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Part One

Renalt

1

The gallows had been erected in the shadow of the clock tower, partly so that the spectators could witness the executions without the nuisance of sun in their eyes, and partly so that the Tribunal could keep its killings on precise schedule Order in all things, that was the Tribunal’s motto

I helded in the square beneath the clock tower It was a chillyfrom myI scanned right and left from under my hood, wary

“Good day for a hanging,” a man next to me drawled in a conversational tone

I glanced quickly away, unable to ht notice mine It wasn’t often that a person was determined to be a witch by such a trivial trait as the color of her eyes, but it wasn’t unprecedented

A murmur rippled across the crowd as tomen were prodded up the stairs onto the platform Accused witches, both of them The first woman’s shackled hands shook so hard, I could hear the clink of her chains froer woman with a sad face and stooped shoulders, was perfectly still They were both dressed in rags, dirt caking their sallow cheeks and clinging to their matted hair They’d probably been isolated and starved for days, long enough to turn them desperate and feral It was a calculated tactic; if the accused witches seee, it not only quelled the reservations of the scrupulous feho ht doubt the Tribunal’s practices, but it alsoshow

The man who’d spoken to s Wouldn’t you agree?”

I tried to ignore hiree, Princess?”

Startled, I foundinto a pair of purposeful, u mouth and a cocked eyebrow