"Soldiers came to our village in the uniform of the king of Margolan," said a village elder. Half of his skull was torn away. "They demanded money. We had already paid both first and second taxes—we had no more coin to give. First, they burned our homes. Then they chased down our livestock and our children for sport. They took our daughters into the forest. We heard them screaming." He looked at Kalay. "This man was their leader. He was angry. He gave the order, and his men set about with their axes and swords. Those who did not die immediately they hanged in the barn. This is the man."
Kalay's face was pale. His eyes were wide. Several of Kalay's soldiers were weeping with their heads in their hands, shaking in fear of judgment.
"Do I need to have the others tell their tale?" Tris struggled to keep his tone civil.
"I did as my king commanded. I followed my orders. I have done nothing wrong." His lip curled. "My allegiance is to King Jared."
So many of the onlookers in the gallery rose to their feet and surged forward that the guards were hard pressed to restore order. In the gallery, the Scirranish muffled their sobbing. Tris met Kalay's eyes.
"The crown finds you and your men guilty of murder as charged. You'll be hanged this afternoon."
"I did nothing wrong," Kalay snarled. The guards grabbed him by the arms and pushed him toward the door. "Nothing. All who opposed King Jared deserved to die. I have served my king."
Kalay was still shouting when the door swung shut behind him. Guards dragged Kalay's condemned soldiers to their feet. Despite their tears, none begged the crown for forgiveness. When they were gone, Tris looked to the ghosts that still remained in the front of the courtroom. The same village elder who had testified and who had first appeared to Tris in the village approached the throne.
"Thank you, my king. If you would, we're ready to make the passage. We have seen justice."
Tris closed his eyes, murmuring the passing over ritual. As he let the images of the wraiths dissipate, he met them in the Plains of Spirit. In the distance, he could hear the soulsong of the Lady. As the spirits passed and bowed in gratitude, Tris could feel their burden lift. The moment passed, and they were gone. Tris returned his attention to the courtroom, where the crowd watched in awestruck silence.
Four days of testimony, Tris thought wearily. Few of the defendants remained as defiant as Kalay once their victims stood in front of them. None of the men presented for trial had been exonerated. The testimony of their victims provided overwhelming evidence. Tris was emotionally and physically exhausted; serving as the conduit of power that made the dead visible and audible to the jury and onlookers. Few realized that while the rest of the assemblage heard the ghosts' tales, Tris saw the images of their memories, felt their terror and pain, fresh and horrifying. He had found no way to blunt the impact of those images, nor did he fully desire to do so. It would be so easy not to feel. But if I stop feeling, if the decision of life or death loses its pain, then I'm no better than they are. Then it's nothing but a bureaucratic process, and it demeans the price these people paid.
The executions would come later. Tris dreaded them. As in combat, he could not help but see the spirits of the condemned men twist free of their bodies, to hear their final anguished pleas for the mercy that they did not grant to others. That would be the final judgment— whether to ease their passage to whichever Aspect came to choose them.
Ten more defendants were brought for trial as the day wore on. In a few cases, living wit- nesses provided the damning evidence. More often, ghosts were the only ones left to tell the tale, and the stories were so horrific that some in the gallery fled the room sobbing or retching. Two of the accused men threw themselves on the king's mercy, and Tris sentenced them to hard labor repairing what was destroyed. Most were like Kalay, still certain that their actions were justified.
As the afternoon shadows stretched long across the courtroom, soldiers brought the last two defendants for judgment. Tris recognized the men from Bricen's guard, although he could not have put a name to their faces without the warrants handed to him by the bailiff. Tris glanced down through the charges and felt his blood run cold. The two men, Cerys and Meurig, were charged with the murders of Queen Serae and Tris's sister Kait.
The crowd murmured as the charges were read, and Tris knew that all eyes were on him. He hoped his face was impassive. In a few nights, it would be a year since his family was murdered on Jared's orders, and while he had made their passage to the Lady, the loss was still fresh.
"Cerys of Alredon and Meurig of King's City. How do you plead?"
