Page 155

She shakes her head. “I didn’t know,” she sobs. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I—”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if you did,” I cut in. “You believed she was less than human, less than deserving, not worth mercy.”

“Please,” she cries.

“The girl you treated as nothing was never a servant,” I snarl, holding her gaze, and her breath catches.

“She is my queen,” I growl.

The silence that follows is suffocating as she crumples to the ground.

“You would do well to understand exactly what that means for you.” As I step back, she stares at me, wide-eyed. “You will beg for death long before it finds you, and I will make certain you feel every moment of it, every second stretched into something unbearable for what you did when you believed yourself above her.”

Her body folds in on itself, shaking with sobs.

“I didn’t know,” she cries, over and over, as if repetition might undo what has already been done.

“Eagan,” I call over my shoulder, knowing he would have followed me down here.

“My king.”

“Bring her to the courtyard,” I say without looking at him. “I will collect Alessia.”

There is no hesitation as he moves to stand beside me. “Yes, my king.”

I turn away, not wanting to listen to her try to justify her mistakes.

Behind me, the cell door opens.

Then her voice breaks entirely. “Please, I beg you,” she wails, the sound echoing down the corridor as I walk away. “Please, I didn’t know.”

Returning to our room, I find Alessia where I left her, but she’s fully dressed and her hands are clean from the bloody mess I left her with.

Her gaze lifts when I approach.

“Come, I have something to show you,” I say. Her brows scrunch, but she falls into step beside me without argument. By the time we reach the courtyard, everything has been prepared.

Eagan stands to one side while Dahlia kneels in the center, her hands bound, her posture collapsed inward, and her head hung.

Alessia stops beside me.

I feel it the moment she sees and recognizes her.

Not through the bond, not through anything tangible, but in the subtle shift of her breath, the way her body stills, and the way her gaze settles on the woman before her with something resembling pity.

Dahlia sees her moments later, and everything in her changes.

“Alessia,” she cries, as she lunges forward on her knees. “Alessia, please, you promised. You promised me.”

I feel Alessia stiffen beside me.

Promised? My brows furrow, wondering what the woman speaks of.

She hasn’t seen this woman in years. I glance at Alessia, watching the confusion flicker across her expression, the way she searches Dahlia’s face as if trying to understand how this moment exists at all.

“What is she doing here?” she asks quietly.

“I told you she would never hurt you again.”