Dead Women Tell No Tales

My last breath never felt so easy to take, nor the last glimpse of sunlight over the hill so beautiful. I was falling, floating, flying all at once. My eyes burned with tears but a smile painted on my face nonetheless. This was my end and after all that had happened, I suppose I didn’t mind. 

My wrists itched as the rope tightened around them, wrenching my shoulders and my hands behind my back. The knight - who had once been so kind to me - grabbed my forearm roughly and dragged me from my dark, damp cell. I stumbled up the stairs, his grip on my arm tightening and his gruff voice cursing at me to keep up. 

The sun had just begun to rise, shining through the stained glass windows that lined the corridors we walked down. I relished the feeling on my face, the heat loosening my taught muscles that had grown that way in the cold dungeons. The knight noticed the lull in my step and yanked me harder. I tripped over my feet and crashed to the stone floor, my bound hands useless to break my fall. My body, which had been starved of food, water, and sunlight for far too long, crumbled against the cold floor. 

“Get up.” The knight barked. I rolled onto my side, but that effort alone left me breathless. The knight let out an exasperated sigh and bent down. Both his hands reached out and grabbed my wrists, jerking me unceremoniously to my feet. The same image of him bending down with outstretched arms entered my mind as we continued our trek through the castle. 

He was different back then, nicer. I had tripped and fallen - the linens I had been carrying flying out of my arms and covering the floor. Tears dripped down my cheeks as I imagined the scolding I would get from my mistress. Then I looked up and was met with his outstretched hands and a smile on his face. 

“Are you alright?” He asked as I took his hands and he pulled me gracefully to my feet. I dusted off my skirt and nodded before bending to pick up the linens. He stayed and helped me refold everything and I learned his name - Percy. That was just a mere two weeks ago, but now all signs of niceties and sympathy were gone from his face, deep lines set into his forehead and around his mouth. His grip tightened even more and I was sure it would leave a bruise as we stopped in front of the double doors leading to the throne room. 

Percy gave the guards stationed on either side a nod and they pushed the grand doors open. The wood creaked loudly and the voices of the people gathered inside fell quiet. I risked a glance at the king - whose face was set so still, it could have mistaken it for stone. His dark eyes met mine and I dipped my head down, letting Percy pull me into the room. 

The whispers began as I passed the members of the court who had been called to watch my sentence. Rumors flew left and right - “I heard she’s been stealing from the king’s ward.” “Apparently she tried to slip some poison to the king himself.” “She’s a spy from the Northern Tribes.” None were true, but the king would do nothing to quell the outrageous lies that were being fed to his people. Because the truth would likely bring sympathy to me. Percy came to a stop before the king’s throne, his hand releasing my sore arm to instead grab my neck and force me to kneel before the man who dangled my life in his hands. I stared at his boots which shined with fresh polish. 

I had kneeled before this throne before, for a very different reason. My arms were not bound behind my back and my body did not shake under the stare of the king. Just a mere month ago, I was being praised. 

“Thank you for your service to my family and the future of this kingdom.” His booming voice wasn’t scary, but rather comforting. I was permitted to look upon his face and his eyes twinkled with tears of gratitude. “You saved my son’s life. I owe you a debt that can never be repaid.” His words drew my gaze to the man standing to his right. 

The prince smiled broadly at me, his shoulder bandaged and his arm in a sling. No one questioned what I had been doing with the prince when an assassin shot him with a poison arrow. They only cared about the heroic story of me pulling him to safety and having enough knowledge of medicinal herbs to stall the poison. The tears streaming down my face were assumed to be proof of my loyalty and devotion to the royal family, rather than proof of my love for the prince himself. 

The prince wasn’t present for my sentence today. Not that anyone but me noticed - the prince was often absent for meetings like this - but I knew he had been forced to stay away, locked in his chambers until my sentence was carried out. The king pushed himself out of his throne and the rumors fell silent. His boots clicked against the stone as he approached me. 

“Drea Rolfe, for treason against the Kingdom of Solona, I sentence you to hang until death.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he turned on his heel and walked back to his throne, making no effort to explain himself. The whispers began again, rippling through the crowd as they tried to decipher what I had done to warrant hanging. But the sentence didn’t surprise me in the slightest. After all, I was no threat to the king once I was dead. Percy grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. My throat had been raw from days of pleading and begging for mercy, but now I was silent, resigned to my fate. 

My eyes burned with tears that I wouldn’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing stream down my face. The familiar corridors that I once danced down with the prince in the moonlight blurred and the feeling of Percy’s iron grip faded. My mind buzzed with one thought - that I had done nothing wrong and most would agree with me on that. My crime was simply loving someone I wasn’t supposed to. 

“I love you.” The prince’s voice rattled around in my head and I cursed myself for ever echoing those forbidden words back to him. For hiding in a broom cupboard with him in the middle of the day even though I knew the risks. Those three words were the last ones the prince spoke to me before I was dragged away to the dungeons. He could only watch in stunned silence, guards holding him back from running after me. 

Percy pulled me passed that very broom cupboard and I found myself smiling sadly in its direction. Despite it all, I had no regrets for what I had done. I stared at the broom cupboard until it disappeared around the corner and I was outside. The sun blinded my eyes and I squeezed them shut. 

I couldn’t relish the feeling of fresh air entering my lungs as soon, a rope was tightened around my throat. Jeers of onlookers who had no idea what my crime even was echoed through the courtyard. I risked a glance at Percy as he stepped away, his hand on the lever that would send me falling to my death. For just a moment, his glare wavered and tears glazed his eyes. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered. The tears I had tried so hard to keep back burst out like a waterfall and I sobbed. 

“Please,” I begged. Percy looked away, yanking the lever. As the ground disappeared from underneath me, I looked up to the window I knew to be the prince’s. His tear-streaked face stared back at me from behind the glass, his screams falling deaf to my ears. 

I never imagined that this would be my fate - loving someone more than I should have, up until my dying breath. And it all began with the flutter in my heart and an image of the prince smiling at me, illuminated by the sunset.