The two men stood to face the king. "Your Majesty," Cerys stammered. "You've got the wrong men. We weren't near the castle that night, we swear. You've got to believe us." He was a short, wiry man just a few years older than Tris. Meurig, who stood beside him, was a large man, ox-like with massive arms and a thick neck. Soterius and Harrtuck had told Tris privately that both men were among the troops who favored Jared's aggressive talk.
"I've made the passage for Queen Serae and Princess Kait," Tris said, wishing that the formal language could distance him from the loss that still ached inside. It didn't. "They can't testify. But two guards also died that night defending my mother and my sister. Their spirits accuse you."
Tris was exhausted, both from the emotion of the day's trial and from the energy it took to call ghostly witnesses. His head throbbed, and his neck and shoulders ached. He stretched out his power once more, and two ghosts became visible. These men Tris knew well. Ifan and Nye had been his mother's personal guards for many years. The guards were men of unimpeachable integrity and unquestionable devotion to Serae and Kait. For that, they had been among the first to die in Jared's coup.
Ifan's ghost clearly showed the slit across his throat that had taken his life. Nye's wraith still showed the gash on his temple from where his head had been slammed against the rock wall of the castle. The guards bowed low in greeting to Tris.
"My prince...your majesty," Ifan corrected himself. "It's good to see you again."
"I'm sorry to disturb you," Tris said. "But at long last, it's time for justice to be served. Are the men who killed you and who killed Queen Serae and Kait in this room?"
Each of the ghosts in turn scanned the crowd, which had grown silent. The ghosts pointed to Cerys and Meurig. "These are the men," Ifan said. "They betrayed us and used our trust in them to get close enough to kill us. When we were gone and too freshly dead to intervene as spirits, they entered the Queen's chambers."
"That man," Nye said, pointing to Cerys, "drew his sword on the queen. We heard her scream, and she fell. Princess Kait ran into the room when she heard the queen cry out. She fought like a wild thing, but Cerys grabbed the princess and pinned her while Meurig stabbed her. We saw, my king, but we could do noththing"
Tris swallowed hard. The ghosts' testimony matched the scene he, Carroway, and Soterius found on the night of the coup. Hearing it described brought him back to that moment, and the grief he thought had been set aside washed over him once more, fresh and raw.
"There was a third man with you that night,"
Tris said. "Kait managed to kill him with her dagger. He also would testify."
Tris's head pounded as he called for the last ghost. Sister Taru had warned him that even with a lifetime of training, strong magic carried a physical price. It was, she said, what kept mages from believing themselves to be gods. His head hurt so much that he could barely see. Another spirit in the uniform of the king's guard materialized. This spirit's death wound showed the dagger in his chest Kait had thrown. "We found your body on the night of the coup in the room with mother and Kait," Tris said. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded exhausted. "That night, Kait's ghost told me that she had killed you in self defense. Identify for the court the men who were with you that night."
The ghost looked at Tris in fear, and quickly turned toward Cerys and Meurig. "Those are the men," he said, pointing at the two disgraced guards. "Cerys received his orders from Prin
ce Jared to go to the family quarters. We were to kill everyone—even you," he said with a nervous glance in Tris's direction. "Their guards fell before they knew what hit them. We entered the room, and it's just like the ghosts told you, only the princess had a knife in her skirts, and she pegged me in the chest when she heard the queen scream."
"We was just following orders," Cerys said sullenly. "Not for us to judge what to follow and what not to follow. Hang us if we did that, and hang us if we don't."
Tris felt all of the raw emotions of the day wash over him. Exhaustion, grief, and anger swept through him. On the Plains of Spirit, he could see the thin blue life threads of the two defiant guards. Sweet Mother and Childe, I want revenge! Tris thought. It would be so easy to focus his power on those life threads, to snuff out their glow. Even now, neither man showed remorse. Goddess help me. It would be so easy. Mother and Kait would be avenged. It's what I wanted more than life itself that night, to kill the men responsible with my own hands.
In his memory, he saw a tall green-eyed man. Lemuel, his grandfather, the Summoner whose body was taken hostage by the Obsidian King. I foolishly thought I could control power that I should never have sought, Tris remembered Lemuel saying. Taking that power opened Lemuel's soul to be possessed by the Obsidian King.
