Page 48 of Orc’s Gallows

“You’re one of them.” The woman’s words crack. “A death witch. You fed on my daughter’s death.”

“Yes.” Ismerie doesn’t flinch. “I did. I’ve fed on hundreds of deaths, and I hate myself for every one. But hating myself doesn’t bring them back. The only thing that matters now is making sure the killing stops.”

A long moment. The crowd presses in around us, waiting to see what happens.

The woman steps aside.

We push through, leaving her grief behind us, carrying the weight of it on our shoulders.

The Execution Hall has become a fortress.

Halvard’s loyal guards patrol the perimeter. The condemned prisoners—released on my orders—have mostly fled into the city, but a few have chosen to stay. Death witches, mostly. They have nowhere else to go, and they understand better than anyone what the Judge represents.

Halvard meets me at the lower corridor. “The old witch from the Gallows Quarter came to the gate an hour ago.” His expression is carefully neutral. “Said you’d want to hear what she has to say. I put her in your quarters.”

Era sits in my chambers, her blind eyes fixed on a point I can’t see.

“You withheld something.” Ismerie says it before I can. Her voice is steady, but her hands are tight around the arms of the chair. “In the tavern. You knew more than you told us.”

“Yes.” Era doesn’t apologise. Her cards remain in her pocket, stilled. “I’ve known how to end the Judge for twenty years. I’ve also known that knowing isn’t enough. A method without a person capable of executing it is worthless—worse than worthless. It gives false hope and gets people killed.” Her blind gaze moves toward Ismerie. “I needed to see what you were made of. What you’d do when the Judge had you on its platform, when everything it said carried weight. Whether you’d break.”

“And?” Ismerie’s words are quiet.

“You didn’t.” Era’s lips curve in a smile that holds no humor. “You fought it. Then you fought it again. You stood in a graveyard and told the Gallows Warden exactly what he was, and then you chose him anyway. That’s the person the method requires.” She settles her hands flat on the table. “So. Now I’ll tell you how to destroy it.”

“Execution.” I stand behind Ismerie’s chair, my hands resting on her shoulders. She leans back into my touch, and some of the tension drains from her body. “You’re saying we have to hang it.”

“I’m saying you have to end it.” Era continues. “The platform is its anchor. The ropes are its arteries. The death wards that were meant to contain it have become the channels through which it feeds. If you want to destroy the Judge, you have to use its own power against it—execute the executioner, hang the hangman.”

“How?” Ismerie’s hand finds mine, her fingers tracing patterns on my palm. “The Judge is too powerful. We’ve fought it twice and barely survived. Getting close enough to bind it, to actually put a noose around its neck⁠—”

“Would require a sacrifice.” Era’s blind gaze shifts toward me. “Someone the Judge wants badly enough to drop its guard. Someone whose death would taste sweeter than centuries of accumulated wrongful endings.”

The implications confirm what I’ve known since the graveyard.

“Me.” I say the word without inflection. “The Judge wants me. I’ve fed it more than anyone. If I offered myself willingly, it would be too tempted to resist.”

“Brannok.” Ismerie twists in her chair, her eyes wide with denial. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Think about it.” I move around her chair, kneel before her so we’re eye to eye. “The Judge has been hunting me since this started. It blames me for its existence—and it’s right. If I walk into that square and offer myself for judgment, it won’t be able to resist the chance to make me suffer.”

“And then what?” Her words break. “It kills you? It hangs you on your own platform while I watch?”

“No.” I cup her face in my hands, trace the line of her cheekbone with my thumb. “Because while it’s focused on me, while it’s savoring its triumph, you get to the anchor. The foundation stone Era mentioned—the original death ward that binds the Judge to the gallows. You corrupt it. Turn its power against it. And when the entity is vulnerable⁠—”

“We hang it with its own ropes.” Era finishes. “The Gallows Warden becomes the final execution. Poetic, in a terrible way.”

Ismerie shakes her head, tears gathering in her eyes. “There has to be another way. Some method that doesn’t require you to⁠—”

I kiss her.

Not to silence her—though it does. I kiss her because I need to sense her lips against mine, need to memorize the taste of her, need to store up enough warmth to carry me through what comes next.

When I pull back, I lower my head until our foreheads touch.

“The Judge blames me for what I’ve done. It’s right to. That’s what makes me the only bait it won’t be able to ignore.”

“That’s not—” She chokes on the words. “You can’t decide to die. Not now. Not when we finally⁠—”