Daughters of Le Fey Part 29

This is the story I've been editing. I reached the end of the work in progress and I've had inspiration to continue the story.

Thank you for following me as I edited it. I hope you'll continue to follow as I now enter the writing stage.

The links to the previous episodes are all listed in this Post. Please feel free to catch up there.

All images are from Google Free to use search

On with the story.

---

“I must go, my darling,” Morgana said. “My time with you is limited and though I have enjoyed seeing your development, I fear I have taken up too much of our allotted time and I may not be there for you when you need me.

Katherine nodded, saddened that her mother always had to leave. “Soon, Morgana, Mother. I am determined to defeat Dominic and we shall be together.”

“I do not doubt it,” Morgana said and faded from Katherine’s sight and she sighed.

She knew the demons would torture Dominic for as long as they could but she had no idea of the time constraints of that.

Katherine decided to move back to the world of man. A nagging feeling in the back of her mind would not allow her to rest and as she first turned toward the spirit world, her heart balked and she turned away.

Almost immediately, Katherine knew something had changed. The atmosphere was different, altered and she did not understand what had happened.

A large group of people stood in the centre of a courtyard and their mood was buoyant. Katherine drew closer and it was only when she was on the ground, in amongst the people that she understood.

The mood was not buoyant with joyous celebration, the crowd was there for different reasons.

Standing in the middle of the large cobblestoned area, she could feel terror hidden behind an almost palpable sense of dignity.

Katherine turned around, searching for the sensations. A horse drawing a strange cart appeared and the crowd set up a jeering that hurt Katherine’s mind as well as her heart.

Two people, a man and a woman, stood in the back of the cart. They were filthy, exhausted and terrified, but they stood tall and dignified in the face of the hatred surrounding them.

Rotting vegetables pelted them and half a cabbage, the leaves falling from it even as it sailed through the air, hit the woman in the chest and slimy pieces of the vegetable splattered up her face.

Her nose wrinkled and her mouth turned down in disgust but she slowly wiped the muck from her filthy dress as though it had been an accident.

The crowd closest to her laughed and jeered louder at her discomfort and Katherine saw tears spring to her eyes and her breath caught in her chest when she saw the scaffold.

Katherine saw the structure at the same time and her eyes grew wide as she realised what the platform and the structure meant for the woman and her companion.

The woman began to lose her composure and Katherine went to stand beside her.

“I am here, dear one,” she whispered and the woman looked around, towards the voice she heard.

She looked to her companion and realised that he heard nothing.

“I am frightened,” she said in a whisper.

“Stand strong, my lady,” her companion said.

“I am here,” Katherine said at the same time, and the young woman nodded quietly. Katherine understood she had heard and the whisper gave her companion comfort in the belief that he had at least helped her state of mind.

“Stay with me?” the woman said.

“Even if I could leave you, I would surely not, my lady. We were betrothed and should have been married this day. I shall forever regret that we postponed the wedding, for if we had married when we wanted, rather than when our parents dictated, we should have known each other in our marriage bed. I have let you down, I have failed you,” he said.

“No, you have not failed her and I shall make sure you leave this mortal plane together,” Katherine said and the woman smiled a little at her words, took hold of her fiancé’s hand and held on tight. He gave no sign that he had heard Katherine’s words, but he smiled at his betrothed and grasped her hand tight.

The young couple were manhandled up onto the platform and parted. The jeers of the crowd grew louder and more things were thrown. Rocks and stones among the vegetables found their target more often than the fruit and vegetables and the woman fell to her knees as a rock cut her temple.

Her companion helped her upright, brushing off the gaolers that tried to drag her to her feet.

He helped her with a tenderness and regret that touched Katherine’s heart.

Katherine stayed with the woman as the hooded executioner forced her down to place her neck on the block.

Katherine whispered platitudes and comforting words and she never knew the guillotine had removed her head.

Katherine ensured the new spirit did not see her own body and dismembered head and could not watch as her fiancé suffered the same fate.

When both spirits were reunited, and before they could see the state of their bodies, Katherine escorted them to their spirit world and watched them disappear.