She moved through the halls like a ghost, sliding in and out of the shadows as her feet padded silently along the plush carpet. The tall marble walls of the palace were decorated with paintings of past royals who had previously occupied the grand building over the centuries, but illuminated by only the faint moonlight they seemed more frightening than beautiful. The paintings only furled her rage.

As she neared the large wooden doors, she reached over her shoulder to grab an arrow from her quiver and raised her bow. Both guards were dead in seconds. She slid the dagger from her boot, burying the last of her nerves with determination to finish the job, before throwing open the large doors. The king didn’t even stir - for all she knew, he could already be dead. She approached his bed and slowly placed the blade to his throat.

The cold metal on his skin caused his eyes to fly open in shock. She delighted in watching the king so helpless to stop his impending death, savoured the look of panic and fear on his face. She took in every detail, imprinting the moment into her memory, and slit his throat.

She smiled to herself, watching the crimson pour from the long cut on the king’s neck as he spluttered and coughed up blood. She watched him die and the last thing he saw was her manic smile.

She carefully placed the dagger in his still- warm hand, soaked with his own blood, and made her way out onto the balcony. She smiled up at the stars and they smiled back down on her. Her family was up there somewhere, watching as she avenged their deaths. She sat on the wall around the edge of the balcony, legs dangling impossibly high over the ground far below. She glanced up at the sky and spoke the words engraved onto the dagger’s blade:

“You take life, death takes you.”

She took one final breath of this broken kingdom’s air, and threw herself from the balcony.