what are you reading

1

From my window I have a view of the courtyard and the pyre the men are building. They are going to burn me tonight - at the stroke of midnight. It will be new moon and the darkness will be complete. I know his plans - to extinguish all candles; to shroud the castle in darkness and when the clock strikes the twelfth hour he will light the pyre and the flames will consume me.

Will I scream? Will I beg for my life? For a quick death? To have my throat cut as I once did for another? All of these questions go through my mind along with the one I cannot answer - if I give into his demands will he release me or will he burn me anyway? I have humiliated him, broken our alliance, and now he seems determined to make me suffer.

And yet, there is the moonstone to consider. Always that - before anything else; before my family; before the man I love; before my desire for freedom. My priority must always be the moonstone - even at the time of my death. The important question is not the loss of my life but how, if I die here tonight in this castle, five days before the appointed hour, how will the moonstone reach the temple in time? If I die now, all of it will have been for nothing.

In one hour the sun will set and with the darkness will come the priestess of the Scorpion Order. She has been waiting for this day too. There are many who wish me dead.