The sound of boots on stone shatters the silence.
Metal clinks — swords drawn. Voices rise from the corridor.
You lift your head, breath ragged, the dagger still trembling in your hand. The room reeks of iron and salt. Margaret lies across the floor, her pale dress blooming red, her eyes half open — still beautiful, even in death, even as the warmth leaves her.
For a heartbeat, you think you hear the witch’s voice again, soft and cold: There is no shame in fear. But truth waits for no one.
You turn toward the door.
Run — a part of you screams.
But another voice, quieter, steadier, whispers: Enough running.
You drop the dagger. It clatters across the marble, echoing through the hall. Your hands, slick with blood, feel no heavier than your heart.
The door bursts open. Torches flare. Six guards rush in — Margaret’s kin’s colors, green and silver. They stop when they see the body. For an instant, no one speaks.
“My lady—” one gasps.
The captain steps forward, his eyes wide, searching the room as though meaning might still be hiding somewhere. “What have you done?” he breathes.
You stand motionless, unable to answer. The truth — or what you think is truth — burns inside you like poison.
“I didn’t mean to,” you finally say. “She— she wasn’t who she seemed. The witch—”
But their faces harden before the words are done.
“Seize him!”
They rush forward. You don’t fight. Cold hands grip your arms, twist them behind your back. You are dragged from the room as Margaret’s body fades from sight behind the torches. Her eyes linger in your mind, open, silent, accusing — or perhaps understanding.
They throw you into a small chamber beneath the estate — stone walls slick with damp, a single barred window high above. You sit against the wall, shivering, waiting. Time thickens. You can’t tell if minutes or hours pass.
At last, footsteps descend. The captain enters again, this time with Margaret’s brother — Lord Velhradus, tall and severe, grief carved into every line of his face.
He stops before you, hands clasped behind his back.
“Tell me why,” he says. His tone is level, but his eyes burn.
You lift your head. “You won’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
You draw a breath that shakes. “A witch came tonight. She said she was Magus to my father. She gave me something — a mushroom — said it would show me the truth. I saw—” you swallow hard “—I saw Margaret, not as she was, but as she truly is. She lied to me. She knew my parents were dead. She— she left me to die in the desert.”
Velhradus stares at you as though you’ve begun speaking another language. “You expect me to believe my sister — my kind, loyal sister — was some… traitor?”
“I saw it!” you cry. “I saw it all — as if I were there again. She turned away from me! She smiled when she learned they were dead! She—”
He cuts you off with a sharp gesture. “Enough!” His voice breaks, but his rage steadies it. “I should have known madness when I saw it. My father warned me. The Duke of Zalenice — haunted by ghosts and desert heat.”
“It wasn’t madness!” you shout, rising despite the chains that hold your wrists. “It was revelation! The witch—”
“The witch?” He laughs once, bitterly. “So you confess you took counsel from sorcery? You, a nobleman of my blood?”
“I didn’t seek her,” you say, desperate now. “She found me. She said my father sent her—”
Velhradus turns to the captain. “Prepare the gallows. At dawn.”
“My lord—” the captain hesitates, pity flickering for a heartbeat. “He may speak truth, twisted though it sounds. Perhaps the witch—”
“No.” Velhradus’s voice sharpens to steel. “My sister is dead. He stands over her with blood on his hands. There will be no trials, no tales of magic to stain her memory. He hangs.”
He looks back at you, eyes full of the grief he cannot bear to feel. “May the gods forgive you, for I will not.”
They leave. The door slams shut. The darkness closes in.
You sink to your knees, trembling. Your words echo in the chamber until they lose meaning entirely. The witch’s face — or what you remember of it — floats in the air before you, calm and cruel.
Truth waits for no one.
“Then why show it to me?” you whisper. “Why make me see, if no one else will believe?”
The wind moans through the barred window. It sounds almost like laughter.
Dawn comes gray and wet. They drag you from the cell, chains scraping against the stones. The courtyard is already filled with people — servants, townsfolk, sailors. Faces you once greeted now turn away.
The gallows rise in the square, dark wood against a colorless sky.
Margaret’s body lies in state across the yard, shrouded in white. You can’t look for long.
The captain meets your gaze as he tightens the rope around your wrists. There’s something like sorrow in his eyes. “I begged for clemency,” he mutters. “They wouldn’t hear it.”
You nod faintly. “I know.”
He hesitates. “Was there truly a witch?”
You manage a broken smile. “If there wasn’t, then I’ve killed for nothing. And if there was, then I’ve killed for truth no one will ever understand.”
The platform creaks underfoot as you climb. The crowd murmurs like a tide.
The noose descends. Its fibers smell of hemp and old rain. You don’t flinch as it touches your neck.
A priest begins to speak, words lost to the wind.
You raise your voice — trembling, but clear enough to carry. “Listen,” you say. “If I die mad, then remember this madness well. Because madness is all that’s left when truth burns the world.”
No one answers.
You close your eyes. The cold air fills your lungs. And softly, you begin the prayer — not to gods, but to yourself:
“All mirrors are broken.”
“I’m looking at myself.”
“Reflected on the sand.”
“On every grain of sand.”
“Reflected on people.”
“On every pair of eyes looking at me.”
“I am with others and in others.”
“And there I remain eternal.”
“Alone I’m not, and I never was.”
Each line steadies your breath, draws the world into focus. The crowd fades. The priest’s voice fades. Even the gallows creak becomes distant.
You see only the sea now — endless and gray, the horizon trembling with light. Somewhere, a crow circles above.
You think of your father’s voice, your mother’s laughter, Margaret’s hand in yours. You think of the Magus, of Claudius, of Moravice — all the mirrors that showed you pieces of yourself, all the reflections now shattered.
And yet, in that final instant, you feel them all with you — every face, every echo, every grain of sand.
The executioner pulls the lever.
The floor vanishes.
For one brief moment, you are weightless — suspended between the worlds you’ve loved and the ones you’ve lost.
Then the rope snaps taut.
Silence.
Darkness swallows the dawn.
And all that remains is the echo of your prayer, fading into the wind that carries your final breath:
“All mirrors are broken.”
….
THE END
….
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