Playlist:
The Coney Island Waltz}
Till I Hear You Sing} ~~Love Never Dies
Why Does She Love Me?}
The Point of No Return~Phantom of the Opera

The metal doors creak as they open, and I walk through their threshold in a haze. My hair and cloak billow around my shoulders and ankles. The bluish gray sky reminds me of a fog I can see through. Around the edges of the courtyard soldiers stand rigid on top of raised platforms that run along the fence. In the middle of the yard, hangs a single rope from the gallows. A single rope to end an entire life.

So barbaric. We could put him to sleep and then kill him, but no, he has to feel everything and be watched in his suffering.

Everything is brand new. The last execution held here didn't proceed as planned. The prisoners—rebels— escaped and ravaged the courtyard, killing many of our soldiers. My brother, Killian, pushed me down behind a fence that ran along a viewing pavilion constructed on the old platform.

Time slows down and reverses, and I can see the rebels running to meet the soldiers. Guns crack.

Shouting.

Screaming.

To my right a gun fires, the bullet tearing through a female soldier's chest. Blood splatters across my cheek, landing on my lips and dripping into my mouth, the metallic taste tainting my tongue. I turn away, watching Killian and Samuel leap from the platform, landing on the balls of their feet in a crouch.

Their heads snap up. Grabbing their guns from their holsters, they run toward me.

I close my eyes and open them, and they are all gone. Instead my father stands before me, his chin jutting up. He stares me down, his arms at his sides pulling back his shoulders. Gale stands at his left. Next to both of them are the gallows.

I try tossing my neck back to show him clearly what he did to my face, but the motion causes a wound at the base of my neck to stretch and the scab to flake. I grit my teeth as I stumble forward.

All these men and women watching me are thinking how weak I am. Behind their stern faces and cold exteriors, they're probably laughing to themselves.

But I'm not weak and nothing will make me weak again, not after today.

Silently I take my spot on the right side of my father. I fold my hands behind my back, letting my cloak whip at my legs. It's the only thing that feels real right now.

We view the metal doors I came through, waiting. I glance at the gallows. The executioner has not arrived yet. Looking back where I should, I allow a breath to escape past my barely parted lips. It appears white in the cold morning air before vanishing.

The doors groan and between them stands a slouched, bloody Nate, his wrists and ankles chained. He meets my eyes, and I break contact quickly. The two men who flank him drag him forward.

They bring him toward us and drop him at my father's feet who peers down at him, his head tilting side to side. He nudges Nate's knee with the top of his polished boot.

"You know why you're here," my father says.

Nate lifts his head, panting. Dry patches of crusted blood cover his face, while fresh blood drips from his nose and around his lips. "Because I was trying to do the right thing for our country."

My father jams his boot into Nate's stomach, causing Nate to keel over. I grit my teeth and imagine my feet are blocks of lead, all so I don't bend down and help him.

"You followed your heart!" My father shakes his head. "Any good soldier knows to follow their head. Mine do."

"Really? Then why do they treat your daughter like scum?"

My father and I both stiffen. He raises his hand--not to strike Nate but as a signal. The soldiers along the platform raise their guns.

His face pinches together. "Get him up there."

The two men don't even have to drag him; Nate walks up them proudly, their arms are still on him though. I don't know which would be more heart-breaking—seeing him act ready to die or watching him attempt a futile escape.

They position him behind the silver noose. I swallow. The soldiers stare at my father who shakes his head, and they walk back down the steps.

"You too, Raksana."

My head snaps to the side, my chest tightening. "What?" My lips stay parted.

His visage is calm—at ease. "Get up there."

"Why?"

"A princess does not question a king."

Gale gives our father a sidelong glance, frowning but nodding his head. He wants me to obey.

What is going on in our father's head?

I clench my hands at my sides as I walk up the four steps. Each metal step groans under my weight. The moment our eyes meet, the boy who kissed me—who I kissed— turns his head away like I did moments earlier.

Am I to hold his hand until the executioner arrives?

"Now put it on him."

My jaw falls open as I stare down at my father. "I think I must have heard you wrong."

"We both know your hearing is not that terrible."

