At sunset, death came to her in the form of a man.
She took a deep breath and let it go, savoring the crisp evening air one last time. Preparing for the final blow that would usher her in to the realm beyond the living.
But it never came.
She wanted to scream in despair, at the unfairness the fates had cast upon her.
Let me pass, she begged the cauldron, let me die with my people if I cannot defend them.
Yet the gods seemed to hold her in no favor, as death hadn't claimed her yet. Nor would it anytime soon she suspected.
She had hoped the man would make it quick, surely death would be a mercy compared to the agony her body had been subjected to.
But as he drew close enough for her eyes to adjust, she noted not a single of the numerous holsters attached to his armor held its weapon. As though each had been lost on the battlefield beyond the iron doors of the castle.
She choked on a sob, the noise echoing off the cold stone structure that had, until that morning, served as her haven. Her refuge.
How quickly those comforts had been swept right out from under her.
In a blink of an eye, her world had been stolen from her.
A mother, a father. Both slaughtered mercilessly before her very eyes. That hadn't been enough for the enemy.
It never was in these cases.
Before she could utter a command at her guards to apprehend the murderer, the enemy forces had infiltrated the throne room, slaughtering all those that had gathered there. Taking their time as they rounded up the few remaining staff and guards that had managed to fight back with what little magic or weapons they had on such short notice.
I have failed.
It was all she could think as bile rose in her throat in disgust, gasps of air burning through her nose as she flailed against the cold marble floor. She couldn't move, not with the searing pain in her back, the broken limbs and stab wounds too much to bear.
And there it was, that feeling again. A deep shudder within. The shaking quickly became an unbearable pressure in her chest, furthering the spillage of her blood onto the marble floors as her heart rate increased to an impossible speed.
As though the world around her shook, not just in her mind, but all that surrounded them began to collapse as ancient stone crumbled under such power.
So it wasn't just her imagination, she managed to realize. Not a dream after all, but a doom brought about by her own mind. Her last ditch effort to end this. To bring an end to the suffering of her people before she passed.
It was real, as real as the dark figure that now stood before her. The man was a blur of movement as he dodged the rubble of the ancient castle that rained down from above. The vaulted cupola of the throne room was no more, the intricately painted fresco that had made the endless days of her childhood stowed away at her father's feet in this very room once bearable was now ashes in her wake.
She could just barely hear the shout of her name above the sound of stone striking stone, the man telling her to hang on.
A bitter, painful laugh rattled her lungs at his words. Didn't he see that was the last thing she wanted to do?
Let me die with my failures. She wanted to scream at him, but breathing suddenly became hard for her, the falling rubble no longer the only reason her body seemed to spasm. She'd remembered what her tutors had said about the final moments before death claimed a body, how each system of organs would shut down.
This was it. At last.
The whisper of shadows curling around her crumpled body was the last she remembered before the world around her bled into darkness, consuming her whole.