The second morning arrived beneath gray skies.
Captain Aldric Rowan noticed because someone had opened the narrow slit high in the prison wall.
Fresh air drifted into the corridor.
No one appreciated it.
The prison had grown noticeably quieter overnight.
Not because hope had returned.
Because there were simply fewer voices left.
The first day's executions had claimed nearly two hundred lives.
Twenty at a time.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Each group marched away beneath the rattle of chains.
Each group disappeared above.
Each group announced their innocence in a different way.
Some shouted.
Some prayed.
Some cursed the King.
Some swore eternal loyalty to the Empire until the very end.
None of it mattered.
A few minutes later...
Twenty trapdoors would slam open.
The ropes would groan beneath fresh weight.
Silence would follow.
Then another twenty names would be called.
By sunset...
Even the men who still believed there had been some terrible mistake had stopped talking.
Aldric had stopped counting after the sixth group.
There had been no point.
The Empire had already made its decision.
Outside...
Alexandria had not accepted it so quietly.
The first day had ended in scattered skirmishes throughout the execution square.
Families had pushed against the barricades.
Veterans had shouted at the guards.
Rocks had been thrown.
Bottles shattered against shields.
One desperate father had somehow climbed onto the scaffold before being cut down where he stood.
The Empire's answer had been swift.
General Severin Blackmoor.
Commander of the Royal Guard.
General Octavius Drell.
Commander of the Capital Legion.
Both men had been ordered to restore order.
Neither believed in restraint.
Their soldiers struck first.
Questions came later.
Sometimes...
Not at all.
By nightfall, dozens of protesters had vanished into the same prison that already overflowed with condemned soldiers.
Many had never thrown a stone.
Some had merely stood too close.
Others had simply asked why.
The charge scarcely mattered anymore.
Disturbing the peace.
Inciting rebellion.
Supporting traitors.
The sentence rarely changed.
Execution.
Aldric had listened as the new prisoners arrived.
"I didn't do anything!"
"I was buying bread!"
"My husband is dead!"
"My son fought for this Empire!"
"I only tried to help someone who had fallen!"
The cries echoed through the prison until they blended together.
Eventually...
Even the guards stopped listening.
The key turned inside Aldric's cell.
The iron door opened.
"Captain Rowan."
Aldric stood immediately.
There was no hesitation left.
No bargaining.
No hope.
Only acceptance.
The guard avoided his eyes while fastening iron around his wrists.
"I'm sorry."
The words barely escaped his lips.
Aldric looked at him.
The young guard couldn't have been older than twenty.
"You have family?"
The guard nodded once.
"A wife."
"A son."
Aldric managed a tired smile.
"Go home to them tonight."
The young guard swallowed hard.
He couldn't answer.
The prison doors opened.
The roar of Alexandria poured inside.
Not celebration.
Division.
The city itself seemed to argue.
One side shouted,
"Justice!"
Another answered,
"Murderers!"
Someone cried,
"They're innocent!"
Someone else screamed back,
"Traitors!"
Every voice seemed to collide with another.
Imperial soldiers lined every street leading toward the execution square.
Thousands of them.
Not facing an invading army.
Facing their own citizens.
Blackmoor's Royal Guard held polished tower shields.
Drell's Capital Legion stood behind them with drawn bows and battle mages already preparing spells.
The message required no explanation.
Today...
The Empire expected resistance.
Aldric walked at the head of the condemned.
His shackles clinked softly against the stone.
He barely noticed.
His eyes searched the crowd instead.
Not because he hoped someone would rescue him.
Because he hoped...
His family wasn't there.
He prayed they had stayed home.
That his wife had protected the children from this.
That they would remember him alive.
Not like this.
Then...
He saw her.
She stood exactly where she always had during military parades.
Near the front.
Just far enough away to see.
His wife.
Beside her...
Tomas.
Trying so desperately to stand tall.
And Elara.
Fifteen years old now.
No longer the little girl who once chased him through the garden with a wooden sword.
His wife found his eyes.
For a moment...
The crowd disappeared.
The soldiers disappeared.
The gallows disappeared.
It was only the two of them.
Slowly...
Aldric shook his head.
No.
None of it was true.
Her eyes filled with tears.
She answered with a single nod.
She understood.
She always had.
She believed him.
That was enough.
The executions began.
Twenty ropes.
Twenty trapdoors.
Twenty more lives ended.
Another twenty prisoners were led forward.
The machinery never stopped.
The condemned climbed while the dead still swayed overhead.
Efficiency.
Procedure.
Order.
An elderly woman suddenly broke through the front of the crowd.
"My son is innocent!"
She pointed toward the scaffold.
"You arrested him yesterday!"
"He wasn't even here!"
"He never fought anyone!"
"He never had a trial!"
"He only asked where his brother was!"
Guards seized her arms.
She fought like someone half her age.
"They're lying!"
"My boy isn't a traitor!"
"They're lying!"
Others found their voices.
"My husband didn't betray anyone!"
"My brother served twenty-three years!"
"Release them!"
"Murderers!"
A rock struck one of Blackmoor's shields.
Another followed.
Then another.
Somewhere behind the crowd...
Glass shattered.
A bottle wrapped in burning cloth arced through the air.
It burst against a barricade.
Fire spread across the wooden platform.
Soldiers rushed to stamp it out.
The square erupted.
The crowd surged.
Not everyone.
Not even most.
But enough.
Enough to push the front line backward.
Enough to make frightened soldiers lower spears.
Enough to convince General Drell that control was slipping away.
He never gave a warning.
He simply drew his sword.
"Suppress them."
Archers released.
Battle mages answered.
Lightning ripped through the crowd.
Fire rolled across the square.
Ice spears burst upward from the cobblestones.
Citizens scattered in every direction.
Those who had protested.
Those who hadn't.
Those who had applauded the King only moments before.
It no longer mattered.
If they remained...
They were targets.
The executioners looked toward the fighting.
One swallowed nervously.
"We have to hurry."
"If we're interrupted..."
"...they'll accuse us of neglect."
The others nodded.
Hands moved faster.
Ropes tightened.
Knots checked only once instead of twice.
Procedure gave way to panic.
Aldric struggled for the first time.
Not to escape.
To see.
"Hold still!"
An executioner shoved him toward the trapdoor.
Aldric twisted anyway.
Desperately searching the chaos.
Where had they gone?
His wife had been there.
Tomas.
Elara.
Where—
Smoke swallowed the square.
Fire.
Dust.
Screaming.
Horses.
Magic.
The world blurred into madness.
Then...
A sudden gust of wind swept through the square.
For one impossible heartbeat...
Everything became clear.
He saw the wooden post where his wife had stood to wave at him.
She still clung to it.
Or...
What remained of her did.
Her body had collapsed against its base.
Blackened.
One side reduced almost to bone by lightning.
Beneath her arm...
A familiar strip of faded cloth.
The old military bandana Tomas had treasured since childhood.
The boy's body lay motionless beneath her.
Charred beyond recognition except for that single piece of cloth.
A few feet away...
Two slender legs disappeared beneath fallen bodies.
Elara.
They never moved.
The world stopped.
Everything inside Aldric shattered.
Not his faith.
Not his loyalty.
Everything.
For the first time in nineteen years...
Captain Aldric Rowan wished he had betrayed the Empire.
Not because he wanted to live.
Because it would have meant his family had died for something worth believing in.
He took one furious step forward.
The executioners grabbed him.
"Hold him!"
He fought anyway.
Not to survive.
To kill.
Anyone.
Everyone.
The King.
The Queen.
The Generals.
The soldiers.
It no longer mattered.
He would take one of them with him.
Just—
The trapdoor vanished beneath his feet.
The rope snapped tight.
His neck didn't break.
Pain exploded through his throat.
The world swung violently.
His bound hands clawed uselessly behind his back.
Darkness crept inward from the edges of his vision.
The screams below faded.
The fire disappeared.
Only one memory remained.
Crescent Moon Canyon.
Shadow beasts carrying wounded Imperial soldiers.
Enemy healers saving men who had come to enslave them.
A merchant who could have destroyed every survivor...
...and instead chose mercy.
His final thought came with terrible clarity.
We marched against monsters...
...and found men.
The world dimmed.
We came home...
His vision failed.
...and found monsters.
Darkness claimed him.
The executions continued until sunset.
By the week's end...
Every surviving officer and soldier from Crescent Moon Canyon had been executed.
Hundreds of civilians had joined them.
Their homes.
Their savings.
Their businesses.
Their lands.
Everything they had owned was seized by the Crown.
Official records declared them enemies of the Empire.
History would remember them as traitors.
For now.
The truth...
Had simply gone into hiding.