"I can't."

"Would you like to go after him?"

"Do it, Princess."

I swivel back to face Nate, my eyes brimming with tears. "How can you tell me to do that?"

"Just do it, please."

I shake my head. "But I—"

"Do it."

I squeeze my mouth together as I step behind him. My hands shake, trying to grab hold of the noose. The moment I have it, I grip it.

He inclines his head to help me as I thread is head through it like it's a needle and he's the thread. He's. . . perfect, and he's dying.

"Tighten it," my father orders.

I jerk my head to the side to glare at him. I don't care who's watching. "I can't."

"I'm growing tired of your games—"

"I physically can't!"

Nate looks over his shoulder, a sad smile on his face. "Sure you can, Princess. You'll do it for me."

Tilting my head to the side, I shake it slowly. My chest aches. "What are you even saying?"

He lowers his voice so only I can understand. "I'd like to die knowing that you're safe." He tightens his shoulders. "Besides, I think I'd make a very handsome corpse, don't you think?"

"Now, Raksana," my father orders.

I place my hands on the rope. One on the thin part and the other where it's thicker. "Personally I think you're much handsomer breathing." I tighten the noose and he grimaces.

"So the Princess thinks I'm handsome, does she?"

My cheeks heat up. They've only ever done this around him. "Yes. Happy?"

He smiles, looking forward, appearing satisfied with himself. "As much as I can be at a time like this." He stares straight ahead long enough that I think he's delivered his last words to me. I turn away to descend the steps. This is breaking my heart. I don't feel like me. And yet, even with death moments away from him, he's still the same Nate. The Nate who held that knife to my throat only a few days ago.

A few days.

Has it genuinely only been a few days?

"Have a nice life," he whispers.

I freeze, my hand on the railing of the stairs "You—" I clasp my eyes shut, tears seeping out of them. What do I tell him? What even matters now? "I'll miss you." I look over my shoulder to see him hanging his head. So I raise mine and square my shoulders as I walk down the steps toward my father. "There. Are you proud of yourself now?"

"Not yet. Tell me again, what was the reason you did not wish to be in my army?"

"Because I don't want to be a savage like you—killing people."

The back of his hand strikes my cheek, scratching the wound from the whip. "Pull the lever."

My thought process stops. I back away, blinking.

"Be the killer you were meant to be. Perhaps once you get the first time over with, the second won't be so hard."

Kill him? Actually kill him. Me on my own. Not being one part of it. Being all of it.

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I will cut off each of his limbs one by one until he's dead, lying in a pool of his own blood." He steps forward. "And I will make you bath in it."

Bile rises up my throat. I swallow it back down, staring at the ground. I should have joined the army. Then if I met Nate on the battlefield, one of us could have died heroically. Not like this. Not where one of us bathes in the other's blood.

Gale closes his eyes, frowning.

So I am to be Nate's murderer? "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you know no discipline."

"How can you say that?" I face my palms toward him. "These are only from training. Not as a form of punishment, but as a lesson to learn control, discipline, and how to resist. My face knows discipline. Look at it. Look at what you did!"

The courtyard is silent. Only the flapping of flags can be heard. A few rays of sunlight fall across this bleak scene. Our gazes our riveted on each other, our chests rising and falling.

"Get up there now before I hack is hand off. If you want him to die painfully, I'll be more than happy to give that to you."

"I'll do it, but don't for a second think I will ever fight for you. I will fight for this country. I'll defend my family. But it will never be fighting for you." I turn away, staring at the gallows. My heart pounds with every step I take toward them.

"Hey, again." Nate smiles sadly at me before grimacing, the noose around his neck already choking him. "Just pull the lever. I'd rather not die that other way." He glances toward my father.

"I don't want to do this."

"I don't want you to either. I'd much rather you were kissing me. And I was kissing you."

I wipe away a collection of tears under my left eye. "There's a lot of things we'd rather be doing."

"Like being at the shore of the Cronalon Sea."

"Maybe the ocean instead. That's much farther."

"Or just being away from here."

I place my hands on the lever as lightly as I can—the thing scares me. Forgive me, Lord. "Nate. . . forgive me."

