“Duchess Julia Raventós, for your crimes against the Vildimir Empire and the Divine Lady herself, you will be executed by beheading,” Prince Laurence shouted, his voice boomed within the halls of the palace, his hands tightly clutched the sword at his side.

The woman at whom he was shouting had her head down, a deafening silence had taken over the room. Until a small giggle was heard from the woman. “Hahaha, HAHAHAHAHA!!” Everyone took a step back in fear. “You think I am the only one to blame here Laurence! You were the one to cause all of this! You had taken all I loved away from me! My brother, my maids, my friends, and my dignity as a duchess, it were all stolen by you!!” She screamed.

In anger, Laurence ran up to her, forcefully grabbing her face with all his strength. “If I am not mistaken here, you were the one to bring about a holy war to damn all of us here!”

“And you have done everything to deserve it Laurence!” Julia spits on his face.

Laurence slaps her across the face, bringing her to her knees. “I place a curse on you and your good for nothing name you vile snake!”

Serafina steps down from her chair and rushes to Laurence, “Darling, please have some mercy on her. She has suffered enough, please.”

Julia slowly manages to stand up, “I don’t want your sympathy you bitch! You have done nothing but ruin my life the moment you arrived!!” She lunged forward, “JUST DIE!”

Julia lunged at Serafina with the intent to kill. But she quickly stopped in her tracks with the sound of a sword swinging. In an instant, Julia had met her end with a sword in her heart, just like her brother. She fell to the floor in pain, tears streaming down her face. “I curse all of you, like how you had done to me…….” Were the final words to escape her mouth…

Then a knock at the door interrupted the novel's final words, “Hey Beth, oh you’re readin that book again?” A nurse walks into the small hospital room.

Beth closes the book and places it on her lap, “Good evening Dee, you are working the night shift today?” She asks innocently.

“Yep, I thought I’d take care of you before the surgery,” Dee smiles.

“Thank you, and yes I am rereading this book. I love it too much, and if the surgery goes wrong I’d rather had read the same book I love than a new novel I don’t like. Besides, it was only the last few pages.”

“You mean the part where Laurence kills poor Julia?”

Beth’s eyes light up, “You finally read it!” The heart monitor connected to her began to beep rapidly.

Dee giggles a little bit as Beth slinks back down into her bed. “Hey, hey calm down darling; we don’t need you having a heart attack before your surgery,” Dee looked at Beth’s chart one more time before she pulled a nearby stool to sit on. “Now then, yes I did read, but I did have a hard time finding my own copy. That book is really hard to come by, I couldn’t find it anywhere online. Luck for me, my dad had another copy in his basement, same place where I found yours and the fan books.” 

“Weird, I never gave it much thought since I never thought to look it up on the internet.”

“I think you were too wrapped in the novel’s plot to care,” Dee teased.

“Or, the novel didn’t do well and had a very limited run and somehow got in the hands of your family.”

That is a mystery for another time, back to our book club. I agree with you. I feel so bad for Julia. Serafina wanted to help her, but she was too far gone to accept it.

“I think that was the point, her death still makes me sad. But at least it was swift and not a painful death which Laurence had in mind, I think.”

“I've read novels in my life with a horrible villainess, and they all died in the most painful ways. I do feel sorry for the poor girl, but at least she died in a quicker way. It wasn't ideal but neither was her state of mind,” Dee sighs. “I will say, I hate how the prince dealt with everything. He always kept Serafina close to him at all times; it felt weird.”

Beth giggled a bit, “Yes I know, I’ve only read this book about a million times, but at least the wedding was cute.”

“Yeah, it was, but now I need to get to my duties as a nurse. How have you been feeling? Any pain?” Dee got up to look at her IV stand next to Beth and begins switching out the liquids.

“No pain at all, just nervous about the surgery in a few hours. It’s so new and experimental, but if it worked, I could be normal.”

“Yeah I know hun, I’m worried for you too, chances of survival are low, too many complications. I've seen too many good people go like that and I am not sure what I would do if I lost my favorite patient,” Dee joked.

“If I do die I guess I’ll leave behind my collection of books to you,” Beth joked as she grabbed Dee’s hand.

“Well, lets not get too far ahead shall we,” Dee squeezed her hand. “Well now I'm all finished with your prep work I’ll be back soon to pick you up and we’ll head into surgery,” she kissed Beth’s hand as she went to leave the room.

Beth only nodded and smiled at Dee as she left Beth alone in her room. She could only think about is the incoming surgery. She knows it will kill her, but there’s no point in not trying. She had been slowly dying of cancer for over four years. Just recently she’s been diagnosed with terminal stage four cancer and has been confined to her small hospital. Not even her family would comfort her. She never had any siblings, though she did have parents. Her parents were more worried about who was going to inherit the family business to care about their dying daughter.

Beth’s family only cared about appearances and being successful. The only times they would take notice of her is when she got good grades and even then she would only get a simple “good job” from her mother and her father asking why she didn’t score hundreds as he did. The last time she heard her parents punily proud of her is when she was picked to go to the Olympics for the USA team of fencing. Of course that didn’t happen because of her cancer, which devastated her.

The only comfort Beth had gotten was from her nurse, Deirdre. She had been her nurse since day one, and they have been friends ever since. She had shown Beth kindness and compassion, not because she was the one in the hospital but because the two genuinely enjoyed each other's company. On Christmas Dee had gotten Beth a box of new books that came out because she knew that Beth liked to read. “The Divine Lady” was one of them.

Beth reach for the pen next to her and opened her book again. It was a well-loved one, with tabs and annotations everywhere. Each tab has its own meaning and the annotations have small bits of Beth’s commentary on each scene. She turned to the first page of the book and begin writing out a message.

To my dearest Deirdre,

I hope you have loved this book as I have. I have loved it since you gave it to me. I know you only read the back of the book, and it took so much time convincing you to read it. I know that when you read this, I will be gone, so I hope this can be a good memory.

You had made my life meaningful in the time we had together and I will always love you, Deirdre, from now and forever,

~ Anabeth

Beth looked out her window as she felt the a small tear stream down her face, at this point this might be the last time Beth will ever see Dee or the nights sky again. With only those thoughts in her head Beth drifted off to sleep.