Alpha King's Healer

8

Five prisoners are brought out from a side, all chained and led to the steps of the scaffold.

"Cleverness!" King Thaddeus roars.

He doesn't bother to look at them, but everyone else couldn't take their eyes off the murderers.

"It is something these five thought they had as they killed and attempted to kill in my kingdom. Our kingdom!" King Thaddeus yells.

I swallow hard, watching the first prisoner in line be unchained.

"Today, we prove to them that all they had was pure stupidity. We will do what needs to be done. We will be brutal. We will not forgive. We will not forget!" King Thaddeus finishes his announcement, stepping back and placing himself beside me as the crowd cheers and yells profanity at the spies.

The first spy is pushed up the steps and roughly placed down at the stone by Broderick.  The spy cries, begging and pleading for forgiveness as Broderick steps off the scaffold.

As the axe swings up, sparkling for a brief second, I drown out the cheers from the people and cries from the spy. My breathing becomes heavy, the only noise I could audibly pick out. When the axe begins to swing down, everything seemed slower. Time wasn't on my side as I look to King Thaddeus.

He shares my glance. He immediately grabs ahold of me, locking me in his arms as a deep aching swells in my body for a split second. With my head stuck buried into his chest, I knew what he was doing. He was holding me still, cementing me down so I don't do what I am meant to do; heal.

I thought I could do it, I thought I could hold my head high like Elora or feel no remorse like the King. But the aching in my body was too sharp and rigid, even if it did only briefly shoot through me as the axe cut through the spy's neck. That second just seemed far too long.

I pull my face out of the King's chest. I look in front of me at the scene. While the executioner throws the head into a bucket, I glance to the four other spies. I can't do this four more times. My blood aching is too vivid with me being this close to the injury that turns to death.

With the second spy brought onto the scaffold, I hide my face in the King's chest again. His arms tightened more with each beheading, keeping me in place.

With the last prisoner brought on the scaffold however, King Thaddeus grabs my cheeks with his hand. He squeezes them together, forcing me to watch the last beheading. As the last spy is set down, King Thaddeus whispers into my ear.

"Experience is a brutal teacher," he starts off, pausing while the axe swings up one last time. "But you learn," He whispers as I try to turn my face away. His arms tighten around me as I watch the axe swing down. My entire body jumped at the first cut into the flesh.

"By the damned Gods do you learn." King Thaddeus quickly finishes. He releases my face and I once again hide it in his chest as the axe finally stops and the head rolls down. He releases me while my aching slowly disappears.

I shook with terror as I whispered, "It's over now," to myself, an attempt to comfort my own nerves.

"No. It's not," King Thaddeus whispers back. "It hasn't even begun."

✧ ✧ ✧

Elora and I sat at a table in her boudoir. Her drawing room was exquisite, light and airy. The space was filled beautifully with embroidery, art, and all the finer things of entertainment. Her ladies in waiting sat in the room with us, their voices filling whatever space there was.