Chapter 112

Evelyn

The crowd was tense below us, holding their collective breath as Emma knelt on the dais. I looked out at the sea of people before us, realizing that they did not understand the extent of this woman’s crimes. So much of the recent torment that had plagued the palace and the surrounding city had been because of her.

Innocent people had been kidnapped. Buildings had burned. People had been poisoned. Others had outright died. All because she had been so determined to be Logan’s only. She had deluded herself, and everyone else had paid the price for it.

But that ended today.

Her shackled hands rested limply in front of her, but her eyes were sharp, glinting with defiance even now. She looked out at the crowd, too, but instead of merely observing them, her blazing attention seemed to condemn them all. It was like she blamed everyone there and held them responsible. And yet she refused to look at me until I spoke to her.

I stepped forward, my voice steady despite the storm roaring inside me.

“Emma,” I said, letting my words carry across the hushed square, “do you have any last words before we proceed?”

She lifted her chin. As her face tilted to the sun, I had to admit: she was quite beautiful. In another life, she might have been someone important. She might have inspired positive change. She might have been someone who won over an Alpha with her charms. Someone I could have been friends with.

But this was not that life.

Her lips curled into a cruel smirk. “I only want to say that Logan and I will find each other in the next life,” she said softly, almost tenderly. Her voice was low enough that it did not carry. This was for my ears alone. “He will never love you. Not truly. Not like you want him to. I can promise you that.”

I felt my chest tighten. My hands clenched at my sides, but my voice was cold and unyeilding as I spoke to the executioner. “Place the noose.”

The executioner stepped forward. A coil of rope dangled from his hand. He was a looming, intimidating presence, and yet Emma’s smirk never wavered. As I watched her, the only hint of distress I could see was the subtle tension in her shoulders. I wondered if she still believed she had control, even in her last moments.

The noose was slipped around her neck like a gaudy necklace. As it was shuffled around her and tightened, she scanned the crowd once more. There would be no sniffling from her, no pleading. I hadn’t expected it, and yet her resolve still surprised me.

And then her attention snagged on some point in the distance. I followed her gaze and saw him.

Logan.

He was standing beside Alex, looking up at the dais. But he wasn’t looking at his lifelong friend who was about to be executed. His attention was instead trained solely on me.

It made me tense and freeze. So much lay between us, so many unspoken words stretching far beyond the sea of people we were separated by. I hadn’t even had the chance to warn him about the execution beforehand. But he was there now, and he was watching me like he had so much to say as well. But there would be time for that later.

My father stepped forward then and addressed the crowd.

“Today, we deliver justice against this war criminal. She is responsible for many terrorist events our kingdom has seen over the past months. From arson to murder, she has been determined as guilty. As your Alpha King, I declare that she must be hanged for her crimes.” My father’s voice boomed over the town square.

He nodded to the executioner, who turned to do as he was bid. Even still, Emma didn’t so much as flinch.

That was until she doubled over spontaneously, a noise escaping her like all of the air had been punched from her.

I had seen it, just barely, before it struck, but it had all happened so quickly that my mind hadn’t kept pace. There was a flash of movement from the crowd. A knife had sailed through the air, spinning end over end, so quickly I only recognized the errant object after it had sunk deep into her chest.

Emma gasped around the blade, eyes wide in shock. Blood gushed from between her fingers as she held the knife’s hilt. The wound would be fatal. Already, blood was pooling in a growing pool at her feet.

But then, as though to expedite the process, she gripped the knife’s hilt between her trembling fists. Now, it was my turn for my eyes to widen. She pulled the blade until it was free and tossed it to the side, discarded. The wound began to weep even faster now. She would bleed out in seconds now. It was her final act of defiance.

Within the span of a few heartbeats, she slumped forward, lifeless. One minute, she had been alive and was prepared to be hanged, the next she was stabbed and dead.

The crowd erupted into screams and chaos.

I pivoted, scanning the frenzied mass of people, trying to spot the person responsible. Someone in the crowd had tossed the knife at her, taking justice into their own hands.

In the midst of the panic, most of the crowd fled in every direction. My father was quickly escorted by his guards off the stage and to safety. Logan and Alex were trying to calmly evacuate others toward the back of the surging group.

My eyes narrowed as I traced back my memory of the knife’s trajectory. I traced it back and found one figure, cloaked and mysterious. Judging by the way they darted away faster than the rest, I could see their panic in their posture.

Without another thought, I jumped down from the dais. Immediately, I was caught in the middle of the chaos. I had to shove my way through the shifting pack of people, elbowing and forcing my way through and forward. I trained my eyes on that dark cloak. I wouldn’t let them escape.

Eventually, the crowd thinned enough that I could run after them. But they were sprinting now as well, and their legs were significantly longer than mine. I pursued him as best I could, weaving through the panicked pack, but he was slipping into alleyways and shadows with a practiced ease.

I shouted after him, my breath sawing in and out of me painfully. Eventually, my underused muscles began to feel ledden. I couldn’t let him get away, and yet each second he was becoming more and more distant.

“Stop!” I shouted, but it was fruitless, and I knew it. I was watching him get away and there was nothing I could do. I simply couldn’t keep up.

But as he turned a corner, his cloak fluttered and I noticed something damning: whoever the attacker was didn’t have a left arm. Instead, only a tied shirt sleeve indicated that the sleeve was vacant. This feature was enough to make me slow to a stop. It could be identifying and useful later.

This chase wasn’t truly over yet.

I didn’t catch him. But that single, glaring detail was enough to steel me in my determination. I would remember it. I would remember everything I could about him, every detail. People would be questioned about what they saw, and our combined stories would align into something useful.

And I would find him.

But for now, all I could do was return to the spot where Emma had fallen. The square was nearly vacant by then, with only a few traumatized and lingering townsfolk still struck immobile with awe and fear.

When I looked up on the dais, Emma had been abandoned there. She was lying in a pool of her own blood, stained crimson on her side. The rope was swinging empty behind her.

One way or another, justice had been served today. She was dead, one more threat removed. And I was determined that, like her, no one would ever escape justice under my watch.