At the limit

Alexis felt something die inside herself over the stretch of the gauntlet.

Had she really thought things could be better over the ocean?
Naive.
Stupid.
Clearly, they could be even worse.
Good to know.

She didn’t even know who to hate most at the moment.

The Duke, Zane and the keep as representative of authority for throwing these people to the wolves? Yes, they had likely turned a blind eye to the cult. But why should they help an establishment that so nonchalantly discarded them? Seeing this it was easy to believe. Apparently spitting in front of a knight was enough reason to have an old woman walk the gallows.

Was it the crowd she despised, a mob of rabid dogs, merrily ripping apart people that had been their neighbours, their peers, their friends, no question asked, no second guessing? Just as if not more savage than the cult had shown to be, and it was all good, because, hey, it was officially sanctioned?

Or was it herself, for even being part of this, unwilling as she might be?

She wanted to scream. She wanted to go over to the prisoners and cut their throats herself, just be done with it swift and clean. Even if each and everyone of them was, in fact, a murderer, which very, very likely none of them were… what was happening here was just repulsive.

As it was all she could do was not letting any of the bloodthirsty crowd get to them on the stretch where she was stationed. Too little, too late. But she absolutely refused to let them. Didn’t matter if she got hurt instead. Didn’t matter how many stones and how much spit and whatever she got struck with. If that was the only courtesy she could give them, she would.

Then she would stay and watch them get hanged, because she owed them as much.

And then she would have a long hard think about what she was going to do with herself moving forward.
Because as things were, serving a regime that would conduct such a despicable spectacle to protect itself was not going to be it.