Chapter 245: I Could Rule Then
"You see who brought this upon you. Your homes, your children, turned to ash because of his stubborn pride. Because he refused to hand over the witches. If he had given up on witch sisters, we could have saved our lives."
She pointed at Rhistel with a trembling but resolute hand. "He protected them! He hid them! All while we begged him to protect us. And now look. LOOK what it has brought on us." the villagers looked around with burning rage, there was no sign of the village anymore. They could not even recognize their own houses.
The villagers’ states shifted, their grief twisting into fury. A woman sobbed, clutching the charred remains of a child’s toy. A man’s fists clenched around a blackened pitchfork.
"I fought for you!" Rhistel shouted, his voice hoarse from smoke and desperation. "If I had sided with witches, they would not have attacked me. But you all saw, I have saved a few of you while taking their attacks on myself."
But they weren’t listening.
"You protected the witches instead of protecting us!" one man cried.
"You promised safety but brought ruin!" another roared.
Evelyn stepped into the center of them. "It is not too late," she said with cold conviction. "Give us Olivia. Give us Oriana. The ones who brought this curse. As long as we sacrifice them, we can still survive or the witches will return. And this time, they would be worse." The thought removed even the knights who were still trying to find survivors under the debris and broken stones.
Hands grabbed Rhistel, dragged him forward. He didn’t resist. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, the very people he had sworn to protect now dragging him toward the smoldering wreckage of what had once been their home.