The air shifts.
Even from where I’m chained, I can feel it.
Marj laughs, but it rings thinner now. “You think I need him?”
“You need the Butcher,” Roxy replies calmly. “You need something to rally against. Something to scare your followers into loyalty. Without him, you’re just a woman with guns and grudges.”
A few heads in the crowd tilt.
Marj’s jaw tightens.
Roxy steps closer to the platform, still unarmed, still not looking at me.
“You want him to beg,” she continues. “You want him to validate the monster you built in your head.”
Marj’s voice hardens. “Enough.”
She turns to the guards. “Proceed.”
A blade is brought out. Long. Polished. Deliberate.
The crowd leans forward.
I flex against the restraints instinctively, though I know it’s useless. The steel holds. The platform creaks under shifting weight.
And then?—
“Stop.”
The word cracks across the courtyard like a whip.
Not shouted.
Spoken.
Firm.
Marj’s hand lifts midair.
The guard holding the blade freezes.
Silence falls heavy and complete.
Marj studies Roxy for a long moment.
Then she turns slowly back to me.
Something is calculating behind her eyes.
She glances at the crowd.
I see it then.
They’re watching her.
Not cheering.
Not jeering.
