Chapter 64 A Queen Among Tides: Chapter Sixty-Four - Lemuel

Chapter 64 A Queen Among Tides: Chapter Sixty-Four - Lemuel
“I believe you meant to say ‘Queen’. I understand the mistake, it’s the simple misplacing of one letter, but let’s just say you really were choosing to call me ‘queer’. What makes you think that’s an insult to me? I’m very happily queer and I have been so for a very long time. Not to mention, this ‘queer’ has your life in his hands. So does that one there,” I say bobbing my head in Sebastian’s direction. “You’re standing here about to face a very serious sentence because you chose to be a dumbass, and instead of attempting to make it easier for yourself, you make it worse. Yet that seemed like a good idea to you, but that’s not what makes you an idiot. What makes you an idiot is that you’ve served as a guard for… how many years?”

“Fifty-three,” answers Eisa.

“Fifty-three. Wow. At no point over the last half a century has your current King – then Prince – alluded to being straight. He has been very openly gay. That means you swore an oath to a royal family, including a Prince who was openly something you hated, with the full knowledge that one day that gay Prince would be a gay King, and still you chose to take that oath. So, when you say you didn’t ‘swear shit to a bunch of fags’, yeah, you actually did, and that makes you an idiot,” I say stepping back.

I watch Zale’s sunken, bruised and beaten face somehow turn red with rage, and I’m sure he would love to take a few swings at me, but I don’t see that happening.

“You’re so sexy when you show off your brain like that,” comes Sebastian’s aroused voice in my mind. I suppress the urge to roll my eyes. I swear sex lives on this man’s mind.

“If there are no more interruptions from the peanut gallery, we shall continue. Those of you who were found to have committed treason against the kingdom are sentenced to a hundred years in prison with the possibility of parole. As for you, Zale and Tobias, your crimes were far more severe. You each played a part in the abduction and imprisonment of my animai and your current Queen. If you think there’s any chance of me giving you a light sentence for the agonising pain you put him through and in turn me, you’ve got another thing coming. I sentence you both to life in prison. You can spend your very long life thinking over your actions, or in your case Zale, probably fantasizing how you should have just killed us both, but go ahead, it changes nothing,” Sebastian shrugs.

Sebastian casually walks in front of Circe, contempt filling his features and piercing his soul.

“You, on the other hand, will not be so lucky.”

“Your Majesty, wait!” Shouts a man from the crowd as he rushes forward falling to his knees. Tears fill his eyes, and he looks as though he hasn’t slept in years. “King Sebastian, I beg of you to show mercy on my daughter. She made a mistake. That shouldn’t cost her, her life,” the man pleads. I glance over at Sebastian who has gone from enraged to full-blown furious and I don’t blame him.

“Mistake? Did you really just say she made a mistake?” Sebastian says through gritted teeth, walking over to the broken man. “Accidentally using salt instead of sugar when baking, that’s a mistake. Slipping on the gas when you mean to hit the brakes; those are mistakes. Your daughter actively and intentionally harassed me for nearly a century. Lied and deceived the former King and Queen.” Haemon and Callista both look sick with guilt over that comment. “Conspired with a known criminal. Organised a coup. Endangered the kingdom. Brutally murdered two people. Abducted and tortured my animai! And you dare try to say she ‘made a mistake’! Kostas, I know she is your only daughter and you’re just trying to protect her, but there is no excuse for her actions. You know the law, and this is the punishment for breaking it. Now I don’t expect you to stay here and watch what’s about to happen, but it will happen. I will not let these crimes go unpunished, especially not regarding someone as dangerous as she is.”

With a nod of his head, the guards gently grab Kostas and drag him back into the crowd. They give him the option to leave, but he chooses to stay. A father till the very end.

Sebastian takes a breath and walks back over to Circe, and while there is no part of me that doesn’t believe she deserves this, I feel for her father. No father should have to watch their child die.

“As I said, there is no excuse for your crimes. You took lives and endangered every person in this kingdom for your own selfish gain, and if you were ever set free, I am sure you’d find some way to enact your revenge as if you even have a right to revenge,” he says with utter vitriol in his voice.

Circe keeps her head down and doesn’t say a word. I’m not sure if it’s because she doesn’t want to or because she’s been so badly beaten she physically can’t, either way, I’m glad I don’t have to hear her voice one final time.

“Naturally, what you put my animai through is something I will never forget, but you know what pains me most? What you did to Cole and Andromeda,” he says with a quiver in his voice.

