Cevin

The cell door opened and Cevin tilted her head lazily to watch as two guards pushed a man to the floor before slamming the door shut and turning the lock. The man tried to scramble to his feet in time but the echoing of the guard's footsteps could be heard by the time he was able to. She watched as he threw himself at the bars and pressed his face against it. "I demand to see your leader!" he shouted, hitting the bars. "Dammit, come back here!"

"It's no use," she piped up, drawing his attention away from the bars. "If you've been put in this cell, it means you're scheduled for death."

He looked at her distastefully. "How do you know that?"

She gave him a wide smile. "If we're sharing secrets already, I need one first."

The man curled his lip at her before turning back to the bars and calling out. She shrugged and shifted on the mattress, lacing her hands behind her head. A new crack had appeared in the ceiling since the last time she had been in this cell. She wondered whether the guards knew that their prison's structure was beginning to crumble ever-so slightly.

It took a while before the man drew himself away from the bars. He was lucky the execution cell was isolated from the other prisoner cells otherwise he might have already had a dagger in his throat. He reluctantly threw himself down at the bottom of her feet and put his back against the wall, bowing his head. The way he was pitying himself irritated her.

"What're you in for?" she asked. Anything was better than having to spend until dawn with a self-pitying man. When he didn't respond she looked back at the ceiling. "I killed the Chancellor's daughter."

That gained his attention. "I've heard of you, though they say you're a man."

She gave a laugh. "Of course they do. Crediting a woman means they matter."

"How did you do it?"

Cevin sat up and faced the man. "Like I said, if we're trading secrets, I need one first."

He raised an eyebrow. "How is that a secret?"

"You'll find out if you tell me one," she quipped.

They regarded each other for a moment. It was then that she realised where she had seen him from. The man before her was Perceval Selles, half brother to the Emperor. His face had been etched onto thousands of leaflets, each offering more gold than most could imagine for his alive capture and return. Once she had toyed with possibly taking up that task but had turned it down because his crimes were uninteresting.

"Perhaps if I introduce myself you'll be more likely," she mused, giving him a teasing smile. "My name is Cevin, no father, no family name. I don't suppose you're familiar with Whittlena, but we are very familiar with you, Perceval."

He suddenly looked at her with suspicion before he rose to his feet. "I have heard of Whittlena," he spat, backing over to the other side of the room. "You belong in this cell then."

"Evidently, so do you," she replied coolly, rising to her feet. "But let's not split hairs. Tell me a secret and I'll tell you mine. It is in your best interest to tell me one."

Perceval looked towards the bars of the cell before looking back at her. "Bartel is not my half brother."

That surprised her. She was expecting a minor secret, such as he had a secret family, or even that he had broken one of the many rules the Chancellor enforces on behalf of the Emperor. However, this information was far more valuable. "So he is not the true Emperor," she deduced.

He nodded. "Not that it matters. I don't want to be Emperor and he takes to it with ease. We just don't share the same father we once thought we did."

"Very good," she muttered, stepping off the mattress and going over to the bars. She pressed her forehead against them and checked to see whether they were alone. The dank corridors were isolated and she couldn't even see a guard standing this side of the door. She turned back to him. "This isn't the first time I have been held in this cell. I don't think it will be my last, either."

He scoffed. "That's your secret?"

"Had you let me finish, I would have said that the very first time I became acquainted with this particular cell was during the Ice War."

Perceval moved to sit on the mattress but stopped at her words. "Impossible!" he exclaimed. "The Ice War occurred over--"

"Two hundred years ago," she finished. "Although I distinctly remember the Queen's execution occurring before its conclusion rather than after. Her nephew gave the order and then became the first Emperor. If I'm honest, her death was the catalyst to the fall of your precious land."

"Lies!" he cried, disbelief clouding his features. "Not that anything more can be expected from someone who is native to Whittlena."

She clenched her fist and turned away from him. Anger would get her nowhere. It just clouded her judgement and led to situations like her current one. Had she refrained from killing those extra guards, she wouldn't be currently awaiting execution. Her desire to kill one thousand people had once again placed her in a damning position.

They remained opposite ends of the cell for a long stretch of time. Guards had come at two different times, the first to remove Perceval's boots and knives and the second to place the long robes that they were required to wear for their executions. She noted that his face paled when they were given the robes but he stubbornly refused to look at her. It was then that she realised that he had never experienced death before. If her knowledge of Magriv was correct, his mother and father were both still alive. Now that she knew he bore no relation to Bartel, he had become an only child and had probably never expected to die before his own father.

