Page 25 of Touch of Oblivion (Woven in Time #1)

I take the seat to Sylvin’s left, the chair already drawn out for me. A plate waits, warm and delicately arranged. Eggs, roasted root vegetables, a small roll brushed with something golden that smells faintly sweet.

Sylvin pours a second cup of tea and slides it toward me.

“I shifted Natasha to your care last night,” he says, tone casual but laced with quiet intention. “Her last assignment was…less than kind, and I thought she deserved better.”

That catches me off guard.

I glance at him, finally meeting his eyes. “You reassigned her…for her sake?”

“Of course,” he says, as if it should be obvious. “You’re one of the few here I’d trust to be kind, even without trying.”

A warmth lodges in my chest at that, soft and sharp all at once, that he thinks of me in such a kind light, despite not having much time together .

I take a small bite and hum in delight.

Across the table, Sylvin sips his tea with slow precision, like every movement is intentional.

Steam coils in the morning air, catching the pale light that filters through the frost-laced windows.

Snow dusts the balcony beyond the glass, sparkling where sunlight manages to break through the overcast sky.

He looks at home in it, posture easy but never lazy. The kind of ease that comes from someone used to being watched and used to performing beneath that gaze.

He sets the cup down, fingers long and elegant against the porcelain rim. Then, without warning, he speaks. “The humans tried to cross the ice last night.”

The words hang there, too casually delivered, as if it’s nonconsequential.

I didn’t see that in the thread I chose.

I blink, panic gripping my throat as I croak out, “What?”

He glances toward me, eyes catching the light. “They disembarked from the ships to walk across the ice we provided.”

I straighten slowly in my seat, the food forgotten on my plate, and the silence between us sharpens. I set my fork down gently, fingers curling into my lap to still the flutter in my chest.

“And what did you do?” I ask quietly, already feeling a sickening churn in my gut .

The easy composure he wears like a second skin hardens imperceptibly.

“I ensured they would never attempt it again.”

My breath catches.

I don’t speak at first. Just press my palms flat against my thighs and stare at the snow swirling beyond the window like I might find something to anchor my growing anger, but it doesn’t work.

“You mean…” I start, then stop, my voice catching before I can shape the thought. “You didn’t just stop them. You…”

He looks at me fully now. No smirk. No tease. Just that calm, unfaltering frost.

“They were halfway across the ice field when I arrived, armed and determined to not be deterred. I took that possibility from them.”

He killed them.

The knot in my chest pulls tighter. I blink and the room suddenly feels too bright.

“You could have turned them back,” I say, trying to hold my voice steady. “Created a wall of ice around the coast of your lands, or something. You didn’t have to–”

“They weren’t looking for mercy, Wren,” he cuts me off, voice low but firm. “They weren’t retreating, despite our initial compassion in just freezing their ships out at sea. They wanted to make us bleed, even if it cost them their lives.”

“How many?” I whisper as my heat flares in my cheeks and my eyes sting with tears. “How many did you kill?”

“All of them. The ships and those on foot.”

The silence that follows is too loud. It rings in my ears like the aftermath of a scream. I stare at the plate in front of me, at the steam still rising from the eggs I no longer want. My hand trembles slightly as I reach for my tea, then I think better of it.

All of them.

The words settle in the air–soft, weightless, and impossible to scrub away.

I try not to react at first. I just sit there, spine stiffening inch by inch as my fingers tighten in my lap. My hands slowly uncurl, then clench again. The silence stretches, too heavy, too full.

He said it so calmly and devoid of empathy, as if he hadn’t taken hundreds of lives.

Heat begins to pool behind my ribs, slow and relentless. It rises into my chest, burning upward as memory flashes through me.

The flames devouring the forest. The fae bodies scattered in the snow. The scream of the earth cracking beneath the weight of violence. I’d changed it. Reached back and unstitched the error that set it in motion, all so it wouldn’t end in death.

I saved them.

I saved his people.

I stand, sharply enough that the chair scrapes against the stone floor. My breath comes too fast now, my chest rising and falling like I’ve just run uphill.

