If he could go back, relive every moment he'd been beaten down, broken in body or spirit, every moment he'd been tortured, just to stop this there'd be no question. Something has pinned him down, cut him open in a clean slice, and then gone to carve out his insides slow. Digging and scraping and clawing and he can't scream, there's no torturer to beg to.

He ain't know if he imagines it, the way her words wind around him, lifting him. Choking him. A beautiful noose, the most perfect of punishment. Justice for all his sins.

He does not die with dignity. He does not die with grace. It's a slow drawn out death, one that will go for two thousand years and two thousand more, dragging on, until the final mercy ain't even fucking noticed no more.

This is how he pays; weeping for his rebel matesprit, dead and gone from him in the break of war. At least he'd had the mercy of hiring and executioner. What's he to do? What's he to do but be that motherfucking executioner...