She was crying. Silent tears streaming down her face, her expression twisted with anguish.
"Please," she said, and the word was directed at Riuondo. "Please. Just give me time to—"
"Time?" Riuondo laughed. "You've had a century. How much more time do you need?"
"I need to think. I need to—" She was grasping now, trying to find any angle, any way to delay. "The Council will be suspicious if I abdicate too quickly. They'll know something's wrong. Let me do this properly, let me—"
"No more delays." Riuondo moved to the controls again. "No more negotiations. You're going to agree right now, or I'm going to level seven."
Serna's terror was palpable. Level seven would kill me. We both knew it.
"Wait." Her voice broke. "Wait, just—give me a moment. Please."
"Why?" Riuondo's hand hovered over the controls. "So you can think of another excuse? Another delay?"
"So I can say goodbye." The words came out raw, honest. "If you're going to kill him, at least let me—"
"I'm not going to kill him." Riuondo's smile was cruel. "Not yet. But I am going to break him. And I'm going to make you watch."
He pressed the control.
Level seven.
The world exploded into white-hot agony. I felt something tear inside me—something fundamental and irreparable. My heart stuttered, stopped, started again in an irregular rhythm that sent panic flooding down the bond.
Serna was screaming. I could hear it distantly, could feel her terror and rage and helpless desperation.
The pain stopped.
I hung in the restraints, barely breathing. Blood ran from my nose, my ears. My vision was a narrow tunnel, darkness creeping in from all sides.
"He's dying," Serna said, her voice high and desperate. "You're killing him. Stop, please, you're killing him—"
"Then agree." Riuondo's voice was implacable. "Abdicate. Unconditionally. Right now."
"I..." She was sobbing now, all composure shattered. "I can't. The Alliance needs—"
"The Alliance needs nothing from you." Riuondo pulled out a blaster, checked its charge. "You've had your chance. Multiple chances. But you're too proud, too stubborn to accept reality."
He aimed the blaster at my head.
"So here's your final choice, Lady Prime. Abdicate right now—no conditions, no negotiations, no delays—or I execute him. Here. Now. And you can watch your true mate die knowing you could have saved him."
Down the bond, I tried to reach her. Tried to tell her not to do it. That the Alliance was more important than one life. That she couldn't let him win.
But I was too weak. Too broken. All I could do was hang there and wait for her decision.
Serna stared at the blaster. At me. At Riuondo.
I saw the moment she broke.
Not her body—that remained straight, proud, Vaktaire. But something inside her, something fundamental, shattered like glass.
"All right." Her voice was hollow. Empty. "All right, I'll do it. I'll abdicate. No conditions. No negotiations. I'll give you everything. Just stop hurting him."
"Say it properly." Riuondo kept the blaster trained on me. "Say you surrender. Say you accept defeat."
"I..." She closed her eyes. Opened them. "I surrender. I accept defeat. The Alliance is yours."
