Page 60 of Orc’s Gallows

I force myself to roll over. To lift my head. To look toward the center of what used to be the execution square.

She stands in a crater of destroyed stone and splintered wood, amethyst light blazing from scars that cover her arms, her neck, her face. Her eyes have become pools of darkness—not empty, but filled with depths that seem to go on forever. Ending magic radiates from her in waves that make the air itself shiver.

She’s not the woman I claimed in desperation before a howling mob. She’s not the passive feeder who survived by consuming scraps of execution magic. She’s become different—vast and beautiful and formidable all at once.

She’s become death itself, wearing human skin because she chooses to.

The Judge reforms across the square.

Its form is damaged now—fused corpses coming apart at the seams, cycling visages flickering between faces faster than I can track. The robes have half-unraveled, revealing the nightmare of merged flesh beneath. But it’s still standing. Still manifested. Still powerful enough to kill.

“You think you’ve won, little sister?” The voices are ragged, breaking at the edges, but they still carry weight that makes the rubble around us tremble. “I am this city’s fear. I am its hunger for blood. You’ve destroyed my throne—but thrones can be rebuilt.”

Ismerie doesn’t answer with words.

She raises one hand, and the spirits the Judge commanded surge toward their former master. Not to serve—to attack. The young witch with the broken neck leads the charge, spectral hands reaching for the entity that consumed her soul. Garrett the Scribe follows, and the merchant, and dozens more I don’t recognize.

The wrongfully executed dead, turned against the monster born from their deaths.

I push myself to my feet. My neck is on fire, my body screaming with the aftermath of near-death, my vision still blurred at the edges. But I’m alive. I’m standing.

And I still have a promise to keep.

Ismerie’s eyes find mine across the chaos of the collapsing square. The bond brightens between us—not with words, because words aren’t what it provides, but with location. With awareness. With the certainty of where she is and that she’s waiting for me.

I move toward her.

Through the rubble of the platform I built my life around. Through the spirits of victims I’ll never be able to make amends to.

Through the ruins of a system I helped maintain for two decades.

She meets me halfway.

Her hand finds mine—cold from the ending magic she’s channeled, trembling with the aftermath of power no human was meant to wield. But her grip is strong. Her fingers interlock with mine with the familiarity of two people who have found each other in the dark.

“You’re alive.” Her words carry harmonics that weren’t there before—echoes of the ending magic still surging through her veins. “The noose—I sensed you falling—I thought⁠—”

“You saved me.” I pull her close, one arm wrapping around her waist, the other hand cradling the back of her head. Her body presses against mine, ash-blonde hair spilling over my arm, the scent of ending magic and desperation filling my lungs. “You destroyed the wards. Broke the Judge’s hold. You did that.”

“I almost didn’t.” She’s shaking now, adrenaline and spent power catching up with her. “Another few seconds and you would have⁠—”

“But I didn’t.” I press my lips to her temple. “I’m here. We’re here.”

Behind us, the Judge screams.

The spirits are overwhelming it—not destroying, but distracting. Buying us time that we need to use.

“It’s not dead.” Ismerie pulls back enough to meet my eyes. The pools of darkness are fading, replaced by the dark brown I remember, but amethyst still bleeds at the edges. “The anchor is damaged, not destroyed. I hurt it, but⁠—”

“We need to finish it.” I release her waist, let my hand find hers again. The contact grounds me, keeps me focused when exhaustion and pain want to drag me under. “How?”

“The same way it was born.” Her fingers tighten around mine. “Execution. But not on the platform—the platform is destroyed. We’d need to…”

She trails off, her gaze moving to the scattered remains of the Grand Gallows. Ropes coiled among the rubble. Beams that could serve as gallows. The raw materials of an execution apparatus, waiting to be assembled.

“You want me to hang the Judge.” The words seem strange in my mouth—absurd and inevitable at the same time. “Execute the entity that was about to execute me.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” A ghost of her usual humor surfaces through the exhaustion. “The Gallows Warden’s final hanging. Though I suppose this one deserves it.”