He does his best to nod, and I offer him the rest of my strength in the form of a smile. I look back at the lever. Don't watch this. I close my eyes, squeezing them shut, straining the muscles so they can't slip open when the trap door falls open.

"Now, Raksana," my father orders.

"Bye, Princess."

All these years of being told what to do, and it's all accumulated here. But I'm not five anymore. I'm sixteen. And I am strong enough, and I am brave enough, and I am bold enough to make my own decisions.

I let my hands fall to the side, opening my eyes. I look at Nate who's not focused this way—not focused on who was his death. I won't. The words don't come out, but my lips form them.

And then to my father. "I won't." The words escape this time.

And then to all the soldiers, all those who hate me, who think I'm weak. "I won't."

I walk behind Nate fumbling with the rope, my body shaking.

"What are you doing?"

I lift the noose over his head just before I'm grabbed. Whirled around, I stare at my father. His hands grip my arms.

"Raksana Leana DeMartinnet, what the hell do you think you are doing?"

"You taught us to pay people back and to fulfill our debts. I owe him."

"You think I'm going to let a rebel leader go because you feel indebted to him?"

"No. That's why I'm offering you something in return. Something in exchange for him." Tears wish to fall from my eyes. My legs threaten to give out on me. But I hold my head up, eyes open. I let his grip keep me up. "My life."

"Raksana, you can't do this," Nate pleads.

"You're my sister." Gale runs up the steps. "You're not doing this."

I look over my shoulder. "You have people who care if you die."

"I care if you die, and so do the rest of our siblings." Gale snatches me out of our father's arms and shakes me. "People care."

My father crosses his arms, observing Nate. "I can't let him go. He's a rebel. But if you do this, I'll give him a life sentence."

I nod. "No harm."

"No harm will come to him."

I trust him to hold true to that. He's a firm believer that someone's word is just as good as their name on paper.

But to be sure. .  . "Gale, you are witness to this. Make sure it's kept. And Father, Your Majesty, I accept your condition."

"Don't do this for me." Nate sounds breathless. "Live your life."

I swallow. "All that waits for me is to go into the army where I'll be forced to kill someone in order to save my life. Instead of me becoming a murderer here and a killer there, let me give my life to save someone else—you. Let me do something good."

"Think of the life you could have later. A husband. Children."

"A husband who doesn't love me? Who I'm forced to marry for sundry political reasons?"

"No one will want her anyway." My father cracks his knuckles. "She's useless to me."

I close my eyes at my father's words, inhaling shakily.

"How can you—"

"Someone remove and silence him."

At his command two men rush up the steps past us and grab Nate, one man covering his mouth. He struggles with them as they pull him off the gallows. My father snatches me away from Gale and pushes me to stand over the trap door.

I look out at the soldiers who all stare at me with solemn expressions. I guess I'll never know for sure why they and my father hate me.

I'm scared. Will it hurt or will it be too fast? Will my mother shed a tear when she hears the news? No. She hates me just as much as my father.

Nate is positioned in front of the gallows. He exerts his strength on the soldiers, trying to jam his elbow in them, but they're keeping him maintained and his mouth sealed.

"Father, there has to be some other way." Gale grabs my hand, and I focus on the warmth—on the realness of it. "She's your daughter, my sister. Is there some other task she can perform as payment?"

My father scrutinizes me. I turn my eyes away, looking straight ahead. He grips my jaw, pulling my head to look at him again. He twists it, inspecting me like I'm a horse. My hair brushes over my shoulders again and again with each twist. "What do you think happened to her face?"

"I know what happened to her face." Gale's tone is icy.

"Yes, but if you didn't, what would you say happened?"

"She was attacked." Gale shifts uncomfortably on his feet. "Is there another way, Father?"

My father's face turns sly. I try backing away but he grips my chin tighter. He cocks his head to the side, his lips twitching upward. "Yes."

So I don't do a lot of these on this book, but I wanted to thank you for reading. And I hope this made up for the delay.

What would you have done in Raksana's position?

Vote if you liked it :)

Comment if you have something to say