Goodbye, My Only Friend
I sat awake for the rest of my last night in the living realm.
The numbness I felt in my cold limbs spread to my heart with nothing but silence to keep me company.
I couldn’t find it in me to dwell on Zareth’s words.
My thoughts were quiet, as if I had accepted my fate, and my body and brain were already giving up the fight.
Silver lining, I would see Nella soon. And my mom.
“I will not be afraid to die,” I told myself over and over, until the two new guards approached my cell. It was time.
They looked at each other, Ponytail and the other guard with a buzzed head, and then gave me a look that resembled both fear and determination.
Determined, I guessed, to be the guards who escorted the hated fae/mortal freak to her death. They’d probably be heroes in the castle.
“Let’s go, Naci. It’ll be over soon.” Ponytail held me lightly by my upper arm and guided me to the dungeon door that led back out to the underground tunnels. He nodded to Buzzed Head as we stepped into the corridor that would lead to the ground floor of the castle.
It was eerie, walking to one’s death and not fighting it.
And I might have considered fighting it if the beast in my heart was awake and accessible.
But against two fae males, I didn’t stand a chance.
I will not be afraid to die, I kept telling myself.
I vowed I would greet my death with dignity, not kicking and screaming.
And so I did not fight.
The guards said nothing until we got to the doors that would lead out to the courtyard where I had addressed the fae of Dolvenar as a traitor to the mortals, and where I would go outside and feel fresh air for the first time in months.
And for the last time.
“Don’t do anything stupid. Please,” implored Ponytail.
I was used to veiled threats, but really, it was laughable in the face of certain death. And coming from Ponytail, it didn’t really sound like a threat. He sounded almost…worried. I caught him glancing around nervously.
We stepped outside into the cold of early winter, and the mass of fae began cheering as we walked through the crowd to the empty center of the courtyard. I heard jeers of “traitor,” “scum,” and “disgrace” as we walked.
“Oh, really original, I’ve never heard those before,” I snapped back at the mob of angry fae that were hungry for my blood.
Ponytail laughed and shook his head.
“And you, I’m so glad I can amuse you while you march me to my death. I’d take you with me if I didn’t have these cuffs.”
He rolled his eyes, actually rolled them at me as if he was annoyed to be here. Imagine…
In the middle of the square, there was nothing but a large metal chain attached to the stone ground.
The guards marched me to it and attached the open end to the chain between my wrist cuffs, anchoring me to the spot.
I looked around and saw nothing but angry fae—males, females, and children.
Even the young ones looked scared and furious, as if it were a child I had murdered and not an asshole royal guard.
It was odd, even now, how little remorse I felt for killing that guard. It was always said that killing tore your soul apart, and you never forgot their faces.
Truthfully, I couldn’t remember what the bastard had looked like at all. Maybe I wasn’t bound for the Vale after all. Maybe I was as evil and wicked as this crowd believed me to be.
The guards backed away from me, and the surrounding voices grew louder, making my head buzz. I stood there for what felt like an eternity before the king and queen stepped out onto the balcony above, the same one I’d stood on to deliver that damning speech.
And then Varyn walked out and waited behind his father, his mask firmly in place, face unreadable. Gods, he really didn’t care.
What a sad final thought.
“Citizens of Dolvenar, we begin the public trial of Ignacia Corren on this seventh day of the twelfth month. I, King Caedryn Veylor, commence the reading of the crimes for which the accused stands trial.”
The crowd booed when he said my name and cheered when he said his own. This was nearly comical.
The king’s face, however, was anything but funny. This was the first time I’d seen him since the ball. Since he’d smiled over Nella’s dead body. I saw traces of the fire demon in his cruel smile now, and his red eyes seemed to glow slightly, the way they had when he was in his vey form.
It made my sleeping heart race. And that made me think of what Noxie had said so long ago.
How a mortal’s heart beats faster, so fast, trying to fit in a lifetime of beats in a short lifespan...
It certainly felt like my heart was trying to fit in as many as possible in its final hour.
For the first time since I had accepted my fate, I felt sad, wishing I could see Noxie, speak to him in my mind one last time.
My palms grew slick as the king read the same list of transgressions that the chamberlain had read to me. I was so lost in my thoughts of Noxie that I nearly didn’t hear the king when he addressed me,
“Ignacia Corren, the accused, how do you respond to these accusations? Do you admit guilt or claim innocence?”
“Do I actually have the option to respond freely, Your Controllingness? If I said I was innocent, would I be granted a fair trial, oh, Royal Reigning Puppet Master? Or has this been rigged, just as you’ve rigged every one of my appearances, statements, and actions since I arrived at Ashthorn, King Caedryn Mortal-Murderer? ”
There was no changing my fate, I knew that, but the beet-red color rising in his face and steaming anger were worth making those my last words.
They wouldn’t change anything, not the mortals’ beliefs of who I was and wasn’t, nor the faes’, but I would die with a smile and rest peacefully in a grave knowing my last action was to insult the king I could not kill.
