I always wondered why I was hated so much.

What had I ever done to deserve it?

"Burn the witch!"

I stared down at my dirty, scarred feet as I was escorted through the rambunctious crowd toward the execution grounds. The faces of the masses who were drunk on the smell of blood were twisted into cruel delight and rage. Mouth dry, I bit my lips trying to remember just how I'd gotten here.

The scorching sun over my head burned my neck since they'd cruelly cut it adding insult to injury. My body thrummed with pain and fatigue as I tried to count slowly like someone had once taught me to.

One. The guards roughly dragged my up the wooden steps. Each step creaked under their weight. My own body having become rail thin from the months I'd been kept locked in the dungeon below.

Two. The noise slowly faded once I reached the top and could see my executioner with his black hood and soulless eyes. The crowds attention now was on the man who stood near the edge his sword held aloft.

Three. I remembered when I'd looked at his masculine heroic form with desire and love. There had been a time when I'd been innocently in love with those blue eyes and blonde curls. Piles of romantic poetry hidden in a drawer in my room, had been written the man who'd once been my husband.

"Today, we are killing the last of the cursed Nycturian People who pollute our land," he shouted. Feeding into the frenzy below.

Four. My limbs appeared to stop working as the guards dragged me to the raised stump. Settling me down before it, so I could see the other Royalist who observed everything with cold detached expressions. At one point I'd sought the approval of the very people who watched me now. Working day and night, to be something I would never be in their eyes. Worthy.

Five. I stared ahead, past them to the distance where the mountains curved around the edge of this county. A flutter captured my attention, and I watched it as it flew higher and higher. Away from the dirty humans below with their blood lust.

"Do you have anything to say?"

Pulled from my wondering thoughts I looked up into my ex-husbands gaze. Those eyes that had never once looked at me with care. An expression carved from stone and devoid of any sympathy. The night we'd married I'd thought something was going right for once in my life. At that time, I'd been eager to tie myself to him and form a family, but he'd had already decided I was his enemy.

I was the reason who couldn't be with the woman he truly loved.

The toad who'd dared to it swan meat. The daughter of the enemy nations princess and the current emperor. A smear on his honor.

Despite my throat being dry I found myself laughing. "If I did, why would I say it to you?"

His grim expression twisted.

Closing my eyes, I laid my head down, funnily enough I felt at peace. The sensation of an ice chill crossed my neck and gave me true peace. 

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Author Note: Let me know what you think.ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