Death didn't come all at once. It unraveled, layer by layer, like a tapestry being pulled apart by a careless hand.
Sound was the first to go. The roaring of the crowd, the priest's monotonous chanting, the frantic thudding of my own pulse—it all dulled into a heavy, underwater silence. It was as if the world had been sealed behind thick, frosted glass.
Then, the pain followed.
The agonizing fire in my lungs and the snap of my neck receded into a distant echo. The sensation belonged to someone else now.
Another woman. A girl named Elara who had been foolish enough to believe in loyalty.
I floated. I wasn't rising to the heavens or sinking to the abyss. I was simply drifting away.
But the world wasn't done with me yet. The square returned in fragments, like shards of a shattered mirror suspended in the void. I was dead, yet I was forced to watch the aftermath.
The crowd hadn't dispersed.
I saw them more clearly now than I ever had while alive. I saw the truth in the tilt of their heads and the curve of their lips.
On the raised dais, nobles leaned toward one another, whispering behind gloved hands. Their eyes weren't filled with the solemnity of an execution; they were bright with gossip. A few feet away, a man laughed softly, clapping a friend on the shoulder as if he'd just witnessed an impressive theater performance.
Coins passed from palm to palm. Bets were being settled on how long I had kicked before going still.
I hadn't been a person to them. I had been entertainment.
The priest wiped sweat from his brow with a silk handkerchief, his features etched with a profound sense of accomplishment. The ritual had gone smoothly. The 'evil' had been purged. The gods were satisfied, and more importantly, his position was secure. Order had been preserved.
Then, I saw my mother.
She finally exhaled. It wasn't the ragged breath of a mother who had just lost her firstborn. It wasn't a sob.
It was the sigh of someone who had finally finished a tedious, unpleasant chore.
Beside her, my sister—my sweet, "grieving" sister—collapsed dramatically into my father's arms. He stiffened for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something like distaste crossing his face, before he wrapped his arm around her. He shielded her from the crowd's gaze, a protective patriarch guarding the only daughter he had left.
Protecting what remained of the Valen name.
They were already moving on. They were already scrubbing the bloodstains of my existence off their pristine floors.
That was the moment the coldness of death was replaced by a white-hot spark.
My death wasn't a tragedy to be mourned.
It was a solution.
I was the traitor executed to prove the family's loyalty.
I was the threat removed so my sister could shine.
I was the messy chapter of a story that they had finally, neatly concluded.
So this is what I was worth, I thought, the realization cutting through the numbness like a serrated blade. A length of rope. A morning's spectacle. A moment of unity for the people who hated me.
Click.
The sound was tiny. Mechanical. It was entirely out of place in the silent expanse of the afterlife.
I froze.
Click.
It echoed through the void, growing louder with every beat, pulsing through whatever remained of my consciousness
The watch.
I didn't need to see it to know it was there.
With every metallic tick, I felt something tighten around my mind, like an unseen hand slowly closing.
It wasn't just a sound. It was a warning.
No—it was a countdown.
The shards of the square began to fracture further. The images of my family broke apart into splinters of light and shadow. My mother's cold face warped; my sister's fake tears stretched into grotesque lines.
Then, I felt it.
A faint, sickening tug at the center of my being. It was as if a small, vital piece of my soul was being plucked away by a pair of invisible tweezers.
The price.
Panic flared, hot and sudden. I tried to reach out, to grab onto a memory—the smell of rain, , the feeling of the sun on my face—but it was like trying to hold smoke.
Not yet, I thought fiercely, my will screaming into the emptiness. I'm not done. I haven't made them pay!
The darkness rushed back in, a ravenous tide swallowing the last echoes of the world that had killed me.
And somewhere within that suffocating blackness... laughter.
It was soft. Amused. The sound of a gambler who knew he held all the winning cards.
"You see it now," the voice from before murmured, sounding satisfied. "The truth is a bitter pill, isn't it, Little Traitor?"
The ticking grew louder, drowning out the laughter, drowning out my thoughts.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The void shattered.