Page 31 of Orc’s Gallows

“It’s complicated.” I turn back to the burning city. “The satisfaction isn’t gone. The skills aren’t gone. I can still do what needs to be done. But there’s a voice now, somewhere in the back of my head, that sounds like you. That asks if this is truly necessary. If there’s another way.”

She doesn’t respond immediately. We stand in silence, watching fires burn across the districts, listening to distant shouts and the occasional crash of looting.

“There might not be another way.” Her words are quiet. “Not now. Not with the city already in flames.”

“I know.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it.”

“I don’t.” The truth surprises me even as I speak it. “That’s what’s different. I used to take pride in my efficiency. In my ability to suppress rebellion with minimum casualties, maximum fear. Now I…”

“Tired?”

“Hollow.” The word fits better than I expected. “Like I’m going through motions that used to have meaning, and now they’re… habits. Reflexes. A ghost of the Gallows Warden, moving through routines that stopped meaning anything.”

Her hand finds mine in the darkness.

The touch is light, tentative—not the desperate grip of the claiming or the frantic contact of our flight from the platform. Her fingers against my palm, warm and constant.

The claiming sigil surges with heat, and tension in my chest releases.

“The man you were saved my life.” Her words are barely audible. “Whatever else he did, whoever else he was—he looked at a woman about to die and couldn’t let it happen.”

“The claiming sigil demanded it.”

“The sigil demanded you protect me. It didn’t demand you burn your entire life to the ground.” Her fingers tighten around mine. “You could have claimed me and then handed me back to the council. Let them execute me in some other city, some other way. The brand would have been satisfied by the claiming itself.”

I hadn’t considered that. Hadn’t thought about alternatives, about compromises that might have preserved my position while still answering the claiming sigil’s demands.

“Why didn’t you?”

The question hangs between us.

“Because it wasn’t enough.” The answer comes from somewhere deep, somewhere I’ve been avoiding. “The claiming, the brand, the magic—none of it mattered if you were still going to die. I didn’t want to own you. I wanted you to live.”

Her breath catches. I sense it through our joined hands, through the claiming bond that ties us.

“Brannok…”

“Don’t.” I pull my hand free, put distance between us. “Don’t make this more than it is. I’m still the man who beat three people unconscious tonight. Still the monster who taught this city to fear the gallows. One moment of… whatever that was… doesn’t change who I’ve been.”

“Doesn’t it?”

I don’t answer. Can’t. The fires are spreading in the merchant quarter, and somewhere in the distance, I hear the crash of a building collapsing.

“Get some rest.” I move toward the roof access door. “Tomorrow will be worse.”

Tomorrow is worse.

The council’s messenger arrives at dawn, carrying a scroll sealed with the official sigil and an expression that suggests he’d rather be anywhere else. I read the summons while Halvard watches from the doorway, his weathered face carefully neutral.

“They’re demanding a meeting.” I toss the scroll onto my desk, onto the pile of execution orders that have been growing for days. “Formal session. Full council attendance. They want to discuss ‘the restoration of order.’”

“Will you go?”

“Do I have a choice?” I strip off the bloodied leathers from last night’s work, reaching for clean armor. “If I refuse, they’ll use it as justification for declaring me rogue. They’ll hire mercenaries, bring in outside enforcers. The riots will look like a festival compared to what happens when professional killers start hunting through the streets.”

“And if you attend?”