a familiar feeling of dread and mourning crept over her. A thrumming pain of lost camaraderie and ruined friendship. Her steps faltered a moment. She squeezed her fists shut at her sides. It was seven fifty-six. None of that had happened.

Yet.

Father led them up to the royal levels of the Citadel, where they could speak in private. In spite of Reina's warning, Iris, Ignis, and Cor all followed, though they wore varying degrees of bemusement and concern on their features. In the upstairs lounge, Noctis was waiting for them. He stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed. With one look at their father, his face hardened. Father came to stand beside him, rounding to look at Reina.

"Tell us, Reina," he said.

"You know all I have to tell," Reina said, but for the benefit of the others, she repeated what her father and brother already had surmised. "I killed three members of the royal council in cold blood. I took Hamon's life force for the underground network of informants he kept from Father—for the scheming he had and would do, heedless of Father's rule. Aldebrand I infected with the Starscourge, for he was corrupt already but had yet to taste the poison of it. Alnilam was a traitor—an informant and a spy, just as Drautos had been—and for that I cut his throat."

Silence followed her words. Nothing she revealed was new to Father or Noctis. Doubtless during the investigation that followed each death they had uncovered the truth behind each councillor's corruption. But each face in her retinue grew pale in varying degrees.

"Your rule," Reina said to her father, "And therefore Noctis' rule, is more secure for the absence of snakes in the council."

"I shall not ask how you came by this information before even I," her father said, "But once you had, did it not cross your mind to come to me rather than take matters into your own hands?"

Reina blinked at him.

"No," she said simply.

"No," he repeated. "Of course not."

"Had I not eliminated them, they would have come to harm you in their own ways."

He scrutinized her, as if to discover what other secrets she held and did not disclose. There were many she wished lost for all time.

"You… killed them?" Iris asked.

"Yes."

"Just because they did some bad things?"

"And would have done worse," Reina affirmed.

"Why?" Noctis asked. "I don't—why would you kill them? There were so many other ways to put a stop to it. They never tried to hurt you—they weren't a threat. They were just a couple of old guys. Why kill them?"

The question didn't make any sense. Why kill them? To solve the problem.

"Why not?" Reina asked.

Beside her, Ardyn's smirk stretched to a grin. "Why not indeed? Truly, little Dreamer, these friends of yours do not see things so clearly as you and I."

Conflicting emotions chased across her father's face. Frustration, rage, horror, and finally a mournful sadness. He passed his hand over his face and sat down.

"Oh, my dear," he murmured, "What have these years done to you that you no longer see the value of human life?"

She looked about the room and found expressions that mirrored his in parts. Cor was confused and conflicted, Iris disturbed, and Ignis shocked.

What had the years done to her? How had she begun as the naive princess who everyone viewed as the rightful heir to the throne—compassionate and understanding—to the harsh shadow of a woman she was now?

It was Ardyn who answered the rhetorical question.

"Betrayed her." His grin spread as eyes turned in his direction. "When darkness fell and all that stood between encroaching night and Eos' sole survivors was the Chosen King's sister, she took up her shield and made a barrier of herself. And when she stood, half in shadow so that they could bask in her light, they asked whose side she was on." He stepped behind her, setting his hands on her shoulders and leaning forward to whisper in her ears. "Tainted. Corrupt. Daemon. Deicide."

She shut her eyes. Tears squeezed out onto her eyelashes. "Stop it. Please."

His hands moved from her shoulders and he wrapped his arms around her instead. "You were right, little Dreamer. You were always right. You saved them all and earned nothing but scorn." He straightened suddenly so that he spoke over her head rather than in her ear. "And when not one ounce of empathy can be squeezed from mankind, is it so unbelievable that one would tire of giving the same?"

Reina managed to open her eyes. Ignis had sat down beside Noctis, one hand across his mouth as he stared at Ardyn. Iris stood a few paces away, looking uncertainly between all those assembled. Father's pain had faded to pity. Only Cor stood beside her, still, arms crossed over his chest, looking stonier than usual.

"This isn't that life," he said.

"No, of course not, Lion. But when you have walked the future and know for certain what mankind can do—no, will do—there is no cause to forgive them."

