The staff in Serena Winter's hand trembled. A faint shudder, nearly invisible, yet it betrayed her.
Impossible. Her pulse thundered behind a porcelain mask. Does he crave a swift execution, or has he unearthed a secret I thought buried?
Though her face remained a wall of unyielding ice, her internal rhythm had fractured. Three decades prior, she had sat on the council that orchestrated the great deception.
If Aren held the thread connecting back to that ancient lie, his words wouldn't just ruin her. They would dismantle the kingdom's entire judicial foundation.
Serena averted her eyes, breaking contact with Aren's mocking stare.
No, she hissed internally. He cannot know. This was the thrashing of a cornered rat—a man choosing the bite of a blade over the slow rot of a dungeon.
"Yes, Your Honor," his voice cut through her spiraling thoughts. He sounded steady. Dangerous.
Serena assumed he was praying for a miracle—a ghost of the anomaly from sixty-six years ago. She harbored a truth, however, buried deeper than any secret Aren could grasp.
Decades ago, the man who survived the ritual had been an indispensable Nyx. The Kingdom required his strength; the gallows were not an option. To preserve their asset, the council had swapped the sacred blade for a hollow imitation. That false steel bought his freedom. He lived out his days as a cursed pariah, yes, but he remained a loyal hound to the crown.
What Serena failed to realize was that Aren already held every shattered piece of this puzzle.
Sensing a dark opportunity to bury her fears, Serena pivoted. If Divine Judgment proceeded, it would silence lingering doubts—and Aren—forever.
"I accept the request," she declared. Her voice rang with finality, striking the courtroom like a physical weight.
Shock surged through the gallery. A collective gasp rattled the rafters.
"However," Serena continued, her composure returning, "the last rite occurred over half a century ago. Preparations are mandatory."
She let the weight of her words sink in.
"This court postpones the ritual for three days."
The gavel fell. The decisive crack echoed through the chamber, severing the tension.
As guards hauled Aren back into the dark, the gallery erupted. Citizens and reporters surged into the streets like a breached dam. The "Suicidal Gambit" ignited the public imagination.
Across every platform, through every fevered whisper, the name Aren Donovan became the only word that mattered.
The masses waited in a fever of anticipation. Some mocked Aren's perceived lunacy; others salivated at the thought of his arrogant pride being finally extinguished. To them, the conclusion was singular: the prisoner had succumbed to terror and chosen a pitiful suicide over a slow rot in a cell.
Yet, the man at the center of the storm sat in his dungeon as if on a summer retreat. For three days, Aren occupied the silence, undisturbed and unyielding.
Now, those three days had vanished. He stood once more before the crowd; the soaring arches of the Temple now replaced the sterile walls of the courtroom. This hearing was a public spectacle. Aren felt less like a defendant and more like a beast on display in a zoo.
High above, upon the temple's raised dais, Serena Winter loomed. Clad in flowing white robes with her silver staff in hand, she mirrored a goddess of judgment peering down at the mortal realm. When she struck her staff against the marble floor, the roar of the crowd was severed as if by a blade.
Her gaze drifted down to Aren. He waited below like a tethered sacrifice. Serena took a slow breath, her eyes as cold as frost on steel, before her melodic, commanding voice filled every hollow of the cathedral.
"People of the Mohen Sacred Kingdom, gathered beneath the Sacred Light! Defenders of our unwavering justice!"
She paused, the silence echoing.
"Today, we transcend the frailty of human proof. We place the truth in the hands of the Creator and the ancient laws. Prisoner 257, Aren Donovan—faced with the gravity of his crimes and a sentence of life imprisonment—has invoked a rite long forgotten: the right to Divine Judgment."
Serena leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping to a haunting resonance.
"Humans may err. Evidence can become obscured. Witnesses may fall silent. But the Sacred Sword does not falter. Beyond flesh and bone, it penetrates the soul's deepest chambers, where no lie can hide. Remember this: this is not an act of mercy. It is an act of absolute surrender."
With the silver staff, she directed her aim at him.
"Like a flower, the sacred metal will bloom in the heart of an innocent accused, leaving him unmarked. But if he carries the stain of his charges, the blade will not merely pierce his breast—it will tear his very existence apart in eternal agony."
"Aren Donovan! By your own will, you entrust your life to this verdict. This court now awaits the judgment written in your blood. May justice tear the darkness from the light!"
When Serena's voice faded, the pedestal in the center of the temple illuminated. Upon it sat a bone-white hand, carved like the ivory claw of an ancient beast. The skeletal fingers tightened.
Toward the blade, Serena walked, her steps unhurried, as she descended from the dais.
The skeletal hand looked less like a holy relic and more like a limb clawed from a shallow grave. A strange, unsettling aura emanated from the bone—a chill that felt closer to ancient malice than divine sanctity.
Serena Winter pulled on the silk gloves offered by a nearby priest. Taking the ivory hilt, she stepped directly into Aren's space.
She stared into his eyes—those gemstone orbs that had watched the world in mocking silence. Standing before the sacred blade, she had expected a tremor of hesitation, a flicker of the soul's fear.
Instead, his eyes curved.
That thin, predatory smile made Serena's brow twitch in sharp irritation.
"I thought you were smarter than this," she hissed, her voice a low vibration intended only for his ears. "Despite your wretched crimes, you might have survived IMFA. I didn't expect you to sprint toward your own execution."
Aren met her mockery with a dull, almost bored expression. He looked at her as if she were a tedious child attempting to comfort him.
"Yes, yes," he murmured indifferently, waving her off. "If the lecture is over, can we get on with it?"