The guards dragged the body away by the tail.
It was a grim, silent procession. Lysander's golden scales scraped against the coral floor, leaving a faint trail of dark fluid that the current quickly washed away.
Roxy stood motionless, her hand still tingling from the impact of the trident strike.
She looked down at her palms. They were clean. The water had washed away the physical evidence instantly. But the weight remained.
I killed him, she thought, the realization settling in her gut like a stone. I didn't just order it. I did it.
Back on Earth, "kill or be killed" was a metaphor for corporate ladders or traffic jams. Here, in the wild, it was the literal law of physics. If she hadn't struck him, Nerissa would have tortured him for days.
If she hadn't intervened, he would have died screaming. She had granted him mercy, yes. But it was still a killing blow.
