Taharqi feels like it is very unaesthetic for his last thoughts to be about how unaesthetic his last thoughts are, but so it goes.
He really didn't think this would be how he'd die. Executed in front of his compatriots to be made an example of, sure. Sent to exile to eventually just die of not having a civilisation around him, sure. But sent to exile and then nailed to a cross so that he'd die of expose or being eaten by carrion birds is just adding insult to injury. And doesn't really make any sense, does it? If being exiled was a fate worse than death, as they always claimed, then why kill him? And if it is not, then why not just kill him in front of everyone?
They want people to think that exile is worse than death, but they don't actually think it is, and they want to make sure he can't come back to stir shit up again, is what Taharqi thinks.
...kind of. Except it doesn't fit with the gods cursed magic bracelet he had previously just discounted as mad rumours. If the Kushite nobility had access to magic, they surely would not use it to trap prisoners.
Yet here he is.