I walk past Cyran, past the platform steps, and stop beside Edria. She looks up at me, chains on her wrists, her face steady despite everything. I put my arm around her shoulders.
The square goes very quiet.
"Yes," I say, loudly enough for every corner of it to hear. "I love her. She is carrying my child. I intend to claim both of them, and I will not pretend otherwise to make anyone more comfortable." I glare at Thalen. "That is true. All of it."
A murmur runs through the crowd.
"It is also true," I continue, "that before Edria's arrest, before any of this — I reduced trade tariffs across six border settlements based on falsified ledger records I found in Oxwood's own town hall." I reach into my coat and pull out a second document. "I filed formal labor reforms covering twenty-three villages in this territory. The documentation is with the regional council. The dates are recorded. None of it involves Edria, none of it was filed after her arrest, and all of it demonstrates a pattern of governance that predates my personal attachment to anyone in this village."
I hold the document up.
"If Lord Thalen would like to argue that I fabricated evidence implicating a corrupt magistrate for personal gain, he is welcome to explain why I also spent time reforming the tax structure that kept this village poor." I watch the crowd again — the farmers, the merchants, the people who know exactly what the last decade of Oxwood's finances have felt like. "Ask yourselves which version of events makes sense."
The arguing starts again, louder than before.
Thalen's composure doesn't break, but his eyes are cold when they land on me, and I know this isn't over.
I keep my arm around Edria and don't move.
33
EDRIA
The noise is everywhere at once.
I stopped being able to track individual voices three minutes ago. It's a wall of sound now — accusations, counter-accusations, the sharp crack of wood somewhere as someone overturns the evidence table, the stamp of horses at the square's edge where Thalen's men are trying to hold position without actually doing anything useful.
Nyrius's arm is around my shoulders and I am, quietly, leaning into it. Not performance. My legs are doing something unreliable and the chains keep throwing off my balance, and he's warm and solid and here, which is more than I expected when they dragged me out of that cell this morning.
"Stay upright," he says, low, beside my ear.
"I'm upright."
"You're leaning."
"I'm resting." I find my footing and straighten slightly, though I don't move away from him.
He doesn't argue. His grip doesn't loosen either.
I watch the square from inside the noise instead of trying to fight through it. The villagers have fractured into clusters —some still shouting at the platform, some shouting at each other, a few who have gone quiet and are simply watching, deciding what to believe.
Malrec stands on the platform steps. His composure is gone now, fully, replaced with something rawer. He raises his voice over the crowd.
"The evidence is fabricated." He points at Nyrius. "Every document, every piece of testimony — manufactured by a lord who wants his criminal mistress freed. None of it is real. He's turning you against your magistrate to save his harlot from justice."
A few voices in the crowd echo it. Fewer than before.
"His harlot." A woman's voice, sharp and carrying, from somewhere near the grain merchant's stall. "His harlot fixed the wheel on my cart last winter for two copper pieces and didn't complain about the rate."
"His harlot kept my father's farm tools working for years," someone else says, closer.
"Malrec's men took my pig." Flat, certain, from a man I recognize as the elder Pelley. "Told me it was partial payment on a taxes I'd already settled. I have the receipt. Where did my pig go, Magistrate?"
The crowd turns.
There's still noise and division and the dark elf nobles watching from their horses with expressions ranging from disdain to careful neutrality. But the weight of it shifts. I can feel it the way you feel a tide changing, not in one wave but in a gradual reorientation of everything.
Malrec takes one step back up the platform stairs.
