𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲'𝐬 𝐇𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 || 敵の旦那様 (𝐁𝐋) ✔ [COMPLETE]

66. Dancing Flames

Through the bleak darkness, he felt a faint light cast on him.

General Haoran woke up to the cold, ashen floor of the cellar and blinked. In his wake, he snuffed a thick layer of dust, settled on the iron bars and began coughing; a dry, painful cough. As he raised his hands to prevent the cough from escaping his lips, he yanked the massive chunk of iron handcuffs and chains that bound him, pulling a muscle in the process. Eyes slightly adjusting to the light, he looked towards the iron bars and asked,

"Is it food?"

The dungeon guard outside jerked awake by his voice and answered, "No... Gen–uh...Prisoner convicted under the 24th law. You've been summoned for the execution trial." The guard still couldn't get over the address of the Imperial General as a prisoner under the law of treachery and felt a wave of awkwardness overtake him every time he was supposed to converse with the former General.

"So it's... time."

The General wasn't all that shocked. He knew it would come to this eventually. He stood seated, waiting for the guard to unbind him from the floor shackles that were attached to his handcuffs. When it was over, he began walking behind the guard as he led the way with the General's hands behind him.

What actually shocked was his Emperor's decision to cure him despite instigating something abominably atrocious as what he did on the battlefield. When he woke up, he found himself on pins and needles of acupuncture, with a well-adorned blanket atop him. There were thick wards of clothes stained with blood strewn across the floors; probably to stop the excessive blood loss by absorption and clogging, and he was completely wrapped in a sheath of medicinal salve. The physicians had managed to save his damned life.

His first course of action when he opened his eyes was to forbid the three lieutenants from visiting him–if the accursed politicians of Blazing Sun caught whiff of three significant military heads in close association with a traitor, it could end up jeopardising them. However, it was then that they revealed the Emperor himself ordered his treatment away from the eyes and ears of other courtiers. Besides, the trio were all from the primary elite family cluster of the Blazing Sun and if need be, nobody would have an easier time denying accusations than them because of their powerful political backing.

Despite ordering his cure, the Emperor never once visited him in his recuperation. And right after a week of slow healing, when he finally found his ability to speak and found himself able to move around a bit, prison guards broke into the quarters he was in and dragged him to the underground dungeons. He had been in the cellars a week, eating cold gruel and drinking whatever they gave him and contemplating what the Emperor wanted from him.

The creak of another door opening resonated through the dungeon caves.

As he stepped out, Haoran finally felt the pleasant bask of warmth and the first real burst of daylight in weeks. His eyes and lashes coated in dust and grime took the scenery before him. The stake was painted red with the words 'atonement' where offenders were burnt alive as a capital punishment, the side podiums where people and elite gawked at him disgusted and finally the throne, where the Emperor stood waiting for him.

The Execution hall of Blazing Sun.

The Emperor's penetrating gaze bored into his own and he returned the gaze for a split second, stunned. Then he slowly dropped his eyes to the floor.

Whatever his emperor wanted from him–he could no longer provide it. What he wanted was one thing and one thing only.

"Kneel!" When Emperor Guang's voice erupted like a heated blade cutting marble, two soldiers immediately took to his side. The soldiers hesitated, touching him until General Haoran approved with his eyes to go ahead. They pushed him down with fallen faces and pressed their swords against his neck as he knelt.

"Tsk," Emperor Guang watched the exchange with ground teeth. This was why... this was why he couldn't do anything...

"What do you have to say for yourself, you self-proclaimed repugnant human garbage? And for your existence as an abhorrent disease to the whole of this country?"

Haoran replied hoarsely, "None My lord. I am everything you've described and more. I admit to all that I have done."

"Your misdeed was the culmination of devilry and cannot be atoned for in this lifetime," Emperor Guang continued, carefully ruminating his words, "However you are but the subject and I am but the Emperor; the perfection that I am is not to be expected of every lousy soul out there. Hence, I shall be the benevolent one and grant you amnesty. For the only admittance of your misdeed is but your own testament and there is no other evidence. The Blazing Sun army attested to not having witnessed anything and if you deny the accusation, I shall grant you mercy and end this insanity."

General Haoran's lips quivered, "No, my liege. I committed the said devilry and I neither regret it. In fact, if need be... I shall not hesitate to do this again."

"Haoran!!"

The Emperor's enraged voice sprung across the humid air, "Do you really not regret what you did and take back your statement of self-criminalisation?"

"I do not, Your Majesty." He said softly, "I never will."

"Fine," The Emperor snarled, "as they say, not even death shall bend over the stubborn. I am the Emperor, after all. I grant everything to my subjects indiscriminately. Even if it is death."

The Emperor stood up, "I shall hereby declare the subject Zhou Haoran of the Blazing Sun Empire, a formal outlaw convicted under the divine power of the monarchical resplendence. Thus, in accordance with the practice of capital punishment relevant to all forms of treachery within the supreme Empire of Blazing Sun, I order his death by cremation to be burnt alive."

General Haoran wordlessly walked over to the stake where he was tied to it by ropes. He felt the friction of robes biting into his skin first and secondly, the pungent smell of lamp oil sprayed upon him. He closed his eyes as a torch with furious and lecherously dancing flames neared his drenched skin. He felt a boiling, heat mangled pain erupt from his body. His eyes twitched open in undisguised ache and immediately widened.

There, standing before the hall gates, was the one person in this world he didn't want to meet right now.

* * * * * 

ლ(¯ロ¯"ლ) First up, I apologize for getting late about the updates. I just realized that the last update was a month ago, like WHAT??! 

<(_ _)> *Bowing down* I'll try to make the next update quick. Cheers!