The morning doesn't bring its usual brightness but rather strange, colourful tinted light. Light that is far too bright to be natural and far too unnatural to be pleasant. The lord greets me from his room, standing in front of the locked door.

"Good morning, my lady."

"Good morning my lord."

"I think I know what our final challenge will be."

"Oh? What will it be?"

"We will see who can create the most beautiful thing."

"Oh that? That's easy."

"We will see."

We eat breakfast in the large, long dining hall and it is so, so deeply uncomfortable to be waited on by servants.

"How did you enjoy your night?" His voice is smooth and unnerving.

"It was okay. How about you?"

"I missed my bed, but I plan on sleeping there again tonight."

"Okay." Tonight. After my execution. Fuck.

"So tell me, how you learned your magic."

"No."

He keeps trying to ask me questions for the rest of breakfast.

Finally I follow him to his magic room. In it, I see things that were not there before. Gems that sparkle and shine brighter than all the others. A large rod of platinum. Lustrous pearls. An assortment of what vaguely resembles tools.

Ho says no words and gets to work, pouring wine by the chalice into a bowl large enough to bathe a baby in. He then sets it on fire, and into the fire he places the platinum. He also puts the gems and the pearls into the fire. Next, he creates a ring around the bowl made of ivory and jade arranged into intricate shapes. He plunges a knife into a ring necked dove, and I watch in horror as it struggles and screams, and he pours the blood of the bird onto the fire. He gets his peacock feathers and burns them, along with the neck feathers of the dove. And finally, he writes something long and fine with his ink and places it over the bowl.

A thousand pink leaf-like flakes of different sizes and shapes manifests into the air. They swirl all around the room, coalescing by the bowl full of treasures. There they all join together and started to glow. It's beautiful to see but there's something deeply wrong about it. There is something deeply twisted.

Eventually the glowing subsides and in the bowl there is a beautiful platinum crown, as tall as my hand is long, shining in the firelight, finely-shaped in all sorts of flowing metallic swirls and curls, encrusted with all sorts of gems and pearls.

"Isn't it beautiful?" The lord asks me.

"I can do better," I tell him. And my words come out clear and confident. And they are not a lie.

I walk to the peach tree in the courtyard, growing by the shadows of the outer wall. I reach on my tip toes and pick a few peaches, and put them in my uplifted skirt. I walk through the brisk spring morning to the village. And I find a group of young children playing on the streets. Alex, Clementine, Seraphina, and Sparrow. The youngest one is only year old and the oldest one is five.

"Hi guys." I sing brightly as I stoop down to smile at them.

"Hi Aunt Marianna," they chime back in unison. I'm not really their aunt but I am their aunt anyways. They stare at the guards behind me, awed and more than a little terrified.

"Don't mind the guards," I tell the children, "they won't hurt you. I promise."

"Why they here?" Little Seraphina asks in her baby voice.

"There's just following me. Anyways, I got you guys some peaches from the lord's own garden."

"From the lord's own garden?" Alex exclaims, pronouncing their r's as l's.

"Yes, children, they're for you." I hand them out to each child.

"Wow! Thank you!" Sparrow exclaims. They all hold the fruits in their hands and they smile.

"You see, my lord?" I turn to him. "The most beautiful thing in the world."

He stands there, not saying anything.

I turn back to the kids.

"Now you enjoy those peaches, I tell them. "And have fun. I'm really sorry, but Aunt Marianna needs to go back to the castle."

"Why?"

"Because the lord wants me there," I respond.

On the walk back to the castle the lord asks me

"How was that beautiful?"

"The smile of a child, my lord," I try to explain to him, "it's the most beautiful thing there is."

"I don't see what you see."

"And I suppose you can't, with all your statues and thrones."

"You are a rather strange woman. Anyways, you didn't even use magic."

"Didn't I?" I smile mysteriously.

"I have a question to ask you," the lord tells me, quite urgently, once we get back to the castle.

"Okay," I reply, trying to keep the building dread out of my voice.

"Go to my rooms," he bids me, and I obey.

I sit on the bed, trying to breathe slowly and deeply, in the way that Anna taught me a few years ago.

After what feels like an eternity, the lord walks in with the crown that he made. He gets on one knee in front of me, holding out the crown,

"My dear maiden Marianna," he says to me, "I am awed and amazed by your skills and talents in the magical art. I do admit, I was quite doubtful at first. But you have proven yourself to be very worthy. Most rare amongst the commoners. So rare, in fact, that I have realized that you must not be a commoner at all, but rather a noble who got lost at birth and was taken in by the peasants. In light of this, and knowing the fact that all the nobles must stay together as one group, I am asking you to marry me, and to be my lady. I am really rather enamoured by you and would be honoured to be your husband."

I don't know how to respond. At all. In my shock I start laughing. I laugh because of how stupid it is, because he thinks I am a lost noble because of my magic abilities. Really, my magic abilities are rather average. The olds mages who teach the newer recruits know far more than I, and can do far more.

"Why are you laughing?" the lord asks, rather taken aback.

"I'm sorry," I manage to stutter our through giggles, "it's just, your stupidity."

