The Interrogation Hall

  Where justice wears chains and loyalty walks into its own snare.

  Teaser

  In Eryndor’s hall, mercy takes the shape of law.

  In Realmor’s tower, a princess chooses defiance.

  And on the mountain, Kael learns that every vow draws its own trap.

  ...

  The Hall of Judgment had never felt so much like a trap.

  Columns rose like patient executioners around the chamber; their shadows stretched long on the marble as if eager to witness something ugly. At the far end, Gorath’s banner of black-and-gold draped the dais. It stirred slightly in the draft like the breath of a thing alive.

  Tam and Miri were dragged in first.

  The girl stumbled, knees scraping marble. The boy tried to stand tall, but the bruises on his face spoke louder than his pride. Soldiers planted them before the throne like wood dropped for burning.

  Eldrin came next.

  He walked. Always walked. Even summoned like a criminal, he carried himself with the quiet dignity of men too old to kneel without reason. His staff had been taken at the door, but somehow his presence felt taller than the spears flanking him.

  On the dais, Varrick leaned one elbow on the throne’s armrest. Gorath was not present—yet—but the prince carried his father’s temper like an unlit torch.

  “Tam,” Varrick said softly, almost pleasantly. “Miri. It seems the crown pays you a compliment tonight. We think you may know something worth gold.”

  Neither child spoke.

  Varrick smiled. “Ah. Loyalty. Or fear? I never tell them apart.” He gestured lazily. A soldier poured water into a metal basin so cold it steamed. “The crown rewards answers,” Varrick continued, “but silence? Silence earns creativity.”

  Miri trembled. Tam glared.

  From the hall’s edge came the slow tap of a cane.

  “Your Highness,” Maldrick drawled from his post beside a pillar, voice smooth as oil on a pond. “With respect, you have the look of a man about to carve meat before you know if it bleeds wine or water. Might I suggest words first, knives later? It makes better theater.”

  Varrick shot him a glance, but Maldrick only smiled—a crescent thin as paper—and leaned on his cane like a man enjoying music only he could hear.

  Eldrin’s voice entered at last, calm, flint-dry. “They are children.”

  Varrick did not turn. “They are witnesses.”

  “They know nothing.”

  “Then they will enjoy leaving,” Varrick murmured.

  A soldier lifted Miri’s chin with the point of a dagger. “Shall we find the truth, little bird?”

  She flinched, but Tam spat at the man’s boots before she could speak.

  The dagger paused.

  Varrick’s smile cooled. “Ah. The brother wishes to play the hero.”

  Eldrin’s eyes—old iron, older patience—watched without blinking. “The law does not permit harm to witnesses before charges are read.”

  “Old Mearth,” Maldrick said pleasantly, “surely you know law bends quickest when it leans near the throne.”

  Something moved in the shadow near the altar. A shape with no name. The torches bent away from it as though light itself had learned obedience.

  Varrick noticed but did not stop the soldier lowering the dagger toward Tam’s hand. One cut would do. Just enough to wake fear properly—

  “Enough.”

  The word carried from the doorway like a thrown spear.

  Gorath entered.

  The court bowed, a shiver through silk and chainmail alike. The soldiers stepped back at once, as if the torchlight itself retreated to give him room.

  Gorath climbed the dais slowly, every step measured, eyes like frost tracking the children, Eldrin, the shadow at the altar.

  He sat.

  The hall held its breath.

  “Question them,” he said softly. “But do not break them—yet. A tongue cut too soon never learns to sing.”

  Maldrick’s grin widened. “Wise as ever, Majesty. A bleeding throat hums poorly.”

  “Bring Eldrin closer,” Gorath added.

  Eldrin walked to the base of the dais. He neither bowed nor spoke. The hall seemed to lean forward.

  “Your students,” Gorath said, “keep interesting company. Perhaps the boy… Pebble?… touched their lives more than they admit.”

  “They are loyal,” Eldrin said.

  “They are loyal to what?”

  “To themselves. To each other.”

  Gorath’s smile thinned. “Not to you?”

  “They are children,” Eldrin repeated.

  “Children grow,” Gorath murmured.

  “Some into kings. Some into corpses. The difference is what breaks them first.”

  The shadow behind the altar moved, faint as breath. Maldrick tapped his cane once, amused.

