“You killed them, Sienna. All of them.”
Ryder’s voice sliced through the heavy air before she even turned to face him. It came not from his lips but from the dark corner of her mind, the one place she could never fully silence him.
Sienna froze at the center of the throne room, her silver crown glinting beneath the moonlight that spilled through the high arched windows. The metallic scent of blood still lingered from the executions hours ago. Her fingers trembled, yet her face remained carved in regal stillness , the mask she had learned to wear too well.
“I did what I had to do,” she whispered, though the words felt hollow even to her.
The fire in the braziers cracked softly, echoing her racing pulse. The council had dispersed, the courtiers gone , but his presence lingered, a shado
