#Chapter 111: Consequences and Clarity

Ember Kaine finds me before breakfast, still pulling on his formal jacket as he rounds the corner. The bond hums between us now—faint but unmistakable, like a second heartbeat I forgot I had, and every hour since I poured out the potion it grows louder. "My parents want to see me—the sentencing is today." I tell him to go, that I'll be at my post, and he hesitates long enough for me to feel the question he doesn't ask—whether I'm all right, whether last night changed something fragile between us. I hold his gaze until his shoulders ease, and then he turns toward the throne room. The meeting lasts two hours, and I count every one from my station outside the council chamber, listening to voices through stone walls. When the doors finally open it's the Queen who emerges first. She sees me standing at attention and pauses—just a beat, just long enough for something to pass across her face that might be acknowledgment. "Guard McMann," she says, and nothing else, but the way she says