A thousand stars in the sky and yet the only thing that shone tonight was fire.

“Burn him out!” A hundred voices called out in blind fervor, “Burn the traitor hero so another generation can be born!”

The flames continued to burn, fueled by magic and dry timber. An entire forest turned to ash to kill one man.

And yet unbeknownst to the mob their quarry merely waited, back pressed against a dying tree with just enough strength to curse his misfortune.

He was tired. Tired of running and hiding.Tired of every person he passed glaring at him with disdain. Tired of not being able to sleep for days. He chuckled to himself, which would kill him first? The fire or the poison trickling through his veins.

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All this because of one person, her majesty of the solar empire, Queen Solaris the first. The hero killer. Though he was the only one who called her that.

The poisoning wasn’t done through food or wine, he hadn’t eaten anything that passed through another person’s hands. No, she had done it by poisoning the air, the air of an entire town. It wasn’t until people started dropping dead that he realized something was wrong.

And when he fled town she was just waiting for him. Idly sitting on the side of the road, sipping tea. Waving to him as he scurried away, the poison slowly eating away at him.

He would’ve tried to kill her then and there if he had any chance of succeeding, but she had brought friends. One of the greatest swordsmen in the entire kingdom, who now sat across from him, watching him die.

There was no hope of escaping or surviving, and frankly, he didn’t want to. At some point, he had given up trying to win.

All he could do now was curse her majesty’s name, and hope that The Goddess that brought him here was still listening.