It was painful.
That was what was always said about the whip, but really, right now, even though she was screaming in pain, her heart was what truly made her be in pain, more so than anything else.
SHe didn't trust the world, why would she after all, but she had trusted some people here, children most of all, and yet, the children were now happy with her being executed, children that had often been treated with her tricks, their wounds being bandaged with her special mixture trifled onto cloth, sticking and removing the possible infections and parasites, teenagers who had undoubtably used her potions to get rid of mistakes before they happened, yes, she saw a few holding hands in-between her shaking head and twitching eyes, happy, though, at least, slightly reluctant to show affection in such a place.
Though some did do that, a few kissing in front of her, a suffering woman who had saved many of their lives...
Before she had published the almanac, all those years ago, the relative survival of children to adulthood had been seventeen percent, now it had been sixty-seven, over four times the original, a difference greater than any hero could ever cause with a sword, any mage could cause with her staff, greater than any one king, she had done so, not as any of those things, but as something she was truly proud of, as a healer, as someone who cared about others.
Though, she had actually published two almanacs, one still in circulation, just told that she had stolen what stood within, entailing secrets of alchemy and the basics of Ujotrian potions, those that stored both mana and stagnant spells, mostly made of special liquids, such as vampire blood or other bodily fluids from various monsters, even humans in some cases, but then only as a partial ingredient.
She groaned as she finally realized that she had been whipped thirty-seven times, just as the king had commanded, now, without any rest at all, feeling herself being pulled up, other people slowly being driven out of the cart, decorated like some kind of cage, supposed to be burnign together with her, none talking, mostly women, a few men, and Ron, someone who had helper her write her book, now about fifty years old and looking at her with hate in his eyes, though, she supposed that was quite understandable.
Not only would they kill her, she mused, starting to giggle slightly, unsettling the people in front of her and even the other prisoners that would soon be no more than a handful of ashes in the process, but they would not even let her be the killed alone, they would not even assign the worth of all this wood beneath her, of all of this stuff gathered by the village and the soldiers standing a few hundred feet away, loaded bows as they looked at her, a once capable mage, to her.
Damn it, she mused further, because she had never even learned offensive magic.
When it came to both healing and alchemy she was perhaps one of the greatest people in the world, if not the best of them all, in both regards, but she had never even tried to focus on learning offensive magic, thinking that that was useless, that she would be a simple healer, that people wouldn't kill her.
The only thing she had learned had been barriers, been defensive spells, been buffs, but nevertheless, even if she did somehow win with her rather simple repertoire of offensive spells and tricks, she would not be able to even try with being this exhausted, with her body poisoned by both the whip and the alchemical mixtures added in her food to keep her tired and from regenerating her mana from the air.
It was blurry, the poison already having taken effect and killing her slowly, her resistance against pain having been dissolved, and as such, she grinned, blood coming out of her mouth, tasting as she imagined metal would, and as she knew it did, spitting it at the wood, knowing fully well that blood would just enlarge this kind of pale fire, feeding off of organic matter, even blood.
Truly a spectacle to use in the lab, that she knew, it was expensive, but it was absolute, there was great difficulty in putting it out, especially with magic, that which seemed to be the biggest weakness ot normal fire, being without oxygen, was also useless to this kind of horrible fire, only water helped in the slightest, the exact opposite of witches fire, also known as oil fires or the demon's flame in some mouths, and as such often used by holy people to supposedly purge evil, not that there was truly much of a difference.
Even the flames just came from a special kind of salt she had often synthesized in her lab before she had been kidnapped, though, as she realized when the horrible liquid tongues touched her feet and caused her excruciating pain, perhaps she had never truly been gone in the eyes of the people.
After all, why else wou-
No more thinking, no, all she could feel was the pain, the last rests of her spell finally having vanished and giving way for her true torture, for the endless pain that was about to arrive, the pain she had felt once before when she had burned her right hand, quickly managing to heal it with her skills.
After her skin had been completely entranced by the flames they began to boil her eyes, they began to turn the inside of her head into an oven, and she felt how she quickly lost all feeling in her heart, knowing it had accelerated as quickly as it could, lost, as even her head was now gone, ironically enough one of the first things to be truly devoured, her lungs having been the first thing after skin and the searing of her flesh, burned by the hot air.
That was how she had died, degraded, lost, despairing, knowing something she had only realized upon her death, one of those things only the dead would ever tell you, or those that lost so much they might as well be dead already.
Lila lost her life because she gave her life to others.