Thanos sat in his cage and waited for death. He twisted and turned in the sun of Delos, slowly baking while across the courtyard, guards worked to build the gallows on which he would be killed. Thanos had never felt so helpless.
Or so thirsty. They'd ignored him there, giving him nothing to eat or drink, directing their attention Thanos's way only so that they could rattle their swords across the bars of his gibbet, taunting him.
Servants hurried back and forth across the courtyard, a sense of urgency to their errands that suggested something was happening in the castle Thanos didn't know about. Or perhaps this was simply the way things happened in the wake of a king's death. Perhaps all this activity was simply Queen Athena getting Delos to run the way she wanted.
Thanos could imagine the queen doing that. While someone else might have been caught up in their grief, barely able to function, Thanos could imagine her seeing her husband's death as an opportunity.
Thanos's hands tightened on the bars of the gibbet. There was every chance that he was the only one truly mourning his father's death right then. The servants and the people of Delos had every reason to hate their king. Athena was probably too caught up in her schemes to care. As for Lucious…
"I will find you," Thanos promised. "There will be justice for this. For everything."
"Oh, there will be justice, right enough," one of the guards said. "Just as soon as we gut you for what you did."
He lashed out at the bars, catching Thanos's fingers in a way that made him hiss with pain. Thanos made a grab for him, but the guard just laughed, dancing back out of range and going to help the others with the construction of the stage upon which Thanos would eventually be killed.
It was a stage. This whole thing was a show. In one instant of violence, Athena would take control of the Empire, both removing the main danger to her power and showing that she remained in charge, in spite of her son ascending to the crown.
Maybe she even really believed that would be the case. If so, Thanos wished her luck. Athena was evil and grasping, but her son was a madman without limits. He had already killed his father, and if his mother thought she could control him, then she would need all the help she could get.
So would everyone in Delos, from the least peasant all the way to Stephania, trapped and at the mercy of royalty that didn't have any.
The thought of his wife made Thanos wince. He'd come here to save her, and instead it had come to this. If he hadn't been there, perhaps things would have turned out better. Perhaps the guards would have realized that Lucious was the one who had killed the king. Perhaps they would have acted, rather than trying to sweep it all away.
"Or perhaps they would have blamed it on the rebellion," Thanos said, "and given Lucious another excuse."
He could imagine that. No matter how bad it all got, Lucious would always find a way to blame it on others. And if he hadn't been there at the end, he wouldn't have been able to hear his father acknowledge who he was. He wouldn't have learned that there was proof of it to be found in Felldust.
He wouldn't have had a chance to say goodbye, or hold his father as he died. His regrets now were all about the fact that he wouldn't get to see Stephania before they executed him, or get to make sure that she was all right. Even given all that she'd done, he shouldn't have abandoned her on that dock. It had been a selfish move, thinking only of his own anger and disgust. It had been a move that had cost him his wife, and the life of his child.
It was a move that was probably going to cost Thanos his own life, given that he was only there because Stephania was trapped. If he'd taken her with him, left her safe on Haylon, none of this would have happened.
Thanos knew then that there was one thing he needed to do before they executed him. He couldn't escape, couldn't hope to avoid what was waiting for him, but he could still try to make this right.
He waited for another of the servants crossing the courtyard to come close. The first one he signaled to kept walking.
"Please," he called over to the second, who glanced around before shaking his head and continuing on his way.
The third, a young woman, paused.
"We're not supposed to talk to you," she said. "We've been forbidden from bringing you food or water. The queen wants you to suffer for killing the king."
"I didn't kill him," Thanos said. He reached out as she started to turn away. "I don't expect you to believe that, and I'm not asking for water. Could you bring me charcoal and paper? The queen can't have forbidden that."
"Are you planning to write a message to the rebellion?" the servant asked.
Thanos shook his head. "Nothing like that. You can read what I write if you want to."
"I…I'll try." She looked as though she might have said more, but Thanos saw one of the guards glance their way, and the servant hurried off.
Waiting was hard. How was he meant to watch guards constructing the gallows from which he would be hanged until nearly dead, or the great wheel on which he would be broken afterwards? It was a small cruelty that said that even if Queen Athena managed to get a grip on her son, the Empire would be far from perfect.