“It was all for nothing,” I say, the words tumbling out in a voice that doesn’t feel like mine. “I changed it. I saw what was supposed to happen. I saw the fires, the blood, the bodies of fae. I stopped it. I touched whatever that thread was and rewrote the night so your people wouldn’t suffer.”

My voice breaks, not from weakness, but from fury so big I don’t know how to hold it.

“And you went and slaughtered the other side.”

The words fall from my lips but they’re still not enough. Not for the anger crawling under my skin.

“You could’ve stopped them without killing them all!” I snap, spinning to face him. “Yet you feel justified in this bloodshed.”

His expression hardens, but I don’t give him time to speak.

“You don’t understand what I saw, Sylvin.” My voice trembles now, rising with every word. “Your people were going to die. I watched them fall as your lands burned to the ground.”

My hands curl at my sides. Tears sting my eyes and blur the room, but I don’t wipe them away.

“I gave that moment back,” I breathe. “I changed it . I saved your court.”

And then the dam breaks inside of me and I scream as tears fall, “ I SAVED THEM! ”

The words rip from my throat like they’ve been clawing to get out since the moment I touched that thread. My cheeks are wet now, burning hot despite the frost in the room, but I don’t stop.

“You didn’t just ignore that mercy,” I sob. “You undid it. You killed the humans like it meant nothing. ”

I take a shaking step back, my throat raw as tears slip down my chin and soak into my dress that suddenly pricks at my skin. I don’t want it. I don’t want any gift from someone so callous and cruel.

“I tried to show mercy,” I whisper through clenched teeth. “And you gave them a grave instead.”

Sylvin doesn’t speak.

For a moment, he simply stares at me, like my words haven’t settled yet. His lips part slightly before closing again.

His bright blue eyes track my face, my shaking shoulders, the tear-streaked fury I can’t pull back into place.

He’s not unmoved by my confession, but confused.

“You changed…fate?” he says, voice lower now, almost quiet. “You saw what was going to happen and altered it?”

There’s a flicker of something else there. Not disbelief, but recognition.

He mutters, “I knew something felt off.”

But whatever emotion stirs in that moment, he buries it quickly as he stands slowly, every inch of him composed again.

He steps away from the table, his back straight, his voice cold and impossibly calm. “If you’re asking whether I regret what I did and if I’d change it, even knowing what you did…” He turns toward me fully. “The answer is no.”

His jaw tightens, the elegance of his features drawn taut by something dangerous.

“It was them or my people, and I will always choose mine.”

The words settle through my body, cold and final. They leave no room for question. No space for grief. Just a clean, brutal line between what’s his and what was lost.

He stands tall, elegant in the morning light, draped in the authority of someone who has never once doubted his own convictions.

“You don’t even feel it,” I say, and my voice is quieter now, steadier, but no less sharp. “The weight of what you did.”

Sylvin’s gaze holds mine, cool and unwavering. “I feel the cost, but I simply decided it was one worth paying, Wren.”

The words gut me.

He means every word, and that truth cuts deep.

The tears on my face are already cooling, a thin sheen pulling tightly across my skin as the cold from the windows creeps deeper into the room. My limbs feel heavy, my heartbeat uneven. A kind of hollowness stretches inside me, wide and echoing.

He doesn’t understand that I changed the shape of time and of fate itself, not just to protect his people, but to protect him from the pain that would bring.

Maybe pain isn’t something he’s capable of feeling, though. Maybe there is more to him than the ice king standing before me, unflinching in his brutality, but I’m not sure I care to see it anymore.

“Nothing else I could have done would have deterred them, Wren, ” he says quietly.

“And if by some miracle they had turned back, that wouldn’t have saved anyone.

It would have only delayed the inevitable.

We tried to tell you the first day we found you…

when this war is over, only one side will be standing. ”

I don’t know who I’m more afraid of…the humans who march to their deaths willingly for the sake of their own glory, or the four kings who won’t hesitate to send them there.