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He was gentle as he ushered me along the circular stairs leading down from the top of the tower. He did not say anything encouraging or cruel to me. I thought about what I would say to myself if I were in his place, and couldn’t think of anything. Silence was better than words when the words were meaningless.
We reached the ground level and took a left. It was odd that he alone was charged with delivering me to the soldiers waiting outside in the courtyard, considering how hard the queen had worked to get her hands on me.
She had started to look for me before I was even born. Fifty years of searching, planning, and warring had come to this; a single soldier ushering her greatest enemy into her execution.
The queen had won. Hopefully, that would satiate her bloodlust.
The gates were wide open and the guards waiting by them did not meet my gaze as I walked in front of them. Only one of them, a woman with short black hair, looked up and gave me a firm nod.
I was too numb to respond to the nod. She didn’t seem to mind.
We reached the main platform after a short walk down. I stared at Terlyth for one last time. The last time I had been here, I was solely focused on surviving. And now, the opposite was true.
The crowd didn’t cheer as the soldiers delivered me. I thought that was the sort of thing they would have done, but I hadn’t been to an execution for years, not since Kalyden had forced me to go to one when I was very young and Feremir was even younger.
They waited solemnly.
I kept staring at the ground, waiting for the numbness to give way to dread like I assumed it would.
It didn’t.
The queen came with her court, walking with her head held up high and face motionless. Even so, she couldn’t hide the happiness that rose from her. Her lips did not move, but her eyes were wider as though she was about to burst into song. Her excitement showed.
She looked at me before parting with her revenue and walked to the middle of the platform to address the crowd.
“Thank you for joining us on this day of celebration,” the queen started her speech, keeping her hands on her stomach and speaking with a strong and stern voice. “We have her, the leader of the resistance. ”
A murmur rose from the crowd. A few shouts rose from close to the platform where the guards stood and as the queen waited, the murmur turned to a lifeless cheer.
“She calls herself the queen of monsters,” the queen continued her lies as the Seelie listened. “It pains me to acknowledge that Jasmine was a trickster. She infiltrated the list of the trial champions, only to ruin the long-held peace between Seelie and Unseelie by conjuring her monsters and destroying our traditions.”
She was twisting the facts, but I wasn’t focused on that. The way she mentioned the Unseelie suggested that I was the only obstacle in their path toward peace between the two fae. It made sense. In a way, it wasn’t even a lie. If it weren’t for the prophecy, the queen wouldn’t have done all the things she had done to cause strife between the Seelie and the Unseelie. Now that I was caught, she could establish peace with the Unseelie.
“She turned innocent fae into monsters,” the queen continued. “And unleashed them upon us, seeking power!” The crowd joined in the queen’s seeming fury, shouting and booing as she waited for them to calm down.
She had just revealed to everyone that the monsters were fae once. She had lied and named me the culprit, but that didn’t actually matter. When I was gone, there would be no reason to position the monster folk and the Seelie as enemies.
I felt calmer now, more resolved in my decision to turn myself in, in exchange for the life of the monster folk.
Once this violence was done, the queen would have no reason to hate.
“She cultivated a resistance,” the queen continued. “Within our cities, she spread lies and convinced innocents to turn against their rightful queen. I hereby declare this day as a day of pardoning. From this day onward, any crimes you may have committed against the crown will be forgiven unless they are repeated.”
The crowd cheered for real this time.
This was it. The queen made it clear. One life, in exchange for all.
“She will be executed for her crimes,” the queen concluded. “And we will be reborn, stronger! Unseelie and Seelie together!”
The cheer that rose next wasn’t as passionate as the ones before. A few lords clapped from the front seats, the poorer folk shouting from behind.
“How about humans?”
The shout rose from the crowd. And although I could not see his face, I recognized his voice.
So did the queen.
The crowd parted and Feremir appeared among them.
