The rope bites into your wrists long before it ever reaches your throat. The square smells of damp earth and fear. Straw is scattered beneath the gallows, trampled by boots and impatience, and the crowd murmurs as if your fate were nothing more than afternoon gossip.

Witch, they whisper. The word follows you like a curse, curling around your name until even you almost forget who you were before it. You lift your chin anyway.

They told you not to. They said repentance might save your soul, if not your body. But you have nothing to repent for—no spells, no curses, no secret pacts whispered to the dark. Only herbs, and kindness, and a habit of speaking when silence would have been safer.

The executioner avoids your eyes as he adjusts the rope. His hands tremble. You wonder if he believes the lie, or if he simply needs to. The priest begins to speak. That is when the crowd shifts.

Horses are rarely brought this deep into the square, and the sound of hooves against stone cuts through the murmuring like a blade. You turn your head just enough to see him—dark cloak, polished armor beneath, posture straight with authority that needs no announcement.

The king.

He rides slowly, as if time itself has bent to his will. His gaze moves across the gallows, the priest, the executioner—and then it stops on you.

You expect disgust. Fear. Indifference. Instead, his eyes narrow, sharp and searching, as though he sees not a witch, but a question.

“Stop.” The word is quiet, but it carries.

The priest falters. The executioner freezes. The rope, already lifted, slackens. “My king,” the magistrate begins, rushing forward. “This woman has been tried—”

“Put her down.” Silence crashes over the square.

You barely breathe as hands untie the rope, as your feet touch the ground again, as the world tilts with the shock of it. When you look up, the king has dismounted.

He stands before you now, close enough that you can see the faint scar along his jaw, the tiredness hidden beneath command. “What is your name?” he asks.

You tell him. Your voice shakes, but it does not break. “What crime did you commit?”

“I healed a child,” you say. “And spoke against a man who hurt his wife.” Something flickers in his expression—anger, perhaps, or recognition.

He turns to the crowd. “This is not justice,” he says, louder now. “This is fear dressed as righteousness. I will not have my kingdom ruled by it.”

Guards step forward. The magistrate pales. The crowd disperses, disappointed, uncertain, robbed of its spectacle. And just like that, you are no longer condemned.

Later, wrapped in a cloak that smells faintly of leather and pine, you stand in the castle courtyard, hands warming around a cup of wine you were not meant to have. The king joins you, no crown now, only a man carrying the weight of too many decisions.