The energy of the crowd shifts from anger and disgust to sadness. Even tears pool in Eisa’s eyes, and it’s only now that I recognise Cole and Andromeda’s families in the crowd. Of course, they’d be here.

“Lemuel once said there’s no honour in death, and I tried to tell myself that they died doing what they loved most – serving their kingdom. They were so passionate and loyal, and incredible warriors, and I want to believe there was honour in their deaths… but what honour is there in dying at the hands of someone like you? Their deaths were pointless and that’s what kills me. I think, maybe if there was some greater meaning, or if their deaths accomplished something, then maybe it would help their families and even me, to heal, but there’s not. Even if you got past them, my father would have stopped you and we both know you’d have never given up your little act in front of him. My friends… two incredible lives were snuffed out and nothing was gained from it. All we got is pain and heartache,” says Sebastian, stepping back as he does his best to hold the tears at bay. “I, King Sebastian Balaskas, hereby sentence you, Circe Sarkis to death for your crimes.”

Sebastian walks over to the water’s edge, his eyes glowing fiercely with that ring of cobalt as he dips his hand into the water. I feel his magic surge inside him like a large jolt of energy, but I watch on unsure of what he’s doing exactly. It’s made clear when a large fin comes out of the water and approaches the stone peer. I take in a deep anxious breath as a huge Great White Shark sticks its head out of the water right where Sebastian’s hand is, but instead of attacking him, it just bobs there and lets Sebastian pats its nose.

“Hey girl, I know people aren’t appetising, but I hope you can make an exception,” he whispers as the shark goes back under the water and proceeds to calmly swim back and forth along the peer.

Sebastian stands up and nods to the guards. Two guards drag Circe over to the water’s edge and I see her body start to shake.

“P…Please. P…Please don’t do this,” she weakly begs.

“You should know better than anyone that begging does nothing,” he says, nodding to a couple more guards.

Two more guards walk over, each carrying a large bucket of blood, my mind instantly transporting back to that film Carrie.

“Why the blood?” I ask Sebastian privately.

He walks over to me and stands at my side, “It’s fish blood. Sharks aren’t as attracted to human or human-like blood as people think. They’ll go to it out of sheer curiosity, but it doesn’t appeal to them. Fish blood, on the other hand, they go into a frenzy over. We’re just enticing them.”

Without a moment’s notice, the guards remove Circe’s cuffs, while the other guards dump both buckets of blood on her head as she shrieks and attempts to shield herself from the bloody onslaught. The guards then proceed to grab her and throw her as far as they can into the open water where she crashes through the surface.

Circe breaks through the surface gasping for air, her arms flailing and thrashing around trying to keep herself above water. Her instincts are trying to stop her from drowning, since thanks to the cobalt cuffs and who knows what else was done to her, she’s now as good as human in that water. But it’s her thrashing and flailing that will make her all the more appealing.

It takes no time at all for Scylla to turn and swim fast in Circe’s direction.

“No! Sebastian, please! I’m sorry! Don’t do this, NO!” She screams, trying to get away as Scylla swims at her with impeccable speed, and almost too fast to catch, ensnares Circe in her sharp jaws.

Circe’s gargled screams fill the air, but Sebastian and I refuse to look away. We’re the King and Queen, we have to set an example. We both agreed to this execution, so we have to see it through. You can’t sentence someone to death and then look away because it’s convenient. If you choose to take a life, then you have to see the choices you’ve made.

Scylla shakes Circe’s body like a rag doll, ripping through her as the water around them begins to be tinted with her blood. Quickly in the distance I see the fins of more sharks fast approaching having no doubt detected the smell of fish blood. Dozens of them rush over and each one begins fighting for a piece of Circe.

What probably took minutes, felt like hours as Circe’s screams eventually come to an end. The sharks continue to swim and thrash around, but we can no longer see Circe… well, not her in one piece. The sharks continue to fight over her remains when the sound of vomiting makes its way over to us. We look over to see Kostas bent over a bush unable to take witnessing his daughter’s brutal demise, and I don’t blame him.

I take Sebastian’s hand in mine and look one more time at the ravenous swarm of sharks who just removed one more problem from our lives. Perhaps I should feel guilt, or disgust, or something, but just like Sebastian, all I feel right now is relief. Relief in knowing that the one person who tried to hurt us the most is finally out of our lives. We can officially put this nightmare behind us and start fresh, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.