They pushed the parchment into my hand like a verdict already sealed. The ink had barely dried and my name sat beneath it like a condemned thing. I read it once more because words have a way of changing when a man looks at them hard enough.
“At dawn, you will be executed in the public square.”
My mouth made a sound that was neither laugh nor cry. The guard at the door—broad-shouldered, the same blunt man who took me in—watched my face for a flicker of weakness. He found none.
“You’ll have time to make a statement if you wish,” he said, voice flat as stone. “The queen demands a public bearing. She wants the realm to see justice.”
“Justice,” I said, tasting the word like metal. “You use it like a tool.”
“It is a tool,” he answered matter-of-factly. “And I am ordered to use it.”
They sh
