She took a step back.

Then another.

Her breaths were shallow, uneven — like she had been running for miles but had just realized she would never escape.

“I killed you.” His own voice felt foreign, like it belonged to someone else. But the words were real. The past was real. And now, so was her fear.

She didn’t look at him the way she used to.

Not with curiosity.

Not with frustration.

Not with warmth.

She looked at him like he was a monster.

“You were supposed to protect me.” Her voice trembled, but it wasn’t weak. It carried the weight of sixteen lives of loss, sixteen lives of betrayal she had never known until now.

“And instead…” She swallowed hard. “You were the one who killed me.”

He wanted to tell her he had changed. That he wasn’t the same man from their first life.

But how could he?

How could he ask her to believe in him when he had been the reason she had died in the first place?

The past had bound them together in tragedy.

And now, the truth was tearing them apart.

Memories of a Dying Queen

The past still clung to him, like an open wound refusing to heal.

He could still see it — his sword buried in her chest, her fingers grasping onto him, not in hatred but in desperation.

“Tell me why.”

“Tell me why you’re doing this.”

But his past self had never answered. He had let her die without an explanation, without a single moment of peace.

And now, centuries later, she was standing before him once again.

And she finally had her answer.

He reached for her, but she flinched.

It broke him.

She had always been stubborn, always reckless, always willing to defy anything for what she believed in. But now, she wasn’t looking at him like a puzzle she wanted to solve.

She was looking at him like a wound that had finally been reopened.

Like she wasn’t sure if she could ever heal from this.

“You were supposed to be my home.”

The words were quiet. Almost fragile.

“How do I trust you now?”

Silence.

He had no answer.

Because he didn’t deserve one.

And this time — she was the one who walked away.