Page 24 of Orc’s Gallows

The order I’d built over two decades, crumbling in a matter of hours.

All for a death witch with burning eyes and a tongue like a blade.

All for a woman who saved my life when she had every reason to let me die.

The brand throbs against my neck, constant and certain.

SIX

ISMERIE

The claiming scar sears my collarbone like a brand that won’t cool.

Three days since Brannok seared it into my flesh. Three days since he destroyed his career, his reputation, his entire identity to keep me breathing. Three days of hiding in the Execution Hall while the city riots outside, and I still can’t decide if he saved me or condemned me to a different kind of death.

I turn away from the window and its view of the execution square. The Grand Gallows loom in the morning light, their damaged wards still visible where Brannok’s blade carved through the timber. The ropes hang motionless now—no writhing, no reaching, no hungry awareness pressing against my senses. Whatever was waking inside the platform has retreated since the claiming.

Or it’s waiting. Gathering strength for another attempt.

You think you’ve saved her, Gallows Warden.

The voice echoes in my memory, that chorus of wrongful deaths speaking from beneath the Hall’s foundations. I haven’t told Brannok about it. Haven’t mentioned the laughter that seemed to rise from the soil itself, the promise that the entity could wait centuries, the certainty that it would claim us both eventually.

What would be the point? He already knows we’re not safe. He doesn’t need my nightmares confirming it.

The door to the Warden’s quarters opens.

I sense him before I see him—the brand surging hot against my collarbone, my whole body orienting toward his presence like a compass finding north. He fills the doorway, massive and dark-armored despite the early hour. Those amber irises find me immediately, sweeping over my position by the window with an assessment that’s equal parts tactical and… heated.

Don’t think about the heat. Don’t think about the way his gaze lingers on your neck, on the claiming mark he seared into your skin, on the pulse point that jumps every time he enters a room.

“You’re awake early.” His words are a low rumble that does unfortunate things to my concentration.

“Couldn’t sleep.” True enough. The dreams have been getting worse—fragmented images of courtrooms made from bone, of faces shifting through the features of executed innocents, of a presence that watches me from the darkness and calls me sister. “The bed is too soft.”

A lie. The bed is perfect, far better than anything I’ve slept on in years. But admitting that I can’t sleep because I’m hyperaware of his presence in the next room seems like information he doesn’t need.

“The riots have quieted.” He moves into the chamber, and I force myself not to track his every step. “Halvard reports the council has called an emergency session. They’re debating how to respond to… the situation.”

The situation. A polite way of describing the chaos that has gripped Blackhook City since the claiming. Street fighting between citizens who support the council and those who’ve decided the Gallows Warden must have had good reason for defying orders. Arson in the merchant quarter. Three execution bells silenced when angry mobs stormed the Bell Towers.

“They’ll want your head.” I keep my words level. “Mine too, probably, but mostly yours. You’re the symbol of everything they built. If you can defy them, anyone can.”

“Let them want.” He stops near the weapons rack, running his fingers over the blade he used to carve through the scaffold. “They’d have to get through Halvard’s men first. And none of them are eager to test whether the guards’ loyalty has shifted.”

“Has it?”

His jaw tightens. “Some of them. Enough to hold this position, for now. The rest…” He shakes his head. “The rest are waiting to see which way the wind blows. They’ll follow whoever seems most likely to win.”

Pragmatic. Survival instinct. I understand that better than most.

I push away from the window and cross to the desk where execution orders still sit in neat piles. Three days, and neither of us has bothered to move them. The Warden’s office, frozen in time, waiting for an authority that no longer exists.

“I need to go out.”

The words hang in the air between us. I sense his attention sharpen.

“Out.” Not a question. A flat statement that demands explanation.