Selena's decision hung in the air like an executioner's blade, poised between falling and withdrawal, between mercy and cruelty, between allowing Abyssal to inherit her captivity or refusing him that terrible privilege. The throne pulsed beneath her, anticipating, the binding that fused her spine to bone tightening as if the structure itself feared displacement, feared having to accept a new occupant, feared the transformation that transfer of authority would require.
And then something else happened. Something that made decision irrelevant, made choice academic, made everything except immediate survival cease to matter.
The crown cracked.
