The two words hung in the vast chamber, an impossible anchor dropped into the roaring river of my condemnation. "I do." Silence followed, absolute and profound. It was not the quiet of respect, but the shocked, breathless stillness of a predator that sees its cornered prey suddenly bare its teeth. The Chief Justice’s gavel, halfway through its arc, froze in mid-air as if caught in a stasis field.
Arthur’s face, a moment ago a mask of triumphant sorrow, constricted into a knot of pure disbelief, then fear. Lilia, beside him, went rigid, her fragile facade cracking like fine porcelain under a hammer blow.
I didn’t wait for permission. My movements were deliberate, economical. I turned my back to the central holoprojector, to the billion eyes watching across the Hegemony. Reaching over my s
