All eyes shift toward me.
My pulse picks up rhythm — heavy, steady, not angry. This is a moment of clarity.
Execution.
Exile.
Both are ancient rites — crown and ending.
But I hear Chelsea’s voice — small, but clear, woven through a thousand memories:
“You’ll need Mama’s brains.”
I glance at Ayla. She watches me with that calm steadiness that feels like home.
I meet the council’s gaze.
“I chooseexile,” I say — voice rich, solemn, anchored. “Let him rot in the dark with his failure. Let him twist in the silence he once wielded like a weapon.”
The chamber falls silent — not out of shock, but understanding.
An official nods, and the sentence is passed.
Frederick is to be banished to a solitary penal asteroid — a dead rock drifting at the edge of sanctioned space, its atmosphere a memory of vacuum. No visitors. No distractions. Just isolation and the slow toll of eternity.
Frederick howls — not in rage, not desperation, but that primal scream of a man who fancies himself above consequence. He rants about human supremacy, pure bloodlines, destiny warped by the universe’s cruelty.
But when he meets my gaze — a calm, steely look — he falters. Old venom sputters out like dying embers.
Kallus steps forward, expression unreadable, and with a single impact — not cruel, but resolute — he knocks Frederick out cold.
A hush sweeps the chamber.
And then murmurs rise — not mockery, not pity — but a recognition thatjustice was not violent, but necessary.
The guards step in, taking Frederick’s limp form with ropes and restraints designed for containment, not torture. The echo of their steps feels like final chords in a long, sorrowful symphony.
Ayla turns toward me, Chelsea at her side, and I feel something settle in the air between us — a quiet release, like breath finally exhaled after too long held.
We step from the dais, hands brushing.
Then — our fingers find each other.
Warm. Living. Whole.
We walk away from the chamber — a far cry from the battlefield that once defined us — toward something that might be calledpeace.
Outside, the sunlight filters through massive stained glass — human and Reaper symbols interwoven — splashing color on every surface. The world feels brighter here, as though truth has sunlit warmth.
I look at Ayla, eyes soft but fierce.
“The past is buried,” I say, voice tender.
She smiles — real, radiant, rooted.
“The future is yours,” I add — meaning both her and our daughter.
Chelsea tugs at my cloak, wide-eyed and curious.
