A Dance Of Blades and Hearts

in another light

My hands shake and I bring them under my table to hide it, eyes narrowed at the man stood in the middle of the court room, head down and shoulders sagging.

His charges are read out and I can see songs eyes on me but I ignore it, my entire body is on the edge and the fire leaking at my chest is still very much there.

I thought seeing the man would finally make me feel anything other than hatred for him, pity maybe? But instead all my mind has been doing is connecting the image of this man to the one who drove a knife through my mother all those years ago.

He hasn't looked up once since he was dragged in and placed in the stand.

The entire hall was quiet safe for the officer reading out his charges.

"you are hereby charged for the murder of the late empress Tiana of peria and the infiltration of the perian palace, what do you plead?"

The entire hall is silent, the man says nothing for a minute that seems far too long, and it's when I feel the tension is going to break me that he finally looks up and I see his eyes,

My mind once again compares them to all those nights ago, to my mother's when she died and something breaks in my chest, the man is old, he looks older than he actually is.

"guilty " he finally says in a small voice. song looks at me again, before the entire hall does, the entire hall except the man, because this is the point where I'm meant to make a decision.

And just like that, I think of my mother, of how she had looked when she died, and looking back at the man, I breathe in

"hear my word " I start and everyone bows

"yougwa of tristan, I on this day, on my position as the sovereign of this city and ruler of the west"

It's like the entire room holds it's breath and my hand tightens on the edge of the platform.

The words are bitter in my mouth and right there at the tip of my tongue. I look at the man, at how lifeless he looks, like all the hope had been drained out of his system, and I remember the love in my mother's eyes, how beautiful she was, how she always wanted her love to shape me.

I breathe in

"hereby free you of the chains that bind you to a war we stopped fighting years ago "

The man might be a killer and I don't think I'd ever stop hating him, but in a way I had refused to look at all this time because it was my mother, because loosing her almost destroyed me, i look at the man and really see him for the first time.

A victim, just like I was, just like mother was.

Nothing has ever been this hard for me to say, but immediately it's out of my mouth, I know its the right thing to do.

The man is looking straight at me now, eyes wide in shock and he slowly sinks to the ground, shoulders quietly shaking, the Ministers look relieved.

And song, he looks proud, but all I feel is tired

*********
I bite my lip nervously before grabbing for my crutches and making to stand,

"where do you think you're going? " Azumi asks from his place beside Tera, eyeing me skeptically.

"To see the emperor " I say and he scoffs

"He'll be here later on today, like he is every other day, apparently he can't stay away "

Azumi whispers the last part but I catch it and narrow my eyes at him,

He only shrugs

"is something wrong? " tera asks and for a second I want to explain what today is for him but decide against it