“I told them to destroy your world.”

The room fell deathly silent as Iris processed what Arylos just said. She felt no emotion, no reaction. She just couldn’t believe what she was just told. It had to be a lie. She could only stare at Arylos as her eyes started to grow cold.

“I’m sorry, you told them to what?” Iris asked accusingly, slowly clenching her fist.

Arylos turned and saw her cold expression and it chilled him to the core. He knew what happened; he just lost her. He knew then that defending himself would not work; she needed to know the whole truth. “Your people believe the Reig invaded your world and that started the war. That’s not correct; you and the Reig at one point lived peacefully alongside each other. Your entire culture and language was different in those days and you and the Reig shared land, sky, food, language, and more.”

“We lived in peace with them?” Iris tried processing the idea.

“It was a long time and early on in Kaiyumian history,” Arylos explained while leaning against the wall. “They weren’t hostile and your people weren’t afraid of them, so the two of you made a pact for peace and coexisted in this world.”

“And you told them to destroy us?” Iris cut in as her anger rose.

“I did so because it made sense at the time,” Arylos explained, knowing the end result. “The Reig are eternal and your people were primitive and mortal. While you were coexisting at the time, I was concerned that one of the two of you would devolve. The Reig were infinitely stronger and so they may have been the first to move and seek to oppress you, or you would begin to see them as monsters or gods rather than as fellow creatures sharing the same world.”

“And that meant they had to destroy us?” Iris cut in again, standing up from the sofa.

“I told them to prove me wrong,” Arylos continued. “I told them to prove to me that they would maintain the status quo; to prevent devolution from claiming your world. I gave them time, but they ultimately could not find a way to prevent my predictions; even if it wasn’t happening at the time, it was inevitable in the future.”

“But why would you tell them to do that?” Iris asked, trying to piece all of this together.

Arylos sighed and kept his eyes to the floor. “I have to prevent what happened to my people from happening to others. It’s the least I can do to justify my existence.”

Iris came closer to Arylos, debating on whether or not she was wrong to hit him before. “So you told them to kill us? And the Dragon Wars was their attempt to do so.”

Arylos stood up straight and shook his head. “No, the king at the time agreed and was going to carry out my order. But he was killed by Kalndahvok.”

“Don’t you dare tell me Kalndahvok saved my people,” Iris accused.

Arylos shook his head once more. “Far from it. My predictions had come to pass; Kalndahvok and several others had already devolved and wanted to enslave your people.”

“And that’s why you fought,” Iris realised. “Because the whole war was your fault and you were correcting your actions.”

“I didn’t think your people were capable of fighting back,” Arylos explained. “A part of me wanted to leave you to your fate.”

“How long did you wait?” Iris asked, shaking in anger.

Arylos paused for a moment, knowing the answer he had to give. “I did not come here until the war had begun; when your people were fighting back. Long after the Kaiyumae had been enslaved and your history forgotten.”

Iris clenched her fists as she shook violently. “You’re kidding me,” she whispered in a cracking voice. “You waited until we were already enslaved and broken, used as livestock, our culture and history erased; you waited until the last possible minute to help us?”

Arylos bowed his head, having no explanation. “I wanted to leave you to your fate and I wrote it off as another failure to stop the inevitable. I knew you couldn’t fight back and so there was nothing that could be done. But when I saw your people continue to fight even when it was pointless, I knew I had to do something to help. The more I heard your people cry and pray for help, the more I was inclined to help.”

“When it was convenient for you!” Iris shouted, shedding a tear. “You just wrote us off like that? How could you do that to us?”

Arylos stopped himself, knowing his answer would only make things worse. He couldn’t say it. He didn’t believe it anymore, he hated himself for thinking it.

“Well?!” Iris pushed forward.

Arylos took a shuddered breath, preparing himself for Iris’s rage. “Because your race was nothing special to me at the time,” he reluctantly answered. “You were just another mortal race that would live its life and die like the rest. I was nothing more but an observer; I wanted to help, but ultimately, I thought what good would come from it.”

Iris grabbed Arylos by the collar with both hands with tears streaming down as her legs shook under her. Arylos looked into her tear-filled eyes and it felt like a knife was shoved into his gut; he grew tired of seeing her like this.

“Don’t say that,” she spoke as her voice cracked. “Don’t say that we’re nothing special. Don’t say that I’m nothing special.”

Arylos reached for her hands but she kept her grip tight. “Reyz asked if I was more important than you trying to live here,” Iris continued as her voice stabilised. “So you’re telling me that I’m not special to you?”

