The Great Market reeks fish, sweat, dust, and tension thick enough to choke on.
Elsbeth stands on stacked crates, trembling.
Luan and Leonard flank her below like two stubborn shadows holding back a tide that wants to swallow them.
Her very first word fractures.
"People of Liveria…"
A tomato explodes against the wood near her feet.
Another bursts against her shoulder, red running down her collarbone like a second throat cut.
Laughter swells sharp, delighted, cruel.
Her voice wobbles but refuses to die.
"I was locked away because I simply stood for someone who was suffering."
She points at Luan with a shaking hand.
"Look at him.
Look at what we've made into a carnival trick.
Not just the king you did too."
A slimy fish head slaps her cheek. She doesn't wipe it away.
She just lets it hang, proof.
"You call me cursed because my mother died bringing me into the world.
You call him a demon because he can't die his immortality is not a demonic trait, but a curse imposed by the heavens and the gods.
You call us monsters so you never have to look at yourselves."
Her voice cracks like splitting bone.
"My mother died, and my father took the crown.
But tell me what has he done for any of you?"
Silence, then fidgeting a thousand people pretending they don't hear.
She gestures wildly across the market, tears streaking her face.
"Nothing.
He fattens nobles while your children starve.
He builds walls to keep you out, not enemies.
He hangs a man who cannot die and calls it justice and you…"
Her voice shatters.
"…you cheer.
You teach your sons to call this spectacle 'justice.'
You teach your daughters that silence is the cost of survival.
You hand your own children over to the ruin, and name the rot tradition."
A man jeers, "Witch! Shut your mouth!"
Elsbeth laughs wet, furious, heartbreak wearing teeth.
"Yes. Shout louder.
It's easier than hearing the truth."
Fruit flies. Rot splatters. Leonard tenses. She meets his eyes don't and he stays his hand.
She spreads her arms wide, filth and tears streaking down.
"Look at me.
I am shaking. I am crying. I am terrified.
And still I am here.
Because someone has to say it plainly:
This kingdom is rotten and the king did not rot it alone.
You helped him.
Every cheer.
Every turned back.
Every whisper of 'cursed' you breathed into your children's ears at night.
That was your spade in the dirt.
The crowd's noise falters not belief just stunned offense.
She is sobbing openly now, voice scraped raw.
Luan climbs the crates to her level.
He takes her hand.
White flames erupts skin cracking, blood hissing, smoke curling upward.
His knees nearly buckle; the painted smile twists into silent agony but he holds on.
Elsbeth smells flesh burning his flesh because of her.
Something inside her breaks, then reforges itself into steel.
She raises their joined hands high, flames licking the sky.
Her voice becomes fire ragged, blazing.
"Imagine it was your child burning so a princess could speak.
Imagine your child, cursed by the gods to never truly die, who is nevertheless sentenced to suffer death a thousand times because an embarrassed king calls the unending agony 'justice.'
Would you still throw fruits?
Would you still call it justice?"
The crowd shifts uneasy, angry, guilty just for a heartbeat.
The next words are a child's plea wrapped in a queen's fury.
"I was born your princess.
He buried me.
And you helped dig the grave.
Please…
stop digging ."
Silence ripples not acceptance, not yet, but something frightened.
Something thinking.
Then someone spits.
A woman scoffs and turns her back.
The market swallows the moment whole.
Elsbeth steps down, still gripping Luan's burning hand.
He leans into her, blood slipping between their fingers, smoke trailing behind them.
Leonard moves to her other side, voice thick.
"It's enough, my lady. You don't owe these idiots anything."
She almost collapses, but they guide her forward.
A tiny hand catches her sleeve.
A barefoot girl, ribs showing through her torn dress, holds out a crushed daisy.
"You're brave," she whispers.
"When I grow up, I want to be a princess who isn't afraid to cry."
Before anything can be said, the child disappears into the throng faster than hope ever stays.
Elsbeth closes her fist around the broken flower until its sharp stem draws blood.
One drop.
One believer.
She looks at Luan at the ruin of his hand still smoking, at the love that will not let him fall and nods."
Three figures begin the long climb up the palace road.
Elsbeth in front, daisy tucked behind her ear like a battle flag made of wilted hope.
Luan beside her, blood dripping from the hand that still refuses to let go.
Leonard at their back, dagger drawn, grinning like a man who has already accepted he might die today.
Behind them, the Great Market turns away and pretends it never heard a princess weep.
Ahead, the palace gates gleam gold in the last light, already beginning to close.
Four against a kingdom.