@Hobnobs "After the betrayal, she absolutely genuinely believed everything she was told and shown to be a lie" ?
To me it's more like that even after the betrayal she DID believe and trust him with everything....she choose to die because she though that she being alive could be a problem for her "lover"! Even after losing everithing!!...LOL...that is what is strange, more than her family she believed the word of her executioner and his followers...!!
And he never really try to reason with her, please be serius. If he really wanted to do it he would have try to talk to her BEFORE the trial and not after it, simply he choose the easiest way because he didn't want the hardships that came with her in her first life. So when she offer him a way to kill her almost guilty-free he accepted. Don't tell me that he really wanted to change her mind because re-reading the first chapter to me it seems more like he never really tryed because that cannot be considered a try, not after putting someone in such an hell (she did see two of her family member beheaded before her and the other tow burned alive and was told to be the daughter of demons....and the day after she got her trial....nice!).
And abaut the falling in love, yes I understans and believe that he never intend to fall in love and I still think that he never really fall in love (there is a big difference between love and like someone, I think he like and cared for her no more) and that is my point: even if this story is not perfect, because it is a love story the romance need to be at least believable, yet the author decides that there is REAL love between the two.
I don't completely blame him for what he did, he followed his ambition and dream until the end, he is a good leader but not a lover. What i found incomprensible are the feelings of the lady: even if not a revenge I would have understood deep resentment... Mybe I think in a old way but to me real love is synonymous of trust and sincerity. She could forgive him but never forget what he did to her.