Chapter 3 · free to read
The loop had not saved me. A guard's slow reflexes had. I filed that terror away for later and kept my face carved from marble.
The court expected an execution. A dead cupbearer confesses nothing. I wanted her breathing.
He did not need to win the room. He only needed to split it. And with three sentences, he did.
I dismissed the guard and walked Orrin toward her chambers myself. Which is how I learned there was a knife waiting for her in the east corridor.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.