They dared to call it justice.

  The high court shimmered with polished gold and marble, its opulence blinding beneath the blaze of chandelier fire. From their crescent-moon dais of dark mahogany, the eight highest arbiters of New Elyriath—draped in silks, gemstones, and smug silence—looked down like gods out of a myth.

  At the center of the rotunda stood Serenya Solenne.

  Shackled in sigil-scorched iron, her body sagged beneath the weight of filth, fatigue, and betrayal. Rags clung to her like a second skin, stained with sweat, blood, and the rot of dungeon air. Her hair hung in dark, matted ropes. Her hands and feet trembled, slick with mercury-oil, which spread half-dried and cracked toward her elbows and knees.

  Still, she refused to falter. She counted each breath. Each pulse. Each second in which she remained defiant. It was all she had at that point.

  Once, she had stood in that exact place to address nation leaders, rally the armies, muster the people’s faith and strength. Now, her name was a curse.

  The rotunda trembled with jeers. Commoners crowded the lower halls, shoulder to shoulder, a seething tide barely held back by guards. Rage burned in their eyes, raw, hungry, misled. Above, nobles leaned from their carved balconies like vultures in velvet, watching her ruination with thin smiles and wine-stained teeth.

  And at the head of it all stood him.

  The Dragon Vessel. Savior of the realms. Beloved hero of prophecy. The man who had once fought demons and undead by her side and whispered dreams and promises into her skin of a better tomorrow and of a future united. Now, his knuckles paled as he read the decree aloud, each word slicing the space between them:

  “Treason. Sedition. Blood-binding. Massacre of royal forces. Conspiracy to usurp the throne. Assassination of Princess Lymora, first in line to the Phoenix Throne. My beloved wife. Among many other crimes.”

  His voice broke on that last one.

  Her knees nearly buckled beneath the weight of the shackles, but she refused to fall. Chin raised, lips cracked and bloodied, she stared at him through the matted curtain of her hair. Waiting. Hoping. Searching his face for the break in the mask—for the man she had fought beside for nearly a decade to rise and speak the truth. To shout enough, to silence the accusations with the full force of his name, and clear her of this twisted farce.

  But he didn’t.

  His hands trembled at his sides. The whites of his eyes were rimmed with red, veins spidering from corners where sleep and peace had long abandoned him. There was no triumph in him. Only a heavy, crushing resignation that hung over him like a funeral shroud. He stood there, pristine in his ceremonial whites, every stitch immaculate, every medal polished to a mirror shine.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  And yet, he looked more ruined than she ever had.

  His eyes met hers, those impossible blue eyes that had once promised the world, and they were brimming with tears. A vast, silent sorrow rippled through them. Not guilt. Not rage. But grief. So deep it bordered on reverence.

  He did not flinch from her. Nor did he avert his gaze. Just stared, like a man already mourning something beyond saving.

  “After extensive inquiry and deliberation,” he said, voice tight, every word tearing something out of him, “the charges brought forth have been... corroborated. The evidence against her is overwhelming. Unignorable.”

  A beat. His throat bobbed with the effort it took to swallow the next words.

  “She—must be punished. In accordance with the law.”

  He looked ready to shatter.

  The rotunda erupted around them.

  A roar of voices broke loose from the galleries. Commoners packed in shoulder to shoulder, screaming for retribution, for justice, for death. Their fury echoed through the marble dome, drowning the sobs of a child somewhere in the crowd. From the balconies, nobles leaned forward with wine in hand, watching her with gleaming eyes, like jackals scenting blood on a weakened beast. Down below, the arbiters whispered among themselves, their silken sleeves brushing as they passed judgment over her life like merchants weighing spoiled fruit.

  All the while, Serenya’s gaze never left his.

  Her voice was barely a breath. “You know I didn’t do this.”

  “I know,” he said, the words catching in his throat.

  Silence bloomed between them. One breath stretched taut by a thousand memories, shared victories, whispered promises, the quiet things lovers say when no one else is listening.

  “Then why—?” she rasped, her face battered, blood crusted beneath her nose, defiance flickering beneath ruin.

  “Because they needed someone to blame,” he whispered. “Because the world can’t afford to lose faith in me. Not now. Not when the shadows are closing in.”

  Her breath hitched. One heartbeat. Two.

  And then the memories began to unravel.

  The medals he’d pinned to her chest, hands shaking. The promises whispered against her skin. The way he’d kissed her like he already knew how the story ended.

  Every time he held her back. Every time he chose silence. Every time he promised her forever.

  She saw it now. The shape of the lie. The inevitability of it.

  He had always known it would end like this.

  “You…” Her voice broke on the word. She blinked blood from her lashes. “You always said you loved me.”

  “I do,” he whispered. “More than anything.”

  “Liar.” Her shoulders shook. Not with fear, nor despair. But with the sheer, absurd cruelty of it all. “You always knew. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

  He flinched. Took one step forward before stopping himself. His knuckles turned white as his fists tightened.

  “I didn’t want this,” he whispered, the words tumbling like broken glass. “Godbeasts help me, I never wanted this.”

  Somehow, impossibly, she believed him.

  That was what shattered her.

  Her laugh cracked through the rotunda like a bone snapping. It started small, dry, hollow, humorless. Then it grew. Unhinged. A wild, rabid thing that clawed up her throat like it had teeth.

  The crowd fell silent. The arbiters froze. Even the guards shifted uneasily.

  She laughed again. Madder this time. Sharper. It echoed through the marble halls, through the balconies, up to the chandeliers where golden light flickered and trembled like it, too, had lost its way.

  She couldn’t stop even when the arbiters declared their unanimous verdict. She laughed as the guards dragged her away. She laughed in the dark of her cell during the days leading up to her execution. She laughed as they led her to the biggest plaza in the city, making her death a spectacle.

  She was still laughing when he stepped forward to do it himself. When the water turned to ice in his hand.

  The sky wept ash the day the Phoenix died.