Anouk, born as the older sister of Yona and the (ex-)first princess of the Kouka Kingdom, finds herself in a dire situation.
On the night everything went to pieces, she is captured by Soo-Won and locked away in the depths of the palace. Her private...
At some point, Bal left and handed me off to another pack of soldiers--no doubt the esteemed assistants in my ceremony of elimination.
I watched as the executioner's stage appeared in my line of vision, a dull glint shining into my eyes. Ancient red was splattered thickly and almost artfully across the pavement, serving as a reminder that I was about to become history.
As I was shoved closer, the dread, humming in the back of my mind, began to slowly creep over my mind and body.
I will die here.
It was the reality, and I had known about it long enough to accept it. I knew I was about to die and how I would die, but I couldn't stop or shake off my horror of the silence that would soon greet me. I couldn't shake off the rage burning silently in my heart, at this, at him, at everything.
The sky thundered, as if answering to my fervor. A shadow blanketed my body, slithering slowly across the ground as the rain clouds above assembled to cover the light. I watched, standing frozen as my eyes focused on a spectacle yet to come.
It started off gently but grew harsher as the seconds passed. The water felt like little explosions of cold against my skin, and I felt myself shiver involuntarily. The world became shrouded in a dimly lit black, the clouds hovering angrily overhead. My guards began to shift and move around behind me. Uneasy.
Blood began to pound in my ears.
The rain had come today, just as I had thought.
They rolled down my face, water streaking down my cheeks like tears.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I stood still, feeling the cold seep into my body and leaned my head back to stare at the droplets that pelted my face. The noise of rain greeting the ground drowned out everything else but my mind.
Their faces vaguely flashed, and I was abruptly flooded with emotions of longing and slight anguish.
I want to see them.
Closing my eyes, I stretched out my chained hands. The clink was loud, and the guards heard.
"What are you doing?" I heard one of them in the front say, immediately moving towards me. His footsteps were gaining, and my eyelids lifted. I watched his approaching, darkened figure through half-opened eyes.
He reached out towards me.
My chained wrist shot out, and in a swift moment, I swept the stretch of the chain across his neck. My legs quickly followed, ramming into his knees, effectively dragging him down and over the metal that met him. He immediately choked, and instinctively reached up to claw at the links strangling him.
"Keep your mouth shut." I mumbled into his ear, silencing his unvoiced cry for help. He jolted, his body stiffening in reply. I then strengthened my grip, yanking the chain harder until I felt his resistance fail him and his body go limp.
Releasing him and grabbing the hilt of his sheathed sword from his hip as he fell, I stabbed at the chain shackling my ankles with all my strength.
The sound of the metal shattering rang across the courtyard. Their heads snapped in my direction, mouths opening and closing like fishes.
After those forty seconds had come to pass, the guards finally realized their prisoner princess was no longer caged.
I began to move my legs, the falling shackles dissipating the tiredness from my body.
