The courtyard boiled with fury. Torches hissed in the night wind and the roar of the people was deafening.
"Witch! Witch! Off with her head!"
Dragged forward by iron-clad guards, the count's daughter stumbled, her once-proud silk gown shredded and filthy. The cobblestones scraped her bare feet raw, her long black hair, tangled and wild, clung to her tear-stained cheeks. She thrashed against the chains cutting into her wrists, her voice shrill and desperate.
"I am no witch!" she cried, eyes wide with terror. "You blind fools, this is a lie—fabricated treachery! I am innocent!"
The crowd jeered, drowning her pleas in their hunger for blood. Rotten fruit pelted her, stones split her lip, but she only screamed louder, fighting against her fate as they forced her up the wooden steps.
Upon the dais, the royal family loomed. The king sat stiff with cold face, the queen's eyes unreadable behind her jeweled veil. But it was the princess who drew the woman's gaze—the princess who leaned forward slightly, her lips curled in a cruel smirk. Her eyes glimmered with malice, savoring every shred of her enemy's despair.
"No… no, please," the condemned whispered, her voice breaking. "Father... Mother... Brother.... Sister..." Her voice break as she saw her family behind the Queen.
Her knees buckled as the guards shoved her down to the block. Splinters tore her skin. She tried to rise, to scream again, but her strength failed her. She could only stare up through the blur of tears.
And there, above her—unmoving, relentless—was the princess. Watching. Smiling. As if she had waited her whole life for this single moment.
The executioner stepped forward, sword raised high, its steel glinting red beneath the torches. The people's chant louder.
"WITCH! WITCH! WITCH!"
The woman sobbed, her voice cracking in a last, futile cry. "Mercy—please! I am no witch! I—"
The princess gave a slight tilt of her head, a signal sharp as a dagger.
The sword fell.
There was a hiss of steel, a wet thud, and then silence—for a heartbeat, the world itself seemed to still. Her head rolled into the straw, eyes still wide in terror, mouth parted as if to finish her plea.
Then the people erupted, a wild beast unleashed, screaming their triumph to the night sky. On the dais, the princess allowed herself a slow, venomous smile, her gaze fixed on the lifeless body below.
The count's daughter—villain, traitor, accused witch—was no more.