"If you could fulfil any one action, what would it be?" she said, breaking the tense silence.

"I'm in no mood for your Whittlena tricks."

"Is there someone you would like killed? A leader toppled? A woman told of your death?" she pressed, picking up the robe she had dumped at her feet.

A moment of silence passed between them as she picked at her execution robe. Perceval looked at his that had been tossed into the corner before he turned his gaze back onto her. "I would kill Bartel."

She pondered his words for a moment. The Emperor was far more guarded than a Chancellor's daughter would be, and after the girl had been executed, there were ought to be more guards employed. However, she sat in an execution cell and was only hours away from facing death so surely once they witnessed her death the guards would be reduced? That made the most sense in her mind. In Magriv, death was the only permanent thing.

"If I said that a Whittlena trick could allow me to fulfil your wish, would you want me to?"

He gave a bitter laugh. "Not even Whittlena can rescue you from death."

Instead of replying, she bent down and pushed up her trouser leg. "Do you see this brand? I received that from a desert tribe after they discovered my corpse within their boundaries and had prepared me for a burial ritual," she said, pointing at the mark of a broken bone. She then stood and dropped her robe before pulling up her tunic to reveal her ribs. "These stab marks came from a particularly cruel Baron I seduced. When he discovered that the poison he had slipped into my drink did not work, he was certain I was the prophetic demon that was foretold to bring his death. I died when the second knife punctured my ribs but revived just before he entered the room with an undertaker. The rest were his attempts to finalise my death but in the end I managed to fool him into believing I was dead and slitting his throat the moment I was released from my bonds."

Perceval had come closer as she had told her story, bending his head to peer at her ribs. "Impossible," he whispered, sweeping his eyes over the ten scars that littered her body. "No one can survive all those wounds."

"I can," she said, dropping her tunic. "My very first death occurred in another land. My village was burnt to the ground and I died from smoke inhalation. After that I somehow discovered Whittlena and found a place to keep as home throughout my prolonged life."

"So when we leave this cell--" he begun before stopping, unsure how to phrase it.

She continued for him. "I will swing from the noose and my pulse will stop. They will cut me down, put my body in the wagon with yours and take us to the gravesite to await a gravedigger. My pulse will start again while in the wagon and I will escape. They will think my body was taken by snatchers for organs and the Chancellor's daughter's killer will be dead."

His expression still held disbelief but she could see him beginning to process her words. In the distance the bell that signalled dawn began to chime. For a moment it appeared that Perceval had not heard it but Cevin noticed how his jaw tightened and lips began to tremble slightly.

"It doesn't hurt that much," she said softly. "When the floor disappears you have a brief moment of panic, a brief moment of pain in anticipation, but you fall unconscious before you die."

"How many times have you died?" he snapped, his fear betraying him.

"Many times," she confessed. "This will be my twentieth time by noose."

He snorted and stood by his robe. "And there's no way out of this cell?"

She shook her head. "None that will work. But I must know, before the guards come for us, would you like your wish fulfilled?"

"Yes," he said without skipping a beat.

They remained in silence until the guards came to retrieve them. On went their robes and the hoods were yanked over their faces as their wrists went in manacles. It would have been foolish to attempt to run whilst on the way to their execution but she presumed some had done so in desperation. Death did not suit everyone.

It was windy as they were brought to the platform where the nooses waited for them. They were individually uncuffed and a noose was placed around their neck. Once the guards had positioned them both, they left and Cevin sensed Perceval to her right. "You never told me what your crime was," she said softly.

"In the name of the Emperor, you are sentenced to death," the executioner announced, his words carrying with the wind.

She shook her head and managed to catch a glimpse of her fellow prisoner before her hood fell back over her eyes. His head was bowed towards the ground and his shoulders were slouched over in defeat. Just as she had given up on receiving an answer, he spoke. "I killed my mother."

The platform suddenly gave out beneath their feet and their bodies swung heavily in the air.

When the bell for six in the morning began to chime, their bodies were being thrown onto a wagon. As it was being pulled towards the gravesite, the number on the sole of her foot slowly morphed from three digits down to two. By the time the wagon had reached the gravedigger, Cevin was alive once more.