Daxon couldn't find the right words to reply. The thought of being so unlucky kept roaming his skull like a restless specter. Not that he wished himself dead—far from it—but why, in all infernal timing, did his punishment have to be worse? The rest were simply beheaded.
He, however, if he failed, would be punished by a method God alone knew. Like the Queen had said: be-dicked alive. Just imagining it made his gut clench. He would not, God forbid learn what it felt like to have his manhood chopped off while still conscious. That would never be his portion.
"Go and prepare him for the ceremony," the Queen ordered, her voice as cold and remote as Antarctica, the kind of coldness that is hard to bend and impossible to thaw. Once she gave an order it stood like stone; no amount of pleading could chip it away.
The guards dragged Daxon out of the room.
…