The murmurs in the crowd made Caedryn and Malvina look desperately around for the guards to control the situation.
“Will my betrothed not come to my aid?” I yelled up to Varyn. “Will my loving fiancé not defend me?”
His expression didn’t change, but his face reddened. That was as much of a rise as I would get. It was enough.
I just smiled at Caedryn, looking him dead in the eyes.
“If she will not respond to the accusations, she will be assumed guilty, and proceedings will follow suit!” He could barely contain his anger.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t the slightest bit mad that my official statement had gone down in history as “guilty.” I had committed the acts I was accused of, but I would never convince a crown and crowd of Caedryn-loving fae that they were justified.
This was likely the biggest reason I accepted my death instead of fighting it.
“I open the proceedings with the first witness to the crimes aforementioned—myself, the reigning monarch in Ashenholt. We will follow my testament with witness statements from—”
“Cut the shit, Caedryn!” I yelled up to him, high above on the balcony. “All your witnesses saw me do all the stuff you said. Get on with it already. You’re wasting these poor folks’ time.”
That caused an uproar.
“You dare address your king in that manner?!” This came from the chamberlain, the closest of the royal court to me in the courtyard.
I looked at him, and then at Zareth smiling beside him, then at a child standing not twenty paces from me, who spat at the ground. I looked to my other side to find Ponytail whispering to Buzzed Head. A few fae in the crowd weren’t jeering or mocking. They just watched, silently waiting.
Then I looked to the balcony above, where Malvina looked at me with passive disinterest. But Varyn? He looked conflicted. He looked…torn between sadness and anger. But I didn’t have time to linger on what that could mean.
The precious seconds I took to look around me felt like a lifetime, staring down the one-eyed barrel of tunnel vision. Everything slowed, and I felt death closing in.
“The public will now decide if the verdict of guilty, punishable by death for these crimes, is justified. Citizens…” Caedryn raised both arms to the sky.
The cheering around me was deafening. That was it—the sentence. The public screamed for my blood with excitement and rage.
“The great citizens of Dolvenar have spoken! Death by execution, publicly, will take place immediately!”
I felt nothing.
“But first, the guilty still wears the royal clothing my wife so generously gifted her. When we thought her an ally to the crown and desired to strengthen the alliance between mortals and fae. It is time she gave them back!”
Now, I felt something. Bubbling rage that was all my own, sleeping monster in my chest be damned. He was taking my life, and yet he still wanted to humiliate me in my last moments breathing.
Guards moved toward me—Round and Dumb. So they were still around after all. From behind me, one of them drew a sword, the sound of it coming out of the scabbard like the swishing of the blade that would surely end my life after the king had his fun.
I felt the blade slip under the back of the filthy dress I had worn for over a month in the dungeons.
When he sliced upward, he cut both fabric and the skin on my back, causing me to spasm away from him as far as the chains would allow.
The fabric opened at the back, exposing my skin to the cold winter air.
Blood trickled down my back. It wasn’t the death slice I wished it had been.
I didn’t want this humiliation, this nakedness, with this crowd seeing me and judging me.
For the first time since Nella died, it wasn’t vengeance and my death I wished for. In that moment, I wanted desperately to be invisible. Not to die, but to disappear.
The fabric still covered my front, unable to be entirely removed from my body because of the long sleeves and shackles still around my wrists. So Round waddled his way to my front side and grabbed the top of the bodice of the dress and pulled it down as far as the cuffs would allow.
He exposed my breasts and stomach, bringing shame to the back of my eyes and bile to the back of my throat. Now, I wished for death.
I tried to cover myself, but the chain attached to the ground wouldn’t stretch high enough for my hands to reach any further than my navel.
Gods, please just let me die a swift death. Dignity was gone. But I would not die afraid.
A last look at Varyn… His eyes flicked downward to my exposed skin, and for a heartbeat, he looked sick. For just one moment, his jaw clenched.
A caw drew my attention to a tree on my right.
Noxie. He was here. We still couldn’t communicate, but he was here.
Tears spilled from my eyes, but seeing my Familiar steeled my resolve enough to raise my chin and roll my shoulders back.
My vision blurred, and just for a moment, I forgot I was naked, chained, sentenced to die any second, because my only friend had come back to me. To be with me in this final moment.
I would die in the presence of the only one left in this realm who cared for me.
And that was enough.
The king declared my execution by beheading was ready to be carried out, but through his words, through the hands that detached me from the chains and forced me to my knees, my gaze never left Noxie. His beady black eyes met my gaze the whole time, his only way of being with me until the very end.
And I was happy for Noxie to be the last thing I would see.
The guard who forced me to my knees shook me where he held my upper arm, but I didn’t dare take my eyes from Noxie.
“We’re ending this, Naci, just a moment longer.” It was Ponytail’s voice whispering hurriedly in my ear.
I knew death was coming, and I was okay.
“When I say duck, hit the ground. Dray is coming. We’re getting you out.”
Wait. What?
A flare of hope hit me in the chest so hard, so violently, it hurt and roused the sleeping beast, shackles or no.