Two months had passed since the fall of Loren, the city of peace, into Vann's hands.
During all that time, Niren remained a captive in a small royal wing, neither treated as a criminal nor granted freedom.
Her direct guard was Kaiden, who spoke to her only once in the early days:
> "If you try to escape, I will bring you back... alive, nothing more."
But Niren never tried.
---
At first, she hated everything:
The sound of soldiers' footsteps in the halls.
The smell of burning wood from the city.
And Vann's stern face when he visited every other day, quietly asking:
> "Have you changed your mind?"
Her answer was always the same:
> "I will never be part of your kingdom."
But time... conquers every fortress.
---
On the thirty-second night, when Vann visited, he asked in a different tone:
> "Do you hate me… or hate what I do?"
Niren was silent for a moment, then muttered:
> "I hated you because you broke me... but I've begun to wonder if you're truly cruel, or a madman trying to save something already dead."
Vann smiled for the first time.
> "We're both broken, Niren... but you sheltered yourself in peace, and I shelter myself in war."
---
As days passed, Niren noticed something strange:
Vann was not cruel, but disturbingly fair.
He reopened schools in Loren.
He forbade soldiers from looting the market.
He sent food to distant villages he never visited.
When she asked Kaiden:
> "Why does he do this?"
He replied coldly:
> "Because he wants to rebuild what was destroyed... but he doesn't know if it deserves to be rebuilt."
---
Niren began to observe him at every meeting—studying his features, his words, his way of sitting.
One evening, she asked him:
> "Why don't you send me back to my land… and end this?"
He answered:
> "Because your land is no longer just soil... it is a key to tomorrow.
And you… are no longer my enemy, but my mirror."
---
On the fortieth night, Niren stood on her wing's balcony watching Vann train soldiers in the courtyard.
He spoke to them without pride, carried his sword like them, and bore the winter cold on his bare skin.
She whispered to herself for the first time:
> "Can invaders… be saviors?"
She swallowed the words like poison, but she could not deny that she had begun to see Vann differently.
No longer just a killer, but a man trying to win the hearts of those who hated him.
And in her heart, a small seed began to grow...
A seed she hadn't named yet, but knew it was no longer hatred.