“I learned from you never to beg,” Logan replies, his voice steady despite the pain he must be feeling. “Never to show weakness.”
“A lesson you seem to have forgotten,” the king sneers, gesturing toward me with his free hand. “Risking everything for an Omega? Challenging your king for a woman? Pathetic.”
“This isn’t about her,” Logan says, though his eyes flick briefly to mine. “This is about what you’ve become. What you’re doing to Melilla. The fertility clinics. The experiments on Omegas. The corruption that’s rotting our kingdom from within.”
The king’s face contorts with rage. “You know nothing of ruling,” he spits. “Nothing of the hard choices required to maintain power. I’ve kept Melilla strong, united, feared by our enemies.”
“At what cost?” Logan demands, circling slowly, regaining his breath. “How many lives sacrificed to your ambition? How many Omegas tortured and bred against their will? How many dissenters silenced?”
“As many as necessary,” the king replies coldly. “Something you would understand if you weren’t so weak.”
He attacks again, a flurry of blows that drives Logan back toward the edge of the circle. Logan defends desperately, his movements hampered by the wound across his chest. Blood drips onto the stone floor, making his footing treacherous.
One misstep and he’ll fall. One moment of weakness and the king’s blade will find his heart.
I can’t breathe, can’t think beyond the terror gripping my chest. This can’t be happening. Not after everything we’ve been through. Not when we’ve come so close.
Logan’s back foot touches the edge of the golden circle. The king smiles, sensing victory, and lunges for the killing blow?—
But Logan isn’t there. At the last possible moment, he drops to one knee, the king’s blade whistling harmlessly over his head. Before the king can recover, Logan surges upward, his sword driving forward in a perfect thrust.
The blade enters just below the king’s ribs, sliding between them with terrible precision. The king’s eyes widen in shock, his sword clattering to the stone floor from suddenly nerveless fingers.
For a moment, time seems to stop. The king stares at his son, disbelief written across his features. Logan holds the sword steady, his golden eyes locked with his father’s.
“How?” the king whispers, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. “How could you...”
“I learned from the best,” Logan replies, his voice steady despite the emotion I can see in his eyes. “You taught me to exploit weakness. To strike when least expected.”
The king’s legs give way. He would have fallen if not for Logan’s grip on the sword still embedded in his chest. Slowly, almost gently, Logan lowers him to the ground, kneeling beside him on the blood-slicked stone.
“It wasn’t supposed to end this way,” the king gasps, his breathing growing labored. “You were supposed to continue my legacy. To rule as I taught you.”
“I will rule,” Logan says quietly. “But not as you taught me. Not through fear and cruelty. Melilla deserves better.”
The king’s hand rises, trembling, to grasp Logan’s wrist. “You think... you can change... everything I built?” Blood trickles from the corner of his mouth, his face growing paler by the second. “You’ll fail. You’ll see... I was right.”
“Perhaps,” Logan acknowledges. “But you won’t live to see it.”
The king’s grip tightens momentarily, then goes slack. His eyes, so like Logan’s in color if not in expression, grow distant, unfocused. His final breath rattles in his chest, and then he is still.
King Leopold Corellian, conqueror of the independent cities, unifier of Melilla, is dead.
The throne room is utterly silent, the assembled nobles frozen in shock. Logan remains kneeling beside his father’s body, his expression unreadable as he gently closes the king’s staring eyes.
Then, slowly, he rises to his feet. Blood soaks his shirt—his father’s and his own, mingled together on the ancient stone. He turns to face the court, his golden eyes sweeping over the stunned faces.
“The challenge is complete,” he says, his voice carrying to every corner of the vast room. “By the ancient laws of Melilla, by right of blood and combat, I claim the throne.”
No one speaks. No one moves. The nobles stare at their new king with expressions ranging from fear to calculation to dawning opportunity.
Logan’s gaze finds mine across the room. The executioner’s grip on my arm has gone slack with shock, allowing me to rise to my feet. Our eyes meet, a thousand unspoken words passing between us in that single look.
We’ve won. Against all odds, against all reason, we’ve succeeded where we should have failed. The king is dead. Logan stands victorious. The throne—and with it, the power to end the fertility clinics, to free the captive Omegas, to reshape Melilla itself—is his.
The silence stretches, taut as a bowstring, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. Then, from the back of the room, a single voice calls out:
“Long live King Logan!”
