Page 19 of Orc’s Gallows

The ropes hang ready, witch-hair braids gleaming in the morning light. The trapdoor sits closed, waiting for my hand on the lever.

I climb the execution stairs.

Each step feels heavier than the last. The brand throbs with every footfall, heat spreading through my arms, my hands. She’s close. Her presence presses against my awareness, a constant pressure that won’t be ignored.

Focus. Do your duty. Pull the lever and be done with it.

The guards bring her up behind me.

She’s wearing the same torn clothes from yesterday, ash-blonde hair tangled around a face pale with exhaustion. The suppression manacles still bind her wrists, runes flickering faintly as they drain what little power she’s managed to regenerate. She moves slowly, carefully, like someone who knows exactly how fragile they are.

Her gaze finds mine as she reaches the top of the stairs.

Those eyes. Dark brown shot through with amethyst light that shouldn’t exist. Not afraid. Not pleading. Waiting. Measuring. Calculating what kind of monster I’ve chosen to be.

I look away before I can see the answer to a question I haven’t asked.

“Ismerie Ashfall.” My words carry across the suddenly quiet square. “You stand accused of practicing ending magic within the walls of Blackhook City. Of feeding on executions performed by lawful authority. Of concealing your nature from officers of the crown.”

The crowd shifts, murmurs rippling through them. They know these charges. They came to see justice done.

“The penalty for these crimes is death by hanging.” I turn to face her fully, letting the crowd see the Gallows Warden dispensing judgment. “Do you have anything to say before sentence is carried out?”

She smiles.

That sharp, desperate smile I’ve seen twice now.

“One thing.” She stands straighter, her words rolling across the square with surprising strength for someone so depleted. “When it rises—and it will rise—remember that you had a choice today. And you’ll have to live with which one you made.”

The crowd jeers. Someone throws a piece of rotting fruit that splatters against the railing. The guards position her on the trapdoor, adjusting her stance, preparing her for the drop.

I approach with the noose.

The rope feels wrong in my hands. Heavy. Alive. The witch-hair braids seem to thrum with anticipation, eager for the death they were designed to facilitate. I’ve handled these ropes thousands of times. They’ve never felt like this.

The gallows want this death.

The realization hits with the force of a blow. She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t exaggerating to save her life. The execution structure itself is hungry, saturated with centuries of accumulated ending magic, waiting to devour the most powerful meal it’s ever been offered.

A death witch. A woman whose entire existence is tied to ending.

If I kill her here, on this platform, surrounded by all this concentrated power…

I place the noose around her neck.

She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t pull away. Watches me with those purple-shot eyes, waiting for whatever comes next.

“Any last words?” The question is tradition. Protocol. Expected.

“You know what happens if you do this.” Her words drop to a whisper, meant only for me. “You felt what’s beneath us. You know I’m right.”

I know.

The sigil on my neck blazes with sudden heat, and for a moment I sense everything. The accumulated dark power pooling beneath the execution platform. The presence stirring in that darkness, time-worn and hungry, reaching toward the surface. The way the gallows themselves strain toward her, eager for the power her death will release.

If I pull this lever, I feed the monster.

If I don’t pull this lever, I lose everything I’ve built.