The rope itched like a cruel joke against her skin.
Thick. Coarse. Regal.
Evelyn Vexley, First of Her Name.
Heir to the throne.
Last of the true line.
Crowned in gold...
Now condemned in rags.
She walked barefoot through the palace courtyard, its marble path stained with mud and hate. Chains clinked around her wrists. Her steps were slow—not out of fear, but because the guards dragging her had perfected the pace of humiliation.
"Traitor!"
"Whore Queen!"
"May your blood feed the gutters!"
Stones struck her arms. Rotten fruit burst across her chest. A child spat from the steps of the bakery she once visited weekly.
And still—she walked.
They cursed the name she'd once bled to protect.
---
On the balcony above the execution platform stood the betrayers.
Draped in their court finery like vipers wrapped in velvet.
Her stepmother, weeping crocodile tears while squeezing a fan between her claws.
Her cousin, Rhiem, dressed in colors he had no right to wear.
Her fiancé, oh—sweet Iscain, already holding hands with her handmaid. Laughing. Smirking. Free.
And among them—her most trusted General, the one who'd sworn to protect her throne, now handing the royal sigil to the guards.
They all smiled.
As if her hanging were a play written just for their amusement.
"For high treason against the Crown," the herald boomed, "the false queen shall hang by the neck until her soul is judged."
Her soul had already been judged.
The executioner drew the rope tight.
Evelyn kept her chin raised.
"Any last words, traitor?"
She looked past the crowd. Past the banners. Past the friends who had vanished when her title turned fragile.
Her gaze cut through them all.
"Long live the crown," she whispered.
"Mine... or no one's."
And then—
the platform fell away.
Darkness came for her like an old friend.
---
🕯️
She woke up screaming.
Hands clutching her throat. Sweat clinging to her skin. Eyes wide, wild—alive.
Alive.
Silence.
Then gasps.
She sat upright in her bed, in silk sheets. Firelight flickered from the hearth.
The dawn crept through her window.
"What…" she choked. "What is this?"
Her chambermaid rushed in with wide eyes and a tray of honeyed tea.
"Your Highness? Are you unwell? Breakfast isn't until—"
"What day is it?" Evelyn snapped.
"The fourteenth of Mourning, milady. Just after sunrise."
She froze.
The fourteenth.
Three days before her death.
The same dress still hung by the wardrobe.
The letter from her fiancé sat unopened on her vanity.
The war report she had burned days ago lay untouched on her desk.
It wasn't a dream.
It wasn't madness.
It was real.
And it had happened.
Every damn second of it.
She stared at her own reflection. Alive. Unhanged.
Eyes open. Heart burning.
"I died," she whispered.
"And now I'm back."
And for the first time since the gallows…
Evelyn Vexley smiled.