Ariadne snapped back from reality.

 

She glanced behind her, biting her lips hard as she felt the pain radiating from where the whip landed. She stopped. Almost falling on her feet. But she managed to regain her balance just in time before her knees touched the ground. Gritting her teeth, Ariadne forced herself to stand. The refusal to let these Imperial Soldiers shame her further was stronger than the pain she was suffering from.

 

“Lurfael take her! This bitch is still strong as yesterday. Despite what happened to her last night…” their words faded to laughter.

 

She let it pass through her ears. Ariadne had long stopped caring about everything. She didn’t even know how many days had passed since she started walking with her elbows bound by a rope as a horse pulled her ahead. Perhaps she could count it by feeling the missing teeth in her mouth; she seemed to lose one daily.

 

As soon as her tongue slid to where her teeth used to be, Ariadne forced herself to stop. She figured out that doing so would likely remind her of the number of men who used her. These incidents with the soldiers first happened after the downfall of Atolia. She resisted, screamed, and cursed at them like anyone would do if they were touched against their will. But as it kept happening, the urge to fight them left her. She could only wish that her visitor for that night would finish faster; or that he was gentler, unlike the soldier from last night. Those were her thoughts as she slept in her damp tent where the Imperial Army kept her.

 

Ariadne stumbled, pulling the horse to a halt. The man riding it cursed from almost falling off the horse.

 

“Stand, bitch! Stop trying to kill me,” Sir Ronial said. He was a ruthless man in his forties with graying hair on his temple and a battle scar across his neck.

 

She stood without a word. Ariadne had long learned the consequences of fighting his fury. Sir Ronial had enjoyed beating her on the first time he was given a chance to do it. She would never forget the memory of that afternoon. 

 

She had known Sir Ronial for being brutal. The man was famous for beating nobles in their cells. Ariadne believed it spurred from Ronial’s insecurity on the members of the nobilities.

 

The first time she felt afraid of him, she almost laughed. How can she be afraid of him whom she could kill instantly with a sleight-of-hand… but that was all in the past now; her fingers that could touch the Stardust had already been cut off from her, now what she had was a rotten stump with flies feasting around it.

 

The journey to the capital continued. Ariadne didn’t know that they were finally closing to Arkanlas, the capital of the Empire, and with it, her own execution. The impending death did not bother her. It only made her relax, like the sighs she did after solving mathematical problems back when she was still studying at the Imperial University. Only the gods knew how eager she was to die. She even dreamed of death frequently, with it, the face of His Grace, Duke Augustus Osriel de Atolia.

 

As they closed toward the capital, the soldiers became rougher in how they treated her. She would receive a whipping even if she wasn’t doing anything. A soldier had even punched her just for watching the swaying fields of wheat, stating that she had no right to adore such beauty. Each time she was treated like that, something inside her stirred alive. A familiar feeling that she thought she had already forgotten. She knew that having those kinds of emotions would only make her miserable. Hating would only make us miserable, she read once, but Ariadne didn’t realize she would remember it years after as death loomed before her.

 

She could now finally see the southern gate of Arkanlas. The city was surrounded by a thick wall that gleamed under the light of the midday sun. Giant Inscriptions glowed vaguely along the wall. They were said to protect the city from invaders, and it might speak the truth since, up until now, no one had managed to penetrate the city.

 

Wagons, carriages, and horses lined outside the gate, waiting for their turn to be checked by the guards on duty. The Imperial marched forward. The traffic slowly dispersed to the side of the road as soon as they heard the booming voice of Sir Ronial.

 

“Everyone! This woman is none other than the mass murderer, Ariadne! The one who killed our brothers and sisters. Who caused us death for three years. Who poisoned our river and the person who murdered the late Imperial Family of Estrellio Empire.”

 

Lies! Yes, I poisoned rivers but harmed no one in the Imperial Family, she wanted to shout back, but thirst and tiredness prevented her from opening her mouth. The merchants either glared or stared at her with disgust. Out of nowhere, as they neared the gate, something hard hit the back of her head. Ariadne looked back and saw a woman in her gray wool dress with a pastel apron. She was glaring at her with tears brimming in her eyes.

 

“My son drank on that river! How could you do that to a child?”

 

She wanted to tell her the same thing. How could the Empire harm our children? How could they kill the Atolians for the sake of their greed! How could they betray the people whom they promised to protect!

  

The Imperial Army trudged toward the palace; their progress slowed to almost a walk as they entered the residential areas. At this place, she saw how much everyone hated her. Pieces of rocks, rotten fruit, and feces were thrown in her direction, with all kinds of obscene words shouted at her in shrilly and rough voices. Occasionally, something liquid would find a way to her face. She was glad to feel something wet on her lips, no matter where that water came from.

