Growing up on the streets of Zianna made Finn very good at a lot of things - pick pocketing, gambling, and generally sneaking around. He didn't mean to befriend Tannix, one of the richest young lords in the Kingdom. He certainly didn't mean to disco...
"Without a king, they fight an aimless war, and a country falls."
When the hood was pulled off of my head the first thing I saw was the sky—the bright red of a sunset glowing around the Cliffs of Loth. Then I saw the crowd, and the wooden platform I was standing on. The trapdoor at my feet and the rope dangling in front of my eyes. Then I heard the crowd, as my senses almost came back to me one at a time.
We were in the upper city marketplace. There were still stalls set up, selling food or clothing or jewellery, as if nothing interesting was happening. Plenty of people had turned their attention to the gallows. Not far off, another wooden platform raised above the crowd. The king and his daughters sat there, looking as bored as they might have in a meeting room.
I wasn't the only person who was about to die. There were three other people standing on the platform, two men and a woman. I wondered if I looked as disheveled and scared as they did.
Someone started talking, but I didn't really listen. A guard had stepped up to our line. One by one, he slipped nooses over the other prisoners' heads. When he got to me, I closed my eyes. There was no fighting him. There was nothing to do but pray that Siour would take my soul in his chariot and Volava would welcome me into her underworld kingdom. Maybe my mother would be waiting with her.
The rope tightened around my neck. It was rough.
One of the trapdoors on my right opened and I flinched. The woman beside me was sobbing. A second door opened. A third. She stopped sobbing.
I knew that sometimes hangings didn't work if a person was too light. If that happened to me, would someone in the crowd pull on my legs to help me die? Or would they all just watch me squirm?
I heard the executioner reading a list of crimes. Crimes I couldn't deny. None of them were the reason for the rope around my neck. I was losing my life because I had saved the king's.
"Stop."
A voice cut over the executioner, clear and authoritative. There were mumbles in the crowd. My eyes flew open and confirmed what my ears had heard.
Blue. A bright blue cloak wove through the crowd. Tannix stepped up onto the gallows.
Tannix. Lord Tandrix. Lord Tandrix of West Draulin.
Everything went dark.
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