How many had died on that block?
How many more would follow me before someone finally put an end to Hewes madness?
The executioner stood beside it—a massive Kaelaks with arms like tree trunks and shoulders broad enough to block outthe sun. He wore a blade that looked like it could cut through bone as easily as flesh, the metal gleaming in the early morning light. A hood covered his face, but I saw his eyes through the slits cut in the fabric.
Cold.
He'd done this before. Many times. This was just another job, another body, another day's work.
The guards led me forward, their hands tight on my arms, and the crowd roared. Some cheering. Some jeering. All of them hungry for blood, for violence, for the visceral thrill of watching someone die.
Movement to my left caught my attention, pulling my focus from the baying crowd.
A cage.
They'd brought Persico out in the fucking cage.
The Kerzak crime lord sat hunched inside the bars, his massive frame barely fitting in the confined space, his body folded in on itself in a way that had to be painful. His dark eyes met mine across the square, and I saw something there I hadn't expected.
Respect.
Maybe even regret.
He'd been a bad male. A crime lord who'd built his empire on violence and fear, who'd made his fortune off the suffering of others. But he'd been a bad male who understood balance, who knew the difference between necessary cruelty and pointless sadism. Who knew when to push and when to hold back, when to show mercy and when to bring down the hammer.
Hewes didn't understand that.
Hewes only understood power, raw and unchecked, and the intoxicating rush of wielding it over those weaker than himself.
Speaking of which—
The crowd's roar shifted, grew louder, more frenzied, taking on a different quality.
Hewes emerged from the largest building on the square's edge, flanked by guards and looking like he owned the entire fucking planet. Everything about him screamed wealth and power.
He climbed onto a platform that had been erected beside the execution block—high enough that everyone saw him, close enough that he could watch the light fade from my eyes.
The crowd quieted as he raised his hands, a hush falling over the square like a blanket.
"Citizens of Fange City!" His voice carried across the square, amplified by speakers hidden somewhere in the buildings, echoing off the metal and stone. "Today marks a new beginning!"
Cheers. Scattered at first, uncertain, then growing stronger as his supporters made themselves heard and those who were too afraid to resist added their voices to the chorus.
"For too long, this city has been content to exist in the shadows. To scrape by on the edges of civilization, accepting whatever scraps the Alliance deigns to throw our way." His voice took on a self-righteous edge, the tone of a true believer in his own propaganda. "To live like rats in the walls while others feast!"
More cheers. Louder now. The crowd was warming to him, feeding off his energy.
"But I say no more!" Hewes's voice rose, taking on a fervent edge. "Under my leadership, Fange City will become a power in its own right! We will stand against the Alliance's tyranny! We will show them that there are those who refuse to bow, who refuse to accept their place in the order they've created!"
The crowd was eating it up. I saw it in their faces—the hunger for something to believe in, something to fight for, some purpose beyond simple survival. The desperate hope that maybe, just maybe, Hewes was offering them something better.
Hewes was giving them that.
He was also full of shit.
I'd seen men like him before. Too many. They talked about freedom and justice and standing up to tyranny, but what they really wanted was power. They wanted to be the ones doing the oppressing, not the ones being oppressed.
"This Vaktaire—" He gestured toward me with a sweeping motion, and every eye in the square turned my direction, thousands of gazes fixing on me like physical weight. "—stood against me. Against us. Against our future. He thought his strength made him untouchable. He thought he could defy me and face no consequences."
