Solenne felt something move in her chest. Something small and trapped, like a moth beating against a jar. She had not felt that thing since the day they cut out her tongue. It was the thing that had made her volunteer for the Guild in the first place. The thing they had promised to kill.
“Do you know why I am here?” he asked. “Not the official reason. The real one.” executioners world
Elias closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, daring to dream of a world where the plaza was empty. A world where the sky was blue, and his hands were clean, and the silence was not heavy with death, but light with peace. Solenne felt something move in her chest
Axelson utilizes several popular "BookTok" and dark romance tropes to keep her audience engaged: It was the thing that had made her
“I taught my granddaughter to dream,” the old man said. “And for that, they measured my life against the lives of all those who might starve if the Republic’s calculations proved wrong. I lost. I am twenty-three kilograms of meat and bone that could become fertilizer. I am a few liters of water that could irrigate a turnip. I am a small subtraction from the great equation.”
She stopped at the door.