Page 34 of Orc’s Gallows

She’s at the execution platform. Where the entity waits.

And I’m already running.

EIGHT

ISMERIE

Idon’t go willingly.

The shadow comes for me while Brannok is at the council meeting, slipping through a crack in the Execution Hall’s foundation that it made itself—not with force but with patience, following the channels of old death-magic that already ran through the stone, the same channels I have fed from for years. One moment I’m standing at the window watching the riots burn themselves out in the merchant quarter, my fingers tracing the claiming brand on my collarbone—a habit I’ve developed without noticing, seeking the warmth of his presence even when he’s not near. The next, cold fingers wrap around my neck and drag me backward into darkness.

Not fingers. Tendrils. Wisps of concentrated ending magic that coil around my limbs with the intimacy of a lover and the strength of iron chains. I try to scream, but the shadow pours into my mouth, filling my lungs with the taste of old graves and unjust endings.

The Judge. It found a way inside.

The realization comes too late to matter. The tendrils lift me off my feet, pull me through corridors I don’t recognize—passages in the Hall’s foundations that seem to have been carved by decay itself. Stone walls give way to packed earth, then to soil that squirms with the memory of buried dead. The air grows colder with each passing moment, carrying the scent of lime and rot and centuries of accumulated death.

I reach for my power. Reach for the dark power that has sustained me for years, that should respond to my will even in this darkness.

Nothing answers.

The shadow around me drinks every scrap of energy I try to gather. It’s not suppressing my magic the way the council’s manacles did. It’s feeding on it. Consuming whatever I produce before I can shape it into resistance.

Like being back in the crowd. Like being powerless while innocents die.

The irony of it lands like a fist: I spent years feeding on others’ endings, and now something feeds on mine.

The shadow drags me upward. Through soil, through stone, through the foundations of buildings I can’t identify. My lungs sear. My vision swims. The mating brand on my collarbone flares hot—a beacon, a warning, a desperate signal to the orc who can’t possibly reach me in time.

Brannok. He’ll feel this. He’ll know I’m in danger.

But he’s at the council meeting. Across the city, surrounded by enemies, unaware that the Judge has found a way to take what it wants despite the claiming.

We emerge into moonlight.

The execution square stretches before me, silver-washed and silent.

The shadow releases me.

I collapse onto the cold cobblestones. My hands scrape against the rough, gritty surface as I push myself upright, gasping for air that tastes of iron and old fear.

The square is empty. No guards, no citizens, no witnesses to whatever is about to happen. The buildings surrounding the plaza stand dark, their windows shuttered, their occupants either fled or hiding.

Where is everyone?

I stagger to my feet, scanning for escape routes. The streets leading from the square should be patrolled—Halvard’s men, at minimum, maintaining some semblance of order despite the riots. But every avenue stands empty. Every doorway gapes dark. The entire district has been stripped of life, leaving only me and the gallows that waits with hungry patience. The same ending-magic that dragged me here must have pushed them away—not with force, but with compulsion, the deep instinctive wrongness that makes living things flee a place of mass death before they understand why.

A sound rises from the execution structure.

Not creaking timber or settling wood. Breathing. Deep, rhythmic inhalations that seem to come from the structure itself. The ancient gallows expands and contracts with each breath, its damaged wards pulsing in time with the terrible respiration.

The ropes begin to move.

Slowly at first—gentle swaying that could almost be wind. Then more purposefully, coiling and reaching like the tendrils of some vast sea creature. They orient toward me with blind awareness, sensing the ending magic that courses through my veins.

It’s awake. Fully awake.

I back away from the execution platform, my bare feet cold against the bloodstained cobblestones. I’m still wearing the sleeping shift I had on when the shadow took me—no shoes, no weapons, no protection against whatever is rising from the depths of that ancient structure.