Aren smiled again. Serena recognized the sheer arrogance behind it. Even at death's door, she thought, fury blooming in her chest. Why that insufferable pride?
Suppressing her unease, she thrust the bone hand forward—a silent, violent retort: You asked for this.
As the skeletal fingers sank into Aren's chest, a savage urge rose within her. Come on, she screamed silently. Crush that heart. Tear the smugness from his face. End him.
The bone hand passed through his skin without leaving a wound, phantom fingers coiling around his heