"What did you say?" His voice resonated in the palace.
I stood tall, spine straight, every ounce of defiance coursing through me. A smirk tugged at my lips as I faced the King. My voice rang clear, unshaken.
"Well, beloved Love Fairy King, is this where you're at now? Yelling when things don't go your way? Like a spoiled child?"
Doverel gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide in horror, like I'd just committed an unforgivable crime.
"Oh my goodness, Scarlette—have you lost your mind?"
The King's voice dropped, a chilling cold descending upon the room. "And what does being a Love Fairy mean to you, if not helping people fall in love?"
I didn't flinch. My voice was calm—now sharper than a blade, cutting through the silence between us. Memories of Baltimore locking me into the dungeon and forgetting me there for five centuries flooded back, sharp and unforgiving. He was the one who altered reality. He was the one who needed to listen.
"Let me get this through your thick skull. Love isn't about pairing people up like chess pieces. It's about teaching communication. Helping them understand what they truly want. Real love is messy. It's earned. It's a journey through strife, vulnerability, and truth."
I took a step forward, my voice low, unwavering. "But what you do? That's not love. That's control. You're a control freak—and I'm the mirror shoved in your face. The inconvenient truth you tried to erase."
His expression darkened like a thundercloud. His lips curled into a sneer.
"I've never heard such nonsense in all my years. If we did things your way, the fairy race—and every creature relying on us—would die out before love could even begin."
His words hit like a physical blow, but I didn't move. He didn't remember. He really didn't remember. We'd fought side by side. He locked me away. And now... nothing?
"I am Your King!" he bellowed, his voice trembling with rage.
I wasn't about to be bothered by his tantrums.
"Your Majesty," I began, fury simmering beneath my skin but masked by cold resolve, "forcing love crushes what makes it real."
He stepped closer. Too close. His presence suffocating.
"You've got guts, young fairy," he growled, voice dripping with contempt. "But you need to know your place."
"I'll make an example of you."
His words stung, a threat sharp enough to cut through the tension in the air. My fists clenched, fingers trembling, and then, I snapped.
"Do you seriously not recognize me, Baltimore?" I shouted. The desperation, the years of silence, all crashed down. My voice echoed through the grand hall, the rawness slicing through the cold silence.
He paused. Confusion flickered across his face before hardening into stone.
"No. I've never seen you before in my life. And that's coming from me—the First Love Fairy. But this?" He sneered. "This will be the last we hear of you."
I felt my heart drop into my stomach. The suffocating weight of betrayal settled in my chest.
But then something inside me snapped. The truth was like a thunderclap. A realization, sharp and bitter, hit me all at once. He didn't remember me. That emerald... He had used it to erase me—completely. His memory, the history, all of it. I'd fought for this fairy realm, alongside him. I had once been his equal. And now? He couldn't even recall me.
The truth was undeniable: There was no way he could be the first Love Fairy. He hadn't been the first. He was a thief—a usurper.
"No, it was me!" I screamed, each syllable a raw, burning accusation. The palace trembled beneath the force of my voice, and with it, the weight of centuries of silence crushed down.
"I am the First Love Fairy! Not you!"
Laughter erupted from the crowd like knives.
Mocking. Cruel.
Each laugh cut deeper than the last.
"You think it's funny to laugh at the Queen of Hearts and Ruin?" I roared, the words rattling the foundations of the room.
"Queen of Hearts and Ruin?" Baltimore scoffed. "That old legend? That bedtime story? She never existed! You'd have more luck calling yourself the boogeyman."
He didn't know.
They all didn't know.
Then, in that instant, the final, cold truth slammed into me.
I looked down at the emerald on my belt. My hand hovered over it, brushing its cold surface, the chill sinking deep into my bones. It was him. It had to be. He was the one who used it to rewrite reality. To erase me from their memory, from history itself.
This was the only possibility. He had stolen everything from me—and now he stood before me as if he were the one who always had the title, as if I had never existed at all.
"You will suffer for this, Baltimore," I hissed, my voice low now, the calm before the storm. "You'll pay."
Scarlet mist began to seep into the palace—oozing from the cracks, curling around pillars, rising from the floor like a living thing.
"Treason!!" the King roared. His voice echoed off marble and gold, dripping with fury.
Doverel was gone. Fled. Vanished into the shadows like the coward she'd always been.
"GUARDS!" The King thundered. "Seize her! Strip her of her magic!"
He turned to an attendant. "Fetch me my Emerald. Now!"
The guards surged forward, magic blazing in their hands.
But I wasn't that fragile little fairy anymore.
And I wasn't going down without a fight.