I glare up at them. “Must you?”
Their eyes blink at me, slow and unsynchronized. “Yes.”
“Someone fix the boy’s arm,” Fortune interrupts. “He’s bleeding all over the place. You can’t expect him to be much help like that.”
Emeric’s shoulder jerks, and there’s a clatter as the crossbow bolt falls out. He lets out a breath, and I can’t help but share the relief as he gets to his feet.
“Let us begin.” Justice cracks her staff down once more. “Prefect, you may assist this girl in making your case. First, both of you, state who you are for the assembled court.”
Emeric straightens his spectacles. “Junior Prefect Emeric Conrad, born September 9, 742 Blessed Era, in Rabenheim, dispatched on behalf of the Helligbrücke First Office.”
The Low Gods look at me.
I shuffle my feet. “Vanja,” I say. “My name is Vanja. I don’t know where I was born, or what my family name is, and I think I’m sixteen.”
Death coughs. “Seventeen. As of today.”
She always knows.
Something about that steadies me. “I am the daughter of Death and Fortune, of Sovabin and Minkja. I have been an orphan, a servant, a thief, and a princess.”
“And which are you now?” Justice asks.
“Vanja,” I answer. “That is the best I have.”
Truth blinks again. “That is true.”
Justice draws a ring on the plaza stones with her staff. “Vanja, who do you accuse?”
“MarkgrafAdalbrecht von Reigenbach of Bóern.”
Justice taps the stone. The monster that was grappling with Kunigunde vanishes. Adalbrecht appears in the ring, stripped down to a human again, bloody, bedraggled, and clutching a broken forearm. The iron horseshoe is gone, but it’s left a searing brand over his heart, one that still oozes blue light.
His head whips around as he takes in the Low Gods, then Emeric and me. He lunges for me—and slams into a flare of light as he tries to step over the ring.
A murmur runs through the assembled gods.
“Hmm,” Justice grunts. “Vanja, of what is this man accused?”
I hadn’t really thought that out beyond “half man, halfmahr, all bastard” because I felt like that summed it up pretty well. I look at Emeric.
“Just what we can prove,” he says, voice low. “With testimony and physical evidence alone, I think we can show he bound himself to thenachtmärenwith intent to cause harm.” He presses his lips together. “It should get him a curse, and probably banishment from the march.”
I look at Adalbrecht. He’s holding his head high, defiant, the curling wick of a smirk on his face.
He knows it’s my word against his. That what we can prove is not enough.
The horseshoe burn simmers on his chest. Something about that tugs at a loose thread in my own skull.
We all know how Adalbrecht loves his image as the Golden Wolf. Andnachtmärentake any form, so . . . why use a horse skull? Why did I see a horse head with the Augur’s Tears? Why is he going all in on the horses?
I take a deep breath. “I accuse him of binding himself tonachtmärenwith intent to cause harm.”
Adalbrecht’s smile slices deeper.
Then I add, “And of attempted murder, solicitation of murder, conspiracy to commit—what’s the word?Impericide?”
Emeric is staring at me. “Vanja,no.”
