Page 5 of Condemned

Chapter Two

When the judge beganto speak, the court fell silent. Avalon listened as if from a distance, as if this was nothing to do with her, yet her heart was heavy and painful, each beat pulling at her, sucking her down. Perhaps she was already dying.

Guilty as charged of stealing the Claw of Truth in a treasonous attempt to derail the peace treaty with the human Kingdom of Montague.

The Kingdom of Montague has agreed to waive all rights to judging this case and wholly accepts the judgement of this court.

The female prisoner, identified only as Avalon, shall be taken from the courtroom and housed in a cell until tomorrow, on which day she shall be impaled and publicly displayed, then transported to an unnamed site and executed by whatever means is deemed best. After the execution the prisoner shall be buried in an unmarked grave.

This sentence to be carried out by the mauleon troop that brought her to justice, seeing as everyone else is currently occupied celebrating the peace.

This court is adjourned. Thank you all for attending. Happy Peace Day! You are free to celebrate and thank the gods for that. This war has been nothing but a tragedy for all concerned.

Chairs and boots scraped on the floor as everyone rose, except her.

On her lap, her manacled hands had paled. She closed her eyes, felt herself sway on the seat. Lack of blood, her mind told her. Stand up and you might fall over.

They hadn’t even bothered to ask her much in the way of questions. She’d expected some sort of interrogation. Questions such as, who organized this? Were there others?

Maybe they didn’t want to know? The things she could say... but the only point in talking would be for revenge. She was too tired for revenge.

From either side her new guards dragged her to her feet and held her there.

Not that they’d made her bleed. They were going to though. In a most painful way.

What did you do when your life had turned to crap? Rewind it to before, of course.

If only. She should have said no to Uncle. Should’ve watched Junis and Darva, kept them nearer. Should never have come to Snaar at all.

Should never have been huleon? Should have somehow stopped her mother dying in childbirth, or her father from being some nobody asshole who ran away? Then maybe she’d have been brought up like a nice girl should be.

Really though, the blaming stopped with her. She had a habit of making dumb choices.

Happy Peace Day, fuck yeah.