Kael's POV
The executioner's drum pounds in my chest like a second heartbeat as soldiers drag me into the village square.
My brothers' blood is still wet on my shirt. The smell makes me want to vomit, but I can't—won't—show weakness. Not here. Not when the entire village has been forced to watch.
Father stands on a wooden platform in the center of the square, hands chained behind his back. His face is bruised. They've already beaten him. Around us, hundreds of villagers crowd together, held back by soldiers with spears. I see Old Martha who sold us bread every morning. Young Thomas who I taught to read last summer. They're all crying.
"Let me go!" I thrash against the guards holding me. "He's innocent! This is murder!"
One guard slams his fist into my stomach. Pain explodes through me, and I drop to my knees, gasping.
"Kael!" Father's voice cracks. "Don't fight them. Please."
I look up at him through watering eyes. "I can't just—"
"You can. You will." His voice drops, meant only for me despite the crowd. "Survive this, son. Live long enough to find the truth. That's all I ask."
Brother Aldric steps onto the platform, his white robes gleaming like he's some kind of angel. The crowd goes silent. Everyone knows who he is—the Holy Sanctum's most powerful Inquisitor, the man who burned three villages last year for "harboring evil."
"People of Thornwall!" His voice booms without shouting, filled with false kindness. "You have been betrayed by one you trusted. Lord Evan Thornhaven has conspired with orc savages to destroy you all!"
"LIES!" I scream. "My father would never—"
A guard kicks me in the ribs. I taste blood.
"The evidence is clear." Aldric holds up the forged letters, waving them like weapons. "Lord Evan took orc gold. He gave them maps of your homes, your defenses. The raids that killed your neighbors—he helped plan them."
The crowd murmurs, uncertain. They've known Father for twenty years. But fear is spreading like poison.
"No..." I wheeze. "Check the letters... the dates... they're fake..."
Nobody hears me.
"And we have a witness." Aldric gestures toward the crowd. "Someone brave enough to speak truth despite friendship. Someone who saw the treason with his own eyes."
Gareth steps onto the platform.
My best friend. The boy who saved me from drowning when we were ten. Who cried on my shoulder when his mother died. Who swore we'd be brothers forever.
He won't look at me.
"Tell them what you saw, young Ashford," Aldric says gently.
Gareth's voice is flat, rehearsed. "Three weeks ago, I followed Lord Evan into the woods. He met with Chief Urgoth and two other orc leaders. They gave him a chest of gold. He gave them maps."
"Did you hear what they discussed?" Aldric prompts.
"Yes." Gareth finally looks at Father. "Lord Evan said the villages would be easy targets. He said... he said human lives were acceptable losses for peace with the orcs."
The crowd erupts in rage. Screaming. Cursing. Someone throws a rock that hits Father in the head.
"Gareth, please!" I'm begging now, crawling toward him on my knees. "We're brothers! Tell them the truth!"
He looks at me then, and I see it—the crack in his mask. Tears streak down his face. His hands are shaking.
"I'm sorry, Kael," he whispers. "I'm so sorry. But they promised... if I testified, my family would be protected. The Ashford lands would be safe. I couldn't let my sisters die. I couldn't."
Understanding hits me like cold water.
They threatened his family. Gareth isn't a traitor by choice—he's a coward who chose his blood over mine.
"You could have said no," I tell him, and my voice is dead. "You could have chosen honor."
"Honor doesn't protect little sisters from Inquisitors." His voice breaks. "You'd have done the same."
"No." I meet his eyes. "I wouldn't have. And that's why you'll never sleep peacefully again."
Gareth flinches like I've struck him.
Brother Aldric claps his hands once, drawing attention back. "The evidence is clear. The witness is credible. Lord Evan Thornhaven, you are guilty of treason against humanity. The sentence is death."
"I'm innocent!" Father shouts, and for the first time, he sounds desperate. "Please! Check the evidence! Talk to Chief Urgoth—he'll tell you we only ever traded fairly! This is a setup!"