No one would fault me for killing them, Tris argued with himself. I have the right. But what of the Scirranish? What of their vengeance? Sweet Chenne, how much blood will there be if everyone who lost family to Jared's men takes their own revenge? Mother and Kait will be avenged if these men hang. I know better than any what awaits their souls—the judgment of the Crone or the wrath of the Formless One. Lady Bright! How can it still hurt so much?
Another memory came. Jared, drunk with whiskey but no less dangerous, on the night Tris took back Shekerishet. Jared's face was less than a hand's breadth away, reeking of sweat and drink. As Jared's hand had tightened on Tris's throat, Tris had seen his brother smile. I want to watch you die, Jared had said, and remember fust how you looked when the last breath slipped beyond your grasp.
Tris recoiled from the memory. I can't. I won't be like Jared. I won't make Lemuel's mistake. And it's all the worse, because of how easy it would be.
"The Crown sentences you to hang. It's more than you deserve." Tris stood and left the chamber. Behind him, he could hear the guards leading the condemned men toward the courtyard and the noise of the crowd rushing to see the hanging. Four guards moved with him into the small antechamber, and Soterius followed.
"Are you all right?" Soterius asked.
Tris knew his friend could easily read the pain in his eyes. "When you went to Hunt-wood, when Danne told you what Jared's men did to your family, did you want revenge?"
"More than I can tell you," 'Soterius admitted. "Ask Mikhail. I fought like a madman. I gave no quarter. We ambushed a group of Jared's soldiers and one of them recognized me. He told me it had been as easy to kill my family as slaughtering sheep." Soterius's voice broke. "Goddess help me, Tris. I ran him through. And I didn't stop. I hacked him to pieces, crying so hard that I couldn't see. And when it was over and I was covered in his blood, I realized that it didn't matter. It couldn't bring them back. Killing him didn't change anything for him or for them, but it changed me. I threw up and burned my clothes and scrubbed the blood off my hands, but I knew what I'd done. I don't know if the Lady can ever forgive me. Mikhail stayed with me all that night. He thought I might try to kill myself. He was right."
Soterius looked at Tris and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Whatever it was you didn't do in there—you were right not to do it."
"Then why does it feel like I let mother and Kait down?"
"You didn't. You would have failed them if you'd used your magic to kill those men, instead of letting justice be served. Those men will still be dead, but the blood won't be on your hands."
They walked together from the Hall of Petitions out onto the loggia and through the walled garden. The garden, one of Kait's favorite places, was now cluttered with the dry stalks of weeds. Even there, soldiers with crossbows kept vigil. Two dozen soldiers joined them as they walked to the main courtyard, where the crowd waited. It was a cold, late autumn afternoon. The sky threatened an early snow. Tris had banned any sale of food or ale, not wishing the executions to become the event they had been under Jared. Still, a crowd gathered. Some of the onlookers had brought their own baskets and blankets, setting up a picnic where they could best see the gallows. Children ran through the crowd, laughing. Tris knew that afterward, some would try to scavenge bits of the rope or a shoe or button from the condemned men's bodies.
In the center of the courtyard, the gallows waited.
Tris signaled for the prisoners to be brought out. He lifted his face to the wind. It was not the first such hanging and would not be the last, especially if the campaign against Curane and his rebels succeeded. But it would be the- final one for a long time here at Shekerishet. After months of trials, the tower was empty of prisoners.
The condemned officers walked with a defiant stride. Kalay raised his head to meet Tris's eyes.
"Hail, King Jared, the rightful king of Mar-golan!" Kalay shouted as the executioner fitted the noose around his neck. The crowd murmured, but Tris made no response other than to raise his hand and let it fall in signal to the officers below.
Beneath the prisoners' feet, trap doors sprung open. The men plummeted and jerked once, dying instantly as the noose snapped their necks. Tris could feel their spirits lurch free of their dangling bodies. Their fear and disorientation washed over him, and he could feel the taint that clung to their souls. The hangman's craft failed the last two men, who twisted and writhed, feet scrabbling in midair to gain a toehold, bucking and gasping for air. The hood slipped off of one of the men, and Tris saw that it was Cerys. Coincidence? Or was there someone in the executioner's party who wanted vengeance as much as I did? Minutes passed. Finally, the two men's struggles slowed. Cerys's eyes bulged and his face blackened as his swollen tongue lolled from his mouth.
Cerys and Meurig's souls wrenched free from their bodies. Tris felt the pain of the severing. They joined the others on the Plains of Spirit. Tris heard a sound like distant thunder, and the rush of wind. Darkness swept over the spirit realm. The Formless One was present, and, even as a Summoner, Tris's own soul shuddered. In the darkness, he heard the screams of the souls She harvested as a vortex opened and pulled them into its maw. As quickly as it had come, the darkness was gone, and with it, the souls.
When the last of the executions were finished, Tris signaled an end to the spectacle. A phalanx of guards protected him as he crossed the courtyard. Once they reached the safety of the walled garden, all but Harrtuck and two soldiers returned to their duties. Two guards with crossbows kept sentry at the entrance to the garden, and two more patrolled the portico. Still trying to clear his thoughts from the hanging, Tris - looked at the ruined garden sadly. Come spring, I'll make sure it's planted with Kait's favorite flowers, he promised himself. While the garden had been left to wither under Jared's rule, it had never been abandoned by the palace's ghostly servants, who favored the cool, shadowed corners and the fountain that now lay broken in the' middle. Tris could sense the spirits' presence, and wondered if they, too, missed his mother and sister as much as he did.
"Danger, my Lord!"
Tris heard the whisper of a ghost. The ghost shoved him hard to the right. His mage sense flickered a warning, and Tris glimpsed something streaking toward him a fraction of a second before it slashed deep into his left shoulder. Blood started down his chest, and he staggered.
"Get down!" Soterius dived for him, taking them both to the ground and shielding Tris with his body. "Call Esme!" Soterius shouted. "The king's been hit!"
Harrtuck ran in the direction of the bowman while the other guards formed a wall around them. Tris heard running feet and the sound of clashing steel. Footfalls came closer, and the guards parted as Esme, the king's healer, pushed her way between them.<
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Tris gasped at the pain. Blood ran down his arm and chest. He steadied himself, and looked at the quarrel embedded in his shoulder. He leaned heavily on Soterius and Esme as they returned to the protection of Shekerishet.
Esme commandeered a small sitting room and motioned for Soterius to help Tris to the floor.
"Ouch," the red-haired healer said, looking at the quarrel. Esme had been one of Serae's healers, before fleeing into exile after the coup. Soterius had found her among the Margolan refugees living in the Principality camps, and she had become a valuable aid to the resistance movement. Now, Esme returned to Shekerishet to become King's Healer.
She ripped open Tris' bloodstained tunic from neck to hem to see the damage. One of the guards was sent to fetch a pot of simmering water for herbs and poultices, and Esme laid out what she needed on a clean cloth beside her.
"I'll need Ban and a few others to keep you still while I pull it out. Have they your permission?"
Tris nodded. Soterius and three soldiers came and knelt beside him, each immobilizing an arm or leg while Esme sat beside the wounded shoulder. She poured a cup from a flask, and motioned for Tris to drink. The smell told him it was river rum, potent and rough. "Here," she added, wadding up a bit of clean cloth. "Bite on this. I can't wait for the rum to take full effect. You're losing blood."
His body arched as Esme withdrew the bolt with slow, steady pressure. The soldiers released him, and he opened his eyes.
"Nasty wound," Esme said. "This'll sting."
Tris spat out the wad of cloth. "Probably not as much as that did."
"I need to make sure it wasn't poisoned. You're lucky. It might have taken you full in the chest."
"There's no wormroot," Tris managed. "I'd feel it if there were."
Esme nodded. "That's one thing in our favor."
Esme pressed a pad of soft cloth against the wound and leaned on it with her full weight, stanching the flow of blood. She ground herbs with a mortar and pestle and mixed them with steaming water to make a wrarm paste. Gently, she daubed the mixture into the wound. "This should neutralize the most common poisons." The pressure and the warmth made Tris wince. "And it should prevent infection." Esme laid a hand on his forehead. "If you let me through your shielding, I can ease the pain."
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