Chapter Text
«Walk faster, whore,» he spat as he shoved me in front of him. If it weren't for the fact that I was cuffed, I would have killed him. I had done it before, so it wouldn't matter to add another soul to my conscience. Instead, I looked down. The sun burned on my newly washed skin and my hair was damp from the ice-cold bucket water the asshole guard had poured on me. The boy in front of me was still crying. Thin neck, thin wrists, the kind of boy who'd never had enough to eat. He had been sobbing since last night, but I couldn't care less. All I cared about was finding Ulder, but when I found out that he had left the Gate because of some «urgent» matters, I had become numb. My plan had failed, and I had lost. And I guess that that was what my destiny was.
Suddenly I heard a shriek and looked up, my heart thumping frantically as I thought I heard Saga. My head twisted toward the sound, but it was just a child who had dropped her basket full of apples. The guard noticed me stumbling, so he shoved me harder towards the rest of the unfortunate souls. People were already gathering around us, some shouting nasty words, while others threw rotten produce at us. «Burn the witch!» someone screamed. «Before more children get hurt!» another joined in. «Let her eyes boil in her skull!» I looked away. I couldn't bear listening to the shouting. I closed my eyes and focused on my steps. I was fully aware of where we were going. I had been there many times before. My parents never liked me watching prisoners get hanged, and always told me how ethically wrong it was to judge another person's life, that only the Gods could decide who lived and who died. Later, when I got older, I got tangled up in it whether I liked it or not, in the very business of deciding who deserved to live. As irony would have it, I had also indirectly sentenced people to death. I opened my eyes. An old man appeared from nowhere and slapped me. I got caught by surprise, lost my footing, and fell. My head smacked against the cobblestone. By the nine Hells…! «The rope is too good for your kind, Parliament rat!» he spat in my face.
One of the Fists ran to my rescue and helped me up. «Can you stand?» I could see the concern in his eyes. I looked away. I knew him. He was one of Marcus' men. Or had been one of Marcus' men. I guessed only Helm knew where Marcus was now. «Mrs. Abigail, are you alright?» His grip on my shoulders tightened, but I didn't look at him. The guards grew impatient, and the other prisoners watched us. «Let go of me.» I shook his hands from my shoulders and nodded to the same asshole guard who had called me a whore, as a gesture that I was ready to continue my death march. The Fist was caught by surprise and let his hands hang. He knew he couldn't do anything. It was too late. «I'm so sorry» I heard him whisper before I was shoved.
The thin boy's sobbing grew louder as we reached the gallows in the middle of the town square. The guards shoved people aside to make way as we climbed the stairs, where four nooses hung waiting. One for each of us. The crowd was exceptionally large for a hanging. It wasn't often that a member of the Parliament was about to hang, so I supposed this was my moment, the one where I would make my place in the history books.
I had promised myself I wouldn't look for them, but I couldn't help it. Among the shouting and the objects being thrown at us, mainly at me, I found myself searching the crowd for my parents. I hoped they had stayed true to their faith and hadn't come to watch their daughter hang. I suddenly felt nauseous, and the only sound I heard was the boy's sobbing, growing louder with every second. I was going to die in a few moments. This was it.
The executioner placed the nooses while the cleric of Tyr moved alongside him with practiced solemnity, his robes catching the wind. The boy went first. He could barely stand. His sobbing had collapsed into something quieter, a kind of hiccupping silence, as though his body had forgotten how to cry and hadn't yet learned how to stop. I watched them put the hood over his head and looked away. I didn't watch the others. Somewhere behind me I could hear the cleric addressing the crowd, his voice carrying over the square. «By the scales of Tyr, justice is served today. Let all who witness this execution know that the Maimed God sees all debts, and all debts are paid in time.» The crowd roared its approval. The same hollow sermon every cleric of every temple is taught to recite, so that the people believe what those in power want them to believe. The crowd was ecstatic.
When they came to me the cleric stepped forward, which was unusual enough that I noticed. He placed a hand on my shoulder in a gesture of blessing, leaning close under the pretense of prayer. A woman materialized at his side; young, unremarkable, wearing the subdued robes of a Tyr acolyte. I had never seen her before. «Master Caldwen apologizes for his absence,» she whispered, her eyes fixed forward as though reciting liturgy. «And is deeply sorry for how things turned out.» She cupped my face in her hands and placed a small vial between my lips. Confused, I tried to spit it out, but she was quick. «Wyvern poison. Mrs. Caldwen said you should have a choice. Bite down. It will be instant.» The vial sat cold between my teeth.
The executioner stepped toward me with the noose, and I let him place it around my neck. The rope was rougher and heavier than I expected. I stood there with a vial of poison between my teeth while a man adjusted the knot that would break my neck, and I almost laughed. The executioner stepped back. The cleric turned to me with ritual formality. «Do you have last words?»
I looked out at the crowd. Somewhere out there was Marcus or wasn't. Somewhere out there was Ulder, attending to his urgent matters while I stood on a scaffold with a rope around my neck and poison between my teeth. Should I bite down? It would be quick. I closed my eyes and tried one last time to really feel the sun on my skin, to smell the air, to feel the breeze. None of it felt comforting. I opened my eyes and looked down at my feet. At the trapdoor beneath them. Then I looked at the cleric, shook my head and spat the vial out. I didn’t want to die by my own hand. If they wanted to kill me, my soul should be on their conscience. Not mine. The cleric nodded and stepped back.
Then someone in the crowd screamed, not the angry screaming of before, but something rawer and more primal. I looked up. The shadow came before the sound. An enormous darkness swept across the square like a stormfront, swallowing the sunlight. Then the sound hit, a deep, resonant drone that I felt in my chest before I heard it. People were running. The guards were shouting. The scaffold shook. The last thing I saw was something vast and impossible blotting out the sky above Baldur's Gate.
Then everything went dark.