35 - your heart

35

~Lisa's POV

Milo was still on his knees beside me, silent. Proud. But I could feel his eyes on me. I didn't care how I looked anymore, pathetic, broken. Let them see it. Let them see what they did to me.

I looked up at them again, my body trembling under the weight of everything I'd endured, my knees aching against the cold, cracked stones of the courtyard floor.

"If you want to punish me, fine," I whispered, barely able to keep my voice steady. "Lash me. Lock me up. Send me to the coldest, darkest corner of this place and forget I ever existed. I'll take it. All of it. But don't kill him. Please…"

Kael's face was unreadable, stone-like, rigid, unbothered. The weight of his silence pressed down on me harder than any guard's grip. Then his voice came, clipped and cold. "He defied the rules."

He took a single step closer. "He crossed the line."