"My what?"

I keep laughing for a while, before I am able to answer.

"You think that I'm a noble tragically separated from her high born roots. But I'm just a normal girl, with no noble blood."

"Preposterous. You must be from a noble family. You just don't know it. To bring you back to the high background where you belong, I will make you my wife, my lady."

"I'm not some foundling. My father and mother had me and they raised me and the village is all I have ever known."

"Absurd. No normal girl would be able to be so very adept in magic."

At this I burst into another fit of laughter. This is so absurd. So very absurd. Me sitting on a soft bed with silken sheets while the lord of my county kneels in front of me, insisting that I am of noble blood. And simply because I'm average at magic. Simply because I am average at magic!

"My lord. I'm sorry. I am just a normal girl who practices witchcraft. Not anything else."

"So how do you explain then that you are so skilled in magic?"

"All people have magic inside of them. All people can express the magic inside of them, if they are just given the chance. The nobles are not better than anyone else in the use of magic. The nobles are average. Dare I say, they are less than average, because they are not at all connected to their magical source. But the only reason the common people cannot express their magic is because you and your people forbid it. You and your people prevent us from using the gifts we all have. But still, some of us are brave enough to go against your rule and learn the craft anyways."

"Wow. Being forced to live as a peasant has really made you delusional." What? He didn't even listen to me. He didn't even take my argument seriously, he just brushed it off. He is insufferable.

"I'm not delusional, you are." There is no mirth or softness left in my hard voice.

"Whatever your delusions may be, will you marry me? I will offer you a fine life full of servants and luxury."

I think about this for a while.

Marrying him would be my only shot at life. It would be the only way I could get out of this situation free. He wouldn't hurt me if we were married. He wouldn't hurt me, or my parents, or my siblings, or my roommates. He wouldn't hurt my village. And I could be alive. This is perhaps my only shot at being alive. If I said yes, if I said yes despite all that my heart is protesting, then I could be alive and free.

But, free? Would I really be free in a large castle, bound to this noble man, with an army of servants at my beck and call? Would I really be free despite having to warm his bed in the nights, having to be by his side in the days, having to live the sort of life that all the nobles live? Would it be authentic? Would it be real? Would it be me?

It feels like a betrayal, agreeing to marry him. A betrayal to my family, a betrayal to my fellow witches, a betrayal to my people. But most of all, it feels like it is a betrayal to me. I'm brave. I don't give in to fear. I don't sign my life away, sign my freedom away, sign myself away simply for the chance at continuing to survive. I went against the prohibition in order to study witchcraft. I can go against this lord's power, against his wishes.

I harden my gut and swallow down the fear that I am feeling.

"I won't marry you." My voice rings clear.

The lord looks taken aback, looks astonished, looks genuinely hurt.

"What?" There is confusion and betrayal in his voice.

"I won't marry you," I repeat, simply.

"Well then," his voice is like a hurt child's, but his features quickly harden, "I guess I will have to have you executed for practicing magic without authorization."

"Do it then." I fight with everything I have to make sure that my voice doesn't tremble.

I force myself to walk on my numb legs as I am led out of the lord's room and into a section of the castle that I have never been to before. It is so hard to breathe. I feel as though I am moving underwater. Everything feels unreal, as if it's a dream. Everything feels more real than it has ever felt before. I thought I was prepared for death but in reality I was not prepared. I was not prepared at all. I am not prepared at all.

In the end I am taken to a room that is far too bright for the gruesome brutality that is meant to go on inside it. There is an execution block in the middle of the small courtyard. And I am led to this block. One of the guards takes his place as the executioner. It must be a horrid job, and I wish I could free him of it. I wish I could free all the guards.

I take a deep breath, the last breath I will take in my life. And I feel the sun against my skin. For the last time in my life.

3.

2.

1.

The heavy, ripping, searing pain screams through my neck like bright hot fire. The world goes black. But I don't die. I don't die. Or do I die? I don't know.

I feel strange, as if I am filled with a strange, brimming energy. It feels bright and buzzing and so very natural, as if it was meant to be all along. There is no more pain.

The blackness goes away and I find myself staring down at my own beheaded body, gruesome and horrible. I lie limp and ashen, bright red blood pooling all around me. The lord is kneeling beside my remains, and I see him lift my limp hand to his lips.

I close my eyes. And when I open them, I am back in the forest, deep within its depths where no guards can find me. I feel a power within me. A power that I didn't possess before. It flows through me strong and calming and oh-so-very protective, oh-so-very fierce. I feel like a mother moose with calves and antlers and nothing but the feral need for the preservation of the youth. I feel like the river that flows through all the lands, protecting and nourishing them.

I have power now. I have power. And I can use this power to protect the forest. To protect my people.

And so I do. Forever after, I create a protective barrier around the forest, so that no noble may ever gain entry, so that the common people, witch and non-witch alike, can be safe while they are within its protective embrace. Safe to practice magic and to love and gather food find refuge and haven.

I am one with the forest. I am one with the people. And as long as either the forest or the people survive, I will never die. 

Anyways if you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.