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The admission hits like lightning striking bone. Love. Not duty or patriotism or professional respect. Love.

“She doesn’t know,” he continues, words spilling out under magical compulsion while I watch with cold fascination. “Never told her. Never acted on it. Just... watched over her. Protected her for eight years. Made sure she got the assignments that would keep her safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“From this!” The word erupts with anguished fury. “From becoming what you’re turning her into! She was perfect as she was. Strong, smart, real.” His voice breaks between assessment and grief. “Had a squad who’d die for her, a purpose that didn’t require rewriting her DNA. She mattered without needing some ancient bloodline to prove it.”

His words hit like acid eating through flesh, but I force myself to continue the extraction. Truth, no matter how uncomfortable.

“Explain.”

“Look what you’ve done to her!” His voice cracks like breaking protocol. “That’s not Ash. That’s some magical princess wearing her face. Real Ash sang off-key, checked her weaponthree times before sleep, made terrible jokes during firefights. When’s the last time you saw her do any of that?”

“She’s discovering her true nature.”

“You erased her true nature!” He lunges against his restraints, desperation lending him strength while magic holds him down. “She was a soldier! A protector! Someone who fought for people who couldn’t fight for themselves! She used to sing off-key in the shower. She kept photos of her squad in her gear. She made terrible jokes during firefights to keep everyone calm. She never could sleep without checking her weapon three times.”

Each detail hits like a blade between my ribs. The Ash he describes—human, vulnerable, beautifully flawed—sounds nothing like the ethereal creature of growing power we’ve been celebrating.

“She doesn’t remember those things anymore, does she?” His laugh turns bitter. “Too busy becoming your perfect Fae princess to remember the soldier who saved my life six times. You erased her.”

“That woman was suppressed magic. Concealed nature. Living a lie.”

“She was herself enough to save my life six times!” The words explode with desperate fury. “She was herself enough to hold dying children and promise them safety! She was herself enough to sacrifice her own happiness over and over because she couldn’t stand to see others suffer!”

“And now?”

“Now she’s your project. Your experiment in royal awakening.” His eyes hold genuine devastation. “Does she even make her own choices anymore, or do magical bonds and destined mates make them for her?”

The question cuts to the bone because I don’t have an answer. How much of Ash’s growing attachment to us comesfrom genuine feeling versus magical recognition? How much of her transformation represents discovery versus replacement?

I push deeper with the memory viewer, searching for context, for proof he’s wrong. Instead, I find decades of genuine care. Images of Davis watching Ash from a distance, ensuring her safety without recognition. Times he redirected dangerous missions away from her. Moments he stayed awake all night because her assignment had gone dark and he couldn’t reach her.

“You want to see the real betrayal?” Davis laughs bitterly as I rifle through his memories through the device array. “The conversation that started this nightmare?”

The memory unfolds with searing clarity through the viewing lens:

Graves, older and harder than the photos suggest: “The girl’s showing signs of awakening. We need her extracted before she becomes a threat.”

Davis, younger but already protective: “Sir, with respect, Morgan’s the best asset we have. Her success rate?—”

“Her success rate is about to become irrelevant. The situation’s evolved beyond human capabilities.”

“What if I could bring her in voluntarily? What if she cooperated?”

Graves’s cold smile: “You think you can convince her to betray everything she’s become?”

Davis’s desperate gambit: “I think she trusts me. And when this is over, when we’ve neutralized the Fae threat... she’ll be free to choose her own life. Free to be with whoever she wants.”

The unspoken promise hangs in the extracted memory like poison: She’ll be yours when we’re finished with her.

Nausea claws up my throat because the evidence is undeniable—Davis didn’t come here for military objectives. Hecame to rescue the woman he loves from people he believes are destroying her. And perhaps... perhaps he’s not wrong.

“You see it now,” he says quietly, watching recognition dawn on my face. “You see what we’ve done to her.”

But I’m not finished extracting information. Not when I can feel the weight of deeper secrets pressing against his consciousness through the magical sensors.

“The trial tonight,” I demand, device array flaring brighter until he screams. “What questions will they ask?”