  Gorath’s hand lifted lazily. Soldiers stepped back from Tam and Miri at once.

  “Hold them,” Gorath said. “Lawfully, of course. Comfortably. Until they remember something useful.”

  His eyes slid to Eldrin. “And the Mearth will stay in his own chambers. Guarded. Until I have questions that deserve his answers.”

  “House arrest,” Maldrick purred. “How polite treason feels before it’s named.”

  Gorath rose. “Enough for tonight.”

  The soldiers obeyed. The children were led away, pale but uncut. Eldrin followed under quiet guard.

  Only Maldrick lingered as the court emptied. He watched the king’s shadow stretch across the marble.

  “A lawful noose,” he said softly, almost to himself. “Majesty ties knots the gods themselves might envy.”

  Gorath didn’t glance back.

  Maldrick waited until the king’s footsteps faded.

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  “Mercy wears your colors well tonight,” he said softly.

  “Mercy,” Gorath murmured without turning, “is a blade for men who need witnesses.”

  “Then may you never run out of eyes, Majesty.”

  The king’s silence was answer enough.

  Behind them, the altar’s shadow trembled—as if trying to remember light.

  It did.

  The hawk crossed two kingdoms in a single day, flying through storms it did not cause. Below it, the roads burned with rumors, the inns with fear.

  The hawk arrived at dusk, wings pale against the reddening sky.

  It landed on the council tower’s ledge as if impatient with its own news. The message bore the seal of Eryndor but the haste of fear:

  Gorath suspects Pebble is Kael. Eldrin seized. Witnesses taken.

  Rynna read it twice, knuckles whitening.

  Rynna’s hand tightened on the parchment.

  “So you kept your promise after all,” she breathed, too low for the council to hear.

  Then the mask of the princess slid back into place, and only the hawk saw her eyes.

  Around the council table, Realmor’s ministers muttered like uneasy priests. The high king Adriyan XII sat at the head, his white robes stiff as carved bone.

  “We knew this storm would break,” said Lord Sarin, fingers drumming the oak. “But if we move before proof arrives—”

  “Proof?” Rynna snapped. “Shall we wait for Kael’s head in a box? Will that satisfy proof?”

  “Princess,” Adriyan said heavily, “Realmor cannot rush to war over rumor. Gorath rules half the east. We need certainty before swords.”

  “Gorath doesn’t need certainty before chains,” she shot back. “He has Eldrin. He has Tam and Miri. How long before they vanish into whatever pit feeds his throne?”

  Some of the ministers shifted uncomfortably. Others stared at the floor as though the stone offered better opinions.

  Adriyan raised a hand. “You cannot ride to Eryndor alone.”

  “Watch me,” Rynna said.

  “If you go, you risk more than yourself,” Adriyan warned. “You risk Realmor’s name. Its crown. Its people.”

  Rynna leaned forward, voice low but sharp as a drawn blade. “And if I stay, I risk Kael. The boy who once saved my life while kings argued about borders.”

  Silence.

  Outside the council tower, the hawk preened its wings, waiting for an answer no one wrote.

  The sun bled itself out along the peaks.

  Kael stood on the ridge with the Arclight across his back, watching the wind turn red above the pines.

  Maerath joined him quietly. “Eldrin is taken,” the old man said. “The children, too.”

  Kael said nothing.

  “Gorath will break them slowly,” Maerath continued. “He has learned cruelty wears law better than armor.”

  Maya came up behind them, face tight for once. “You can’t just walk into Eryndor,” she said.

  Kael checked the bowstring. “I can.”

  Maya stared at him. “You’ll be walking into a net.”

  Kael’s eyes stayed on the darkening horizon. “Then the net will have to learn what it’s caught.”

  Maerath studied the boy’s shoulders, the bow, the steady hands. He had seen students leave before—some ready, most not. The mountain never said which was which until the world below decided.

  “Take the Arclight,” Maerath said. “And whatever waits for you.”

  Kael nodded once.

  Night gathered like breath held too long.

  Somewhere far above the ridge, a single feather drifted down through the dusk and vanished against Kael’s shoulder before he noticed. The watcher still chose silence.

  Somewhere below, Eryndor’s torches began to burn, and a boy took his first step toward a justice that would not thank him.