Sera’s throat went dry. “Then Alaric needs to know.”
Lily went still. “No.”The refusal was so blunt it almost felt like aslap.
“That’s not your call,” Sera said, voice low, because raising it would not change anything. “He’s been living in suspicion. He’s been forced to consider me a threat. If you can end that, you don’t get to sit on it.”
“I do,”Lily said flatly.
Sera held her ground. “Explain.”
Lily exhaled slowly, as if steadying herself. “Alaric’s choice has to be real.”
“It is real,” Sera snapped, and then forced herself to breathe because emotion wasn’t strategy. “He’s choosing to bring me into his home. He’s choosing to keep me close. He’s choosing to protect me.”
“And he’s still trying to protect everyone at once,” Lily replied quietly. “Including himself. According to his sisters, that’s how he always handles things.”
The words landed with quiet heaviness.Sera’s mouth tightened. “They don’t know what he’s feeling. Neither do you.”
Lily didn’t look away. “I know men like him. Iknow how they function when they’re trained to value legacy above everything else. They call it duty. They call it family. They call it protection. It’s all the same mechanism. He’s been taught his whole life that love is a liability.”
Sera’s stomach turned.
Lily continued, voice level. “If I hand him proof, then he can love you safely. He can pick you without risk. He can tell himself it wasn’t a choice, it was an outcome. That’s notwhat you need.”
Sera’s hands curled at her sides. “That’s not what he needs either.”
“What he needs is irrelevant.”
Sera blinked. “Excuse me?”
Lily didn’t hesitate. “This isn’t about his comfort. This is about whether he’ll stand with you when it costs him something.”
Sera swallowed hard. “It already costs him.”
“Not enough.”
The corridor seemed narrower.Sera forced her voice steady. “You’re talking like this is some kind of test.”
She shrugged. “It is.”
“That’s monstrous!”
Lily’s expression didn’t change. “So is what he’ll do to you if he doesn’t choose you.”
The words struck somewhere beneath Sera’s ribs. Because she could imagine it.Not cruelty. Not violence. Something colder.Containment.A life reduced to a variable.She fought to keep her face neutral. “You don’t get to decide this for us.”
Lily’s mouth tightened. “Yes, Ido. Because I’m the one holding the evidence. Because I’m the one who found it. BecauseI’m the one who understands what happens if Vidar gains power over the narrative.”
Sera’s pulse thudded in her throat. “Alaric is not your enemy.”
“No,” Lily said. “But he’s not your safe place either. Not yet.”
Sera’s eyes stung, an unwelcome burn she refused to indulge. “He’s grieving.”
“That’s exactly why this matters,” Lily said. “Grief strips people down to their purest essence. It shows what they default to when they’re in pain.”
Sera’s voice dropped. “And you think he’ll default to sacrificing me.”
Lily didn’t answer immediately. The silence was answer enough.
