Vanquished, that was how they wanted me to feel as I knelt there on the cold flagstone, my head bowed, my hands clasped.

I could hear the echoes of the crowd marching up the street and knew that they would be upon me soon, their torches ablaze, their spirits hungry for blood.

I was to be renounced as a witch, that most reviled of creatures.

My fate was no longer in my hands, I was to surrender that along with my freedom and my life when the mob broke into my sanctuary.

Because I had dared too love too much, laugh too freely, feel with all of my being, I was called a witch. To be tortured, to be humiliated, to be killed.

The great wooden doors crashed open. The mob burst in, their boots echoing on the tile.

Slowly I stood, I turned and I faced them, my head held high, my back straight.

I would not apolgise for my crime, I would not apologise for living. They could extinguish my body but they could not vanquish my spirit.