Heena bowed her head, the icy, imperial verdict hanging over the throne room like a guillotine.
"This subject obeys," she said, her voice completely smooth.
She turned on her heel and began the slow, agonizing walk back down the long imperial carpet. Every step took monumental effort. The heavy thud of her own heartbeat violently resonated in her skull, the blood clot throbbing with fresh, hot agony. But she forced herself to keep an even, measured pace, her chin lifted high, projecting the chilling, untouchable aura of a warlord walking away from an imperial execution block she had just successfully dismantled.
The moment the heavy palace doors closed behind her, cutting off the Emperor's hollow, devastated gaze, Heena nearly buckled.
