The square remained frozen after the battle, with Hajin standing above the surviving clerks while the townspeople watched from every doorway.
Blood darkened the stones, smoke drifted from Elise's damaged barrier, and the sick girl kept one hand against her ribs.
No one hurried toward the new lord, since the bodies of the old rulers still surrounded the road where they had commanded fear.
Hajin lowered his empty hands and faced the crowd instead of the clerks kneeling at his feet.
"Speak about what they did, and no one here will stop you," he told them, keeping his voice steady.
The old woman with the feverish boy looked down, while a man near the registry pulled a child behind his leg.
The sick girl pushed farther into the square, her bare feet slipping once on the blood before she caught herself against a wall.
"My mother was taken after the fat clerk promised one month of estate work," she said, pointing toward the man in the dirt.