"Nor myself," Reina murmured. Yes, she had seen what mankind would do. Had done. But so, too, had she seen what she would do. What she would become.

And this was her.

"I'm not asking you to give a damn about them. Maybe you don't and maybe you can't change that," Cor said. "But you can change what you do."

Reina lifted her eyes to meet his. At first she struggled to hold it, her eyes darting to the others even as Ardyn hugged her to his chest, but Cor seized her gaze and refused to let go. If he was disturbed that she no longer felt anything resembling empathy for anyone outside of her circle, she couldn't tell.

"You don't care about them. Fine. But you care about us and you know it hurts when you go out and kill people just to solve problems," he said. "So don't do it."

The pain it might cause her friends and family had not crossed her mind—not any more than the possibility of simply telling Father what she had learned. Now it did. And on each face in the lounge she did see hurt. They did not like to be reminded of what she had become, but moreover they grieved the loss of life, even for strangers to them—a feeling she could not even begin to comprehend. But it mattered little. The meaning they ascribed to it gave her meaning. She could not do these things that caused her friends such pain.

"I won't." She looked from face to face, meeting each gaze and impressing the truth of her words. She would not kill; she would allow all decisions to be placed in someone else's hands. As they should always have been.

Cor stepped forward and grasped her shoulders. Ardyn released her, allowing Cor to pull her into a hug.

"That's enough for me," he said. "And it better be enough for the rest of you."

Reina peered out from beneath his arm. The others exchanged shocked looks and for a while no one moved.

Ignis rose to his feet. "I, for one, shall not be added to the legion of nameless faces who turned their backs." He came to take Cor's place, though Cor relinquished her only reluctantly. Ignis' hug was more caress than crush.

Iris stepped forward, setting her hand on Reina's back.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you," she said, voice small. "But you don't have to make it happen to other people." After a pause, she added. "I still love you."

Ignis released her to Iris. Once Iris had hugged her, Noctis was there, though Reina had not heard him approach.

"You're still my sister." He pulled her into a bone-breaking hug to match Cor's. "Don't think you can get out of this that easy."

"I wish we could go back to before any of this happened," Reina murmured against his chest.

"We don't have to." His head bowed over hers. "We're both here and everything's gonna be okay."

He let go of her before she was ready to let go of him, but Father was standing nearby with his hand on Noctis' shoulder in silent request to have his own moment. When Noctis had released her, her father clasped her face in his hands and leaned forward to put his head against hers.

"I understand so little of what you experienced, but I do not require the full story to understand you are not responsible for what has happened to you. Your actions you may control, and I must ask that you do so, but for the emptiness in your heart, I, myself, must take some of the blame."

He pulled her into a hug, cradling her head against his chest where she could hear the pounding of his heart. Had it been his fault? Once she would have denied even the suggestion, and yet who was to say what could have happened differently, had she entered her Dream as a happy and healthy woman? Who would she be now? None could say.

"I don't blame you for this, Father. Life is more complicated than the choices of one person. It only matters that you have changed. Just as I have."

"Indeed I have, and shall remain thus changed. It was never my intention to slight either you or your brother. That I love you both equally and yet in unique ways, as different as you are from each other, should go without saying and yet it did not. So I say it now, as I will show it." He motioned to Noctis and pulled him into the hug so that all three of them were a tangle of arms and affection, as in the years when they had both been small enough to fit in their father's lap together.

"I love you both dearly and unconditionally," he murmured. "Neither the past nor the future shall ever change that fact. Never again shall I submit to a future where one or both of you suffers in sacrifice. I am your father. And my primary responsibility is to see you both loved and protected in this life."

"Hey. Don't think you get to take all that credit for yourself, old man," Noctis said. "We're old enough to do some protecting of our own."

"And yet, you shall never escape my drive to shelter you, no matter how wise and old you may grow." Their father smiled fondly down at him.

Reina rested her head against his chest, looking up at her father and brother, and could not find a single word to say. In her chest, the buzz of anxiety was fading and relief swelled in its place. A dark piece of her scorched heart had been revealed, but they had not turned away. They had embraced her, accepted her, and reinforced their love of her. In spite of her greatest fears, they stood beside her still. All of them.