By morning, the city shook.
Word of Merek's death spread faster than the storm had passed. Servants swore his flesh burned without flame. Guests whispered of screams that split the air, of words carved into skin by unseen hands. Some claimed the gods had risen against corruption. Others insisted it was witchcraft.
But one thing spread louder than the rest: fear.
Judges cancelled hearings. Prosecutors called in sick. Lawyers who once swaggered through taverns now muttered prayers over their drinks. They all knew. Halden. Merek. Two men untouchable by the law, both dead within days. This was no chance, no sickness. Someone was judging them.
I walked among them unseen, listening to their whispers. My hood hid my face, but my ears burned with every word. The Black Judge. They had named me in hushed voices. I was myth already, a shadow cast long over their trembling world.
Yet not all feared. Some cheered. In the markets, among the poor, hope flickered. Men beaten by false charges lifted their heads. Women widowed by corruption lit candles and prayed, not to the gods above, but to the unseen hand that had struck down the powerful. Children carved scales into the dirt, whispering stories of justice delivered in the night.
And me?
I was caught between fire and ash. At night, the Judgment Screen glowed brighter, its list unending. Names scrolled like a river, crimes stacking higher than I could count. My chest ached beneath the weight of it. I knew I could not judge them all. I was one man.
But the voice returned, steady as thunder.
You are not one man. You are judgment.
I began to dream of it. Fire consuming the courts, scales tipping in my hands, screams of the guilty carried like hymns. I woke drenched in sweat, but with a strange calm, as if the dreams were not nightmares but visions of what was to come.
The city had always belonged to them, the liars, the bribed, the bought. Now it belonged to me.
And every whisper of The Black Judge fed the hunger that was growing inside.