He was still thinking about all the cruelties that Lucious and his mother might inflict on the land when the servant arrived with something tucked under her arm. It was only a scrap of parchment and the smallest stick of charcoal, but she still passed it to him as furtively as if it were the key to his freedom.
Thanos took it just as carefully. He had no doubt that the guards would take it from him, if only for the small opportunity to hurt him more. Even if there were any who weren't completely corrupted by the cruelty of the Empire, they believed him to be the worst of traitors, deserving all he got.
He hunched in over the scrap, whispering the words as he tried to write, trying to get it exactly as it should be. He wrote in tiny letters, knowing that there was a lot in his heart that he needed to get down there:
To my darling wife, Stephania. By the time you read this, I will have been executed. Perhaps you will feel that I deserve it, after the way I left you behind. Perhaps you will feel some of the pain that I feel knowing that you have been forced into too many things that you did not want.
Thanos tried to think of the words for everything he felt. It was hard to get it all down, or to make sense of the confusing mess of feelings swirling inside him:
I…did love you, and I came to Delos to try to save you. I am sorry that I could not, even if I am not sure we could ever have been together again. I…know how happy you were to learn about our child, and I was filled with joy as well. Even like this, my biggest regret is that we will never see the son or daughter who could have been.
Just the thought of that brought with it more pain than any of the blows the guards had inflicted. He should have come back sooner to free Stephania. He should never have left her behind.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, knowing that there wouldn't be enough space to write everything he wanted to say. He certainly couldn't get his feelings down in something he was going to entrust a stranger to deliver. He just hoped that this would be enough.
He could have written so much more, but that was the heart of it. His sorrow that things had gone wrong. The fact that there had been love there. He hoped it would be enough.
Thanos waited for the servant to come near again, stopping her with an outstretched arm.
"Can you take this to Lady Stephania?" he asked.
The servant shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't."
"I know it's a lot to ask," Thanos said. He understood the risk he was asking the servant to take. "But if anyone can get it to her while she's still locked up-"
"It's not that," the servant said. "Lady Stephania isn't here. She left."
"Left?" Thanos echoed. "When?"
The servant spread her hands. "I don't know. I heard one of her handmaidens talking about it. She went off into the city, and she didn't come back."
Had she escaped? Had she made it out of there without his help? Her handmaiden had said it was impossible, but had Stephania found a way anyway? He could hope that it was possible, couldn't he?
Thanos was still thinking about that when he realized that activity around the gallows had stopped. Looking at it, it was easy to see why. It was finished. Guards stood waiting beside it, obviously admiring their construction. A noose hung, dark against the skyline. A winding wheel and brazier stood nearby. Towering over it all was a great wheel, chains set into it, a huge hammer resting on the floor beside it.
He could see people gathering now. There were guards standing in a ring around the edges of the courtyard, looking both as though they were there to prevent others from interfering and as though they wanted to see Thanos's death for themselves.
Above, looking from windows, Thanos could see servants and nobles, some looking down with what seemed like pity, others with blank faces or outright hatred. Thanos could see a few even perched on the rooftop, looking down from there since they couldn't find another spot. They were treating this as if it were the social event of the season rather than an execution, and a thread of anger rose in Thanos at that.
"Traitor!"
"Murderer!"
The catcalls came down, insults followed by fruit from the windows, and that was the hardest part of it. Thanos had thought that these people respected him, and would know he could never do what he'd been accused of, but they jeered him as if he were the worst of criminals. Not all of them insulted him, but enough did, and Thanos found himself wondering if they really hated him that much, or if they just wanted to show the new king and his mother which side they were on.
He fought when they came for him, dragging him from his gibbet. He punched and he kicked, struck out and tried to twist free, yet whatever he did it wasn't enough. The guards caught his arms, twisting them behind him and tying them in place. Thanos stopped fighting then, but only because he wanted to have some dignity in this moment.
They led him, step by step, to the gallows they'd built. Thanos climbed up without prompting onto the stool they'd set beneath the noose. If he was lucky, maybe the fall would snap his neck, depriving them of the rest of their cruel sport.
As they set the noose around his neck, he found himself thinking about Ceres. About everything that could have been different. He'd wanted to change things. He'd wanted things to be better, and to be with her. He wished…
There was no time for wishes though, because Thanos felt the guards kick the stool away, and the noose tightened around his neck.
