Page 51 of Orc’s Gallows

And beneath the platform, in the foundations where centuries of ending magic have pooled, Ismerie Ashfall finally reaches the anchor stone.

The real battle is about to begin.

TWELVE

ISMERIE

The Grand Gallows have become a throne.

I crouch in the shadow of an abandoned vendor stall at the edge of the execution square, ending magic pulled tight around me like a shroud. The power costs me—drains reserves I’ll need later—but without it, the Judge would sense me the moment I stepped into the square. So I hold the concealment firm and watch the nightmare unfold.

Brannok stands at the courtroom’s center, surrounded by the silence of the dead.

My Brannok. My impossible, infuriating orc.

The bond tells me exactly where he is, as it always does. He can’t move.

The Judge towers above him on its transformed throne—the same composite horror from my nightmares, made flesh and given a courtroom. Stolen faces cycle across its form in the endless parade I know too well by now.

“Brannok Redrope.” The words echo from a chorus of dead throats. “Gallows Warden. Executioner. Dispenser of selective justice.”

Brannok doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t cower. He stands straight despite his bindings, his amber gaze fixed on the entity that his executions helped create.

“You stand accused of crimes against the dead.”

I need to move.

The plan was simple: Brannok draws the Judge’s attention, I reach the gallows’ foundations, I unmake the anchor that binds the entity to this place. Simple. Clean. The kind of plan that sounds reasonable when you’re safe in the Execution Hall with the man you love, his arms around you, his heartbeat firm against your spine.

The kind of plan that seems insane when you’re watching him face judgment for a lifetime of death-dealing.

I ease forward, keeping the vendor stall between me and the transformed platform. The square is empty of the living—citizens fled when the Judge manifested, their terror leaving behind abandoned carts and scattered belongings. A meat pie vendor’s wares have spilled across the cobblestones, the food already rotting from proximity to so much ending magic.

The spirits in the gallery seating don’t notice me. Their attention is fixed on the trial, on the man who ended their lives, on the spectacle of watching their executioner face execution.

“The charges are these.” The Judge’s robes rustle as it rises from its throne. Rope-wound hands spread wide in a mockery of judicial pronouncement. “Complicity in systemic terror. Execution of dozens of confirmed innocents. Participation in a system designed to feed fear rather than serve justice.”

Focus. Move. He’s buying you time.

I slip around the edge of another stall. The foundations of the gallows are buried beneath the square’s center—Era’s words described a carved stone etched with the original death wards, sunk deep into blood-soaked earth. If I can reach it, if I can turn those wards against the entity they were meant to contain…

“How do you plead?”

Brannok’s words carry clear across the transformed space. No tremor. No hesitation.

“Guilty.”

The word hits me like a physical blow. I stumble, catch myself against an overturned cart, force myself to keep moving.

“Guilty of all of it.” His chin lifts. “Every charge. Every crime. Every compromise I made in the name of order.”

The Judge seems surprised. Its rotating visages pause, stolen eyes narrowing.

“You… admit your guilt?”

“I accept responsibility.” Brannok’s hands flex against the bindings that hold them. “For everything I’ve done. Every death, deserved or not. Every time I chose obedience over conscience, efficiency over mercy, fear over hope.”

I’m halfway across the square now. The concealment costs more with every step—the Judge’s power saturating this space makes my magic work harder to stay hidden. My scars throb with amethyst light beneath my sleeves, and I pray the entity is too focused on its trial to notice the radiance.