“No,” Arylos said with no hesitation.

“Am I just a means to an end for you?” Iris pushed forward, ignoring his response.

“No,” Arylos responded again, pulling at her hands and wanting to find a way to show her that none of that was true.

Iris kept her grip firm and pulled him closer to her. “Are you really going to tell me that you didn’t care for us until we started to die? You’re telling me that the man who happily threw himself on a sword for others was not going to do it for us because you thought we should die?”

Arylos kept struggling, unable to break her strength. “Iris please,” he pleaded with her, trying desperately to keep her.

“Then tell me it’s a lie!” she cried under her breath, unable to raise her voice anymore. “Tell me that you lied, that it’s not true. Tell me that you cared about us but couldn’t help us. Tell me that you couldn’t find a body any sooner.”

Arylos stopped fighting her hold on him, letting go of her and resigning to his fate. He had been fighting to keep her, but he had already lost her and there was nothing he could do.

It’s over.

“Say something,” Iris cried, rejecting Arylos’s silence.

“I would never lie to you,” Arylos responded as his only answer as he bowed his head.

Arylos suddenly found himself shoved up against the wall by Iris and a sudden pain hit his cheek as Iris slapped him once more. He accepted his fate as he looked towards her and saw she was now crying a river of tears.

“Lie to me just this one time!” she howled, pushing him against the wall again.

“Tell me it’s all a lie!” she pleaded with another push into the wall.

“Tell me you care! Tell me you’re different!” she commanded, while tightening her grip on his shirt.

“Tell me you weren’t going to just leave us behind!” she ordered as her voice began to fade.

“Tell me that you and I were bound to meet,” she whispered as she cried into his chest. “Don’t tell me that if you didn’t feel sorry for us, we wouldn’t have met. Don’t tell me that the best thing to happen to me, the one person I thought I could trust, didn’t care for us.”

Arylos raised his arms to comfort her, but couldn’t bring himself to touch her. He wanted to tell her it was all okay with a hug as he always does. He wanted to comfort her and tell her she wasn’t alone. He wanted to tell her he cared for her in a way even he couldn’t understand.

But he couldn’t lie to her.

“You lost everything because of me,” he whispered, his growling voice booming through his chest and into Iris’s ears. “I am far from the best thing to have happened to you. I care for you, I really do, but you cannot ask me to lie to you.”

Iris’s hands clenched tighter before she finally relaxed her grip and stepped away from Arylos, rubbing her eyes and sniffling. Arylos reached his hand out, wanting to comfort her, feeling a pain inside him by seeing her like this.

“Go away.”

Arylos froze in place as he processed what she just told him.

“Go away,” she repeated her command softly with clenched fists. “Get away from me. Go back to wherever you came from. Just leave me alone.”

Arylos lowered his hand, unable to fight back against her.

“Just get out of here,” she repeated after pausing. “Go back to the hole that I woke you up from for all I care.”

Arylos felt a tear come down his cheek. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want any of this. He realised in that moment what he didn’t want to lose.

Iris clenched her fist, irritated with Arylos’s presence. She lost control of herself once more. “Just leave me!” she screamed. “Get the hell out of here you monster!” She stood firm as her heart was swimming in emotions that she could not contain, letting out what her heart believed.

You’re not a monster to me, Arylos.

Iris slowly started coming to her senses as the word hung in the air. She felt herself calm down and get back in control.

I would never call you a monster because you’re just Arylos to me.

Iris realised what she had done. She broke her promise. The realisation snapped her back to reality and she felt her heart break. She couldn’t figure out if she still meant what she said. She swallowed her emotion and looked to Arylos, wondering if she can apologise for at least that.

He was crying.

Iris felt her heart shatter as she saw Arylos stare at her with broken eyes and tears streaming, his jaw partially open like he wanted to say something. She saw the warm glow of his eyes go dark behind a lens of tears as his face was painted with pain.

No.

Iris lurched forward and grabbed Arylos by the shirt again. Arylos could see her lips moving desperately as she cried. It looked like she was pleading. He didn’t know what she was saying. He didn’t care. Everything she said was muted and was only replaced by her voice echoing ‘monster’ in his head.

He memorised the features of her face, wanting to hold her cheeks and wipe the tears away. He wanted to brush her hair out of her face. He wanted her to stop crying, yet he had no control over that anymore; nothing he could do could get her to stop. He watched her attempts to plead become more desperate as she shed more tears, her lips quivered. He admired her facial features, her soft skin and round face, her lips, her forehead, her hair, her eyes.

But he wanted her to stop. The word ‘monster’ repeated in his head as he heard every other voice that has ever called him that play in his head. He could only hear the screams of people who hated him. As he watched Iris cry, he wanted her to stop, the pain of watching her cry making it worse.

Her muffled voice went quieter as she hugged him, continuing to cry into his chest. He just wanted her to stop. He bit down on his teeth, chewed his cheek and bared his fangs. He wanted her to stop. He clenched his hands as they shook violently, unable to touch her.

He just wanted her to stop.

He finally grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her away from him and looked into her wet eyes, able to hear her whimpering crying instead of the ghosts that haunted him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she shook her head and Arylos saw that her brown eyes had taken a blue colour. He admired the colour once more, finding the cerulean glow beautiful. Iris reached out a hand to hold him but he caught her hand by the wrist as he finally banished the shaking from his hands. He found no words to give her, nothing he could tell her that would make all of this go away.

However, he could make this all go away. Cleanse the memory from her, go back to the way things were. He let go of her hand and rested his fingers on her forehead, summoning a deep magic within him and he felt the electrical signals in her brain. He probed to find her memories, her pain, her anger. He searched for the intense emotion she showed him as she looked at him with her blue eyes, trying to find her own words for him. Yet Arylos found no anger, no pain, no fear.

He found love.

He released his hands from her, trying to process what he found. He realised that she was angry because she cared for him. She wanted him to lie because she did not want to believe her friend would do any of that.

All because she loves this monster too much.

“That’s enough,” he growled in a shuddered breath as he lost the determination to clear her memory; he would be the monster she wanted him to say he was not. In that moment, he made up his mind. “We’ve fought enough the past couple of days; I don’t want that for you. I don’t want to keep fighting you and seeing you cry like this.”

Iris reached out for him but he moved away from her and turned his back towards her. “I’ve told you everything. Are you satisfied?” he asked in a deep growl.

Iris wrapped her arms around herself, trying to give herself some sort of comfort. “Yes,” she responded while also turning away. “Just, let me think about all of it, okay? Give me the chance to clear my head.”

“Alright,” Arylos responded as he walked towards the foyer hallway and Iris could hear a door open and close open; a sign that he was going to the basement. Iris shuddered and rubbed her eyes. She decided to try and sleep this off, going up the stairs to her room and closing and locking the door behind her. With a shuddered sigh, she threw herself onto her bed and buried her head in her pillows, letting out a loud scream that was barely muffled.

Why did I say that?! She screamed at herself while pulling on her hair. Why did I call him that?! Do I want him to leave?!

She pulled harder at her hair and started crying again, not knowing what she wanted. She wished all of this would just go away, that she could forget all of this and go back to the way things were. She wanted to keep her friend. The only thing she could do was wrap her blankets around her and cry herself to sleep.

In her dreams, the whole situation played out again in her head as she beat herself up over it, imagining walking over to herself and slapping her instead, pulling on her hair and screaming in her ear. She hated what happened, she wished she could have undone all of it. The anxiety crushed in on her, like the sky was falling down. She wanted to hold Arylos so he would never leave, hold him tighter and tighter until she held him fast like a chain. She wanted to be his reason for being here, not the reason he hates this world. He opened up to her and told her a dark truth of his past and she stomped all over it, and she hated herself for that.

Eventually, Iris woke up, her head pounding and her skin covered in sweat and nose raw. She actually saw she worked up a small nosebleed in her sleep from her rubbing her nose constantly in her sleep. She lifted herself out of bed and saw that the sun outside had set.

She knew she had to apologise now or lose him.

She opened her bedroom door and went across the hall to Arylos’s room but saw that it was dark and he was not in it. She checked the guest room and it was dark as well and the door to the bathroom was open with no one inside.

She went downstairs and saw that the lower levels were lit by a soft candlelight, but Arylos was not in the living room. She quickly walked over to the dining room and he wasn’t there either. She ran towards the library and he was gone. She sprinted towards the kitchen and opened the back door to the back garden and found no Titan.

She ran towards the basement door and opened it but the basement below was pitch black. In a dead sprint, she ran towards the front door as tears started flowing again. She opened it, praying that Arylos would be on the other side of it.

She ran outside the house and reality hit her; he was gone. He wasn’t there, there was no sign of him in the night outside.

Iris was too late. She had already lost Arylos.