AISLYNElliot does not look at her when he speaks. His gaze remains fixed forward, voice steady, formal, deliberate. He repeats the words with the weight of law behind them, as though Ashlyn is no longer a person but a matter already concluded.

“I hereby order that she be imprisoned pending her later execution.”

The hall holds its breath.

Ashlyn does not.

She laughs.

Not the brittle, controlled sound she has been clinging to, but something raw and jagged that slices through the silence like ...