Free Dark Haven by Gail Z. Martin Page B

revenge? Mother and Kait will be avenged if these men hang. I know better than any what awaits their souls—the judgment of the Crone or the wrath of the Formless One. Lady Bright! How can it still hurt so much?
    Another memory came. Jared, drunk with whiskey but no less dangerous, on the night Tris took back Shekerishet. Jared’s face was less than a hand’s breadth away, reeking of sweat and drink.
    As Jared’s hand had tightened on Tris’s throat, Tris had seen his brother smile. I want to watch you die, Jared had said, and remember fust how you looked when the last breath slipped beyond your grasp.
    Tris recoiled from the memory. I can’t. I won’t be like Jared. I won’t make Lemuel’s mistake. And it’s all the worse, because of how easy it would be.
    “The Crown sentences you to hang. It’s more than you deserve.” Tris stood and left the chamber.
    Behind him, he could hear the guards leading the condemned men toward the courtyard and the noise of the crowd rushing to see the hanging. Four guards moved with him into the small 65

    antechamber, and Soterius followed.
    “Are you all right?” Soterius asked.
    Tris knew his friend could easily read the pain in his eyes. “When you went to Hunt‐wood, when Danne told you what Jared’s men did to your family, did you want revenge?”
    “More than I can tell you,” ‘Soterius admitted. “Ask Mikhail. I fought like a madman. I gave no quarter. We ambushed a group of Jared’s soldiers and one of them recognized me. He told me it had been as easy to kill my
    family as slaughtering sheep.” Soterius’s voice broke. “Goddess help me, Tris. I ran him through.
    And I didn’t stop. I hacked him to pieces, crying so hard that I couldn’t see. And when it was over and I was covered in his blood, I realized that it didn’t matter. It couldn’t bring them back. Killing him didn’t change anything for him or for them, but it changed me. I threw up and burned my clothes and scrubbed the blood off my hands, but I knew what I’d done. I don’t know if the Lady can ever forgive me. Mikhail stayed with me all that night. He thought I might try to kill myself.
    He was right.”
    Soterius looked at Tris and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever it was you didn’t do in there—
    you were right not to do it.”
    “Then why does it feel like I let mother and Kait down?”
    “You didn’t. You would have failed them if you’d used your magic to kill those men, instead of letting justice be served. Those men will still be dead, but the blood won’t be on your hands.”
    66

    They walked together from the Hall of Petitions out onto the loggia and through the walled garden. The garden, one of Kait’s favorite places, was now cluttered with the dry stalks of weeds. Even there, soldiers with crossbows kept vigil. Two dozen soldiers joined them as they walked to the main courtyard,
    where the crowd waited. It was a cold, late autumn afternoon. The sky threatened an early snow. Tris had banned any sale of food or ale, not wishing the executions to become the event they had been under Jared. Still, a crowd gathered. Some of the onlookers had brought their own baskets and blankets, setting up a picnic where they could best see the gallows. Children ran through the crowd, laughing. Tris knew that afterward, some would try to scavenge bits of the rope or a shoe or button from the condemned men’s bodies.
    In the center of the courtyard, the gallows waited.
    Tris signaled for the prisoners to be brought out. He lifted his face to the wind. It was not the first such hanging and would not be the last, especially if the campaign against Curane and his rebels succeeded. But it would be the‐ final one for a long time here at Shekerishet. After months of trials, the tower was empty of prisoners.
    The condemned officers walked with a defiant stride. Kalay raised his head to meet Tris’s eyes.
    “Hail, King Jared, the rightful king of Mar‐golan!” Kalay shouted as the