She was once easily Eldoria’s most beautiful woman and certainly its most fortunate one. Luck had followed her like a shadow and her na had been whispered through the city walls and beyond like a song. The bastard daughter of a noble lord, the savior of the crown prince, the woman who made n turn their heads and sigh in their dreams. Her rise was the stuff of ballads written by dwarfs.
Indeed, they had written a few songs but her. Songs that would have spread to many empires if her luck had stayed with her.
Her hairstyle after the debutante ball had been emulated by many fashionable noble won. The jewelry she had worn was sold in every corner. She should have been destined for nobility--even royalty as the only wife of King Raff’s favorite son Benjamin. Even if it was not him, it should have been any of the other princes.
She should have been Eldoria’s first Empress.
Her na was Lady Emma Fairfax.
No one called her that now.
They called her murderer, curse, plague and daughter of misfortune.
A fortnight had passed since she was brought back to Eldoria in chains. Her trial had lasted three days, She was declared guilty and her fate was execution, declared by Empress Sigrid.
Her words had been,"Justice may be delayed, but it cannot be denied. Let the people rember her rise and fall from grace, her greed and vanity and her immorality which led to her destruction."
Her sentence had been declared: Public shaming through the city followed by execution at dusk. She would see the sunlight before darkness beca her final ho.
The day had co and the process started at dawn. Lady Emmah Fairfax, once the most beautifully dressed woman in the empire was dressed in plain brown linen. She walked barefoot from the prison on the mage estate where her last remaining magic had been stripped to the market place.
Her once fashionable hair had been shaved off completely. Her wrists were bound in black ropes. A knight and a mage led the procession, ringing bells and shouting her sins. People gathered as she stood still to endure the shaming and their wrath.
So jeered and called her nas, murderer was the loudest of them all.
So cried. Mostly, it was the children of the deceased Lady Jane Fairfax, the woman she had murdered. Others were children from the orphanage that had been touched by her kindness. They recalled the sweet girl they knew many moons ago and wondered how she had co to such a fate.
So watched in silence, wondering if this was truly her fate. Sohow, she had always managed to beat the odds and bounce back. Maybe she would create a miracle, one last ti.
So threw rotting food at her, anything they could get their hands on. Eggs, tomatoes, leafy greens. Anything.
Dirt soiled her feet, the sll of rot clung to her. She was pulled away and led to another venue to continue the condemnation.
When dusk was about to arrive, she was taken to the center of the city where criminals were executed. She was presented before the Empress and Emperor.
Sigrid stood from her chair, surrounded by her royal knights, n and won. Her robe trailed the cobble stone ground as she approached Emmah. She made a single gesture and blocked off all sound.
"You could have lived a different life, you could have been the wealthiest woman in the world. You could have been the greatest female knight. You could even have been Empress if you picked one path and stuck to it." Sigrid’s gaze held so pity. "You could have been great if you did not jump from one man to another indecisively and choose to sche like a villain rather than live like heroine. Why did you live this way?"
Emmah looked up, her eyes were filled with anger. "I thought about it long and hard when I was in doris. Every step that I took, there was a shadow looming over , soone that ruined all my plans.
I realized then that it started with you. All my misfortunes lead back to you. When I returned as the savior of the crown prince, you stopped from being his wife. I wanted the Eclipsion sword but you told the king about it too.
You made sure that I was betrothed to Bumblebert. You intervened in my movie, you spread rumors about . You wrote the letters that made Lady Jane hate even before I stepped foot in the Fairfax ho.
At first, I thought that maybe you were just another transmigrator but then I realized that you were much more than that. You know that this world is a book. I only saw the cover and read a few lines.
But you...you are different. You have always known the plot and that is why you were ahead of all this ti. You destroyed the Windrider’s, you destroyed the Ye’s. You destroyed...."
"I hear a lot of you but no I." Sigrid cut in. "Do you an to say that you have no responsibility in your downfall?"
Emmah mumbled on, "You kept and Prince Firron apart. It was you that had soone kill my mother...."
Sigrid cast a spell over her, stealing her voice. Nobody needed to hear Emmah’s last words.
"You are a villain and so am I. One of us was always ant to kill the other." She told her. "If you had not been greedy to step on others to climb the ladder, you would not be here today. This is not a novel world by the way, it is a world inspired by a novel. My life and yours, they have never had to follow the plot. I changed mine, you could have changed yours.
I wanted to give you the sa death you were supposed to give , but I changed my mind this week. This is a world with magic. If I keep you alive for a mont, I am afraid that you will co back to haunt .
So, I am giving you a gift of swift death. Goodbye, Emmah Fairfax or whatever your na is."
Sigrid backed away and returned to her seat.
"What did she say?" Roland asked her.
Sigrid shook her head. "Nothing worth hearing."
Roland took her hand in his and smiled. "Is now a bad ti to remind you that I love you?"
Sigrid shook her head and laughed. "I hope not because I would love to tell you that I love you too."
Roland squeezed her hand gently. Of all tis to admit her feelings, she was choosing the mont that she had been waiting for: Emmah’s death. "Only you would admit your love for when soone is about to be beheaded."
"Because now I know that we have a chance to live." Sigrid answered. She touched her belly. "All three of us."
Roland raised his hand, signalling that the execution could begin. Emmah glared at the royal couple, hoping for a miracle that would allow her a chance to escape and kill Sigrid.
In the final mont however, she turned her head away from the couple and closed her eyes. Maybe if she opened them again, she would be back in the real world and all this a nightmare.
She bowed her head.
The blade fell.
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