 

“Death to the Blue-eyed She-devil!”

 

“Death! Death! Death!”

 

After they reached the palace, she was thrown into an underground prison with no windows. Darkness embraced her from all sides, sounds of running and fighting rats would occasionally make her flinch, but as soon as she became accustomed to them, the pests became her companion. No one bothered to come for her in the next three days. For the first time since she was captured, Ariadne found peace.

 

One morning, she heard many sounds of boots nearing her prison cell. Ariadne was already sure that she was going to be executed. The two soldiers roughly dragged her out of the prison as if she had all the intention of escaping from them. Where would she even go if she managed?

 

They dragged her into the plaza and intentionally let the crowd of angry people pull on her hair and grab her clothes, stripping her chest naked for everyone to see. The soldiers brought her to the executioner’s platform and threw her. The two soldiers grunted in dismay about how dramatic she was. They feigned anger and used the butt of their spear to hit her on the spine. Ariadne growled and squirmed in pain like a worm being subjected to salt.

 

The citizens of the Empire laughed at her hardships. But among those rugged laughs, she heard those familiar airy laughs that can only be heard from someone who had come from the nobility.

 

She turned her eyes toward them; they sat on a raised platform, looking down at her. In the center was the new enthroned Emperor, Allan Gregorius de Miurgen. When Ariadne saw his face, everything that happened during the Atolian War flooded her mind. The stirring she tried to suppress pulsated wildly inside her, claiming every ounce of sanity left in her and turning every emotion into hatred.

 

“Everyone, I have here the enemy of our glorious Empire. Ariadne Larissa y Severine, the Blue-eyed She-devil, the woman responsible for the most heinous crime, the person who poisoned our rivers, and the one responsible for bringing ruin to the late Imperial Family.”

 

Angry noises echoed in the plaza, but she was deaf to all of them. She could only hear the voice of Emperor Allan. She refused to look anywhere other than him. He is the one. The sinner that I must kill, she thought as she watched his lips curl into a smile.

 

“As your Emperor of Estrellio Empire, I charged this wicked woman guilty of all the said crimes.”

 

The emperor turned his back on her. The soldiers pulled her before the guillotine’s blade. But her eyes remained in the emperor’s direction as they forced her to stand.

 

Allan Gregorius grinned at her and raised his hand to silence the crowd.

 

“Do you have any last words to say, Lady Ariadne?”

 

It took her a moment to realize what he had said, and when she did, her lips quivered in rage. What came out of her was a sound similar to an animal. Those who heard her had their head fall backward in a fit of laughter.

 

“It seems like you have nothing to sa- “

 

“I have dammit,” she cursed, her voice unfamiliar even to her own ears.

 

She looked around; the Imperial Citizens who went to watch her execution reached as far as her eyes could see. Their eyes expressed anger. Children clung to lampposts and statues; their innocent sunbaked faces held curiosity as they stared in her direction. Some matched her gaze as her eyes roamed around the crowd. She saw a group of ladies who nodded to themselves as if to express their satisfaction on her situation.

 

She found everything in this place ridiculous. How could she take all the blame for it! Ridiculous. A laughter escaped her mouth, she tried to suppress it, but it was hard; soon, she was laughing to her heart’s content to the point she was gasping for breath.

 

The people near the platform flinched and stepped backward, afraid of what she might do.

 

“Many Atolians died in this war. I will never forget them. And the days and nights that I suffered throughout my journey to this sickening place.” She looked around, her eyes searching for the guards who raped her. When her eyes landed on them, they averted and lowered their heads. “I hope all those pricks rot and be infested with worms… the gods know who you are… and the gods know how much I hated myself after each night. Though I doubt the gods will even listen to my pleas because they never did! May this land and its rulers be cursed for eternity.”

 

She turned in the direction of the palace. “Those proud glistening towers that this damn Empire boast so much! I hope the day it would be stripped of its glory would come.” She said these words with a growling voice; Ariadne glared at the crowd with madness. She pointed her stump at them.

 

“I will never be at peace! I will make all sinners pay. I will ensure that all noble Houses will be stripped of their Grace! And the Empire will bathe in the blood of its own sinful citizens… until all the oceans and seas turn red and the air stinks with the smell of rotten flesh!”

 

Ariadne’s laughter echoed over the silent onlookers in the plaza. Then she looked back at the raised platform where the nobility sat; something inside her pulsated wildly.

 

“I will make you all remember. You will call for my name to lift the curse… but I will not.”

 

The crowd fell into a stupor. Ariadne kneeled before the guillotine and waited for its blade.