"The orc chieftain has fled," Aldric says smoothly. "Very convenient for your story. But we have something better than his word." He turns to the crowd. "We have your son."
My blood freezes.
"Young Kael will march to war tomorrow," Aldric announces. "He'll serve in the penal legions on the front lines. If he fights bravely, dies with honor, perhaps his family name can be salvaged. If he deserts..." Aldric smiles. "Well. His mother is still alive. For now."
The threat is clear. Fight and die for them, or they'll kill Mother too.
Father's face crumbles. "No. Please, not my son. Kill me, but let him—"
"The sentence will be carried out immediately." Aldric nods to the executioner—a massive man in a black hood who steps forward with an axe.
This is real. This is happening.
"FATHER!" I'm screaming, fighting against the guards with everything I have.
Father looks at me one last time. His eyes are calm now, resigned. He mouths three words: "Find. The. Truth."
The executioner raises his axe.
"WAIT!" A woman's voice cuts through the chaos.
Everyone turns. My mother stands at the edge of the square, held between two guards. Her dress is torn, her hair wild, but her voice is steel.
"I invoke Trial by Testament!" she shouts.
The crowd gasps. Trial by Testament is an ancient law—a convicted person's family can demand their final words be recorded by three neutral witnesses. If those witnesses later find proof the person was innocent, the family gets compensation.
It's a law nobody's used in fifty years because it's useless—the family usually dies before proof is found.
But Mother isn't asking for justice. She's buying time.
Brother Aldric's smile tightens. "That law requires three neutral witnesses willing to—"
"I'll witness." Old Martha steps forward, her bakery apron still dusted with flour.
"And I." Father Gregory, the village priest, joins her.
"I volunteer as third witness." The voice is young, female. I turn and see a girl maybe sixteen years old with a healer's bag. I don't recognize her. "I'm just passing through, so I'm neutral."
Aldric looks furious, but he can't refuse without seeming unjust. "Fine. Record his lies quickly. The sentence stands."
They bring Father parchment and ink. His chained hands shake as he writes. I can't see the words, but I see his tears falling on the paper.
When he finishes, he folds it and hands it to Mother. "I love you," he tells her. "Tell Kael I'm proud of him."
"Enough." Aldric nods to the executioner.
The axe falls.
I'm screaming, but I can't hear my own voice over the sound of my world ending.
Father's body collapses on the platform. Blood pools beneath him, reflecting the afternoon sun like spilled rubies.
Mother doesn't scream. She just holds the parchment to her chest and whispers, "I'll finish what you started, my love. I swear it."
Soldiers drag me away from the square. The last thing I see is Gareth falling to his knees beside the platform, vomiting.
That night, locked in what used to be my room, I hear Mother moving in the manor. She's packing. Hiding things. Preparing.
Near midnight, she slips a small package under my door.
Inside is Father's final testimony and a note in Mother's handwriting:
"Your father discovered who's really behind the war. He hid proof in three locations. Find them. Expose the truth. The names are coded in his testimony. I can't survive this, my son. But you must. Finish his work. Make his death mean something. I love you. Forgive me for what I'm about to do."
My hands shake as I unfold Father's testimony. The first line makes my blood run cold:
"The war is a lie. The orcs are innocent. The real enemy wears holy white and sits in the Principality's highest chambers. They want what sleeps beneath the Ashlands. They'll kill millions to get it. My son must stop them. The proof is hidden where only a Thornhaven can find it: where we first met the green chief, where silver flows underground, where—"
The rest is coded phrases I'll need time to decipher.
A coded treasure map to prove a conspiracy.
From somewhere in the manor, I hear Mother crying. Then, nothing.
In the morning, I'll march to war.
But first, I need to find out what's worth killing an innocent man to hide.
And why Mother said "forgive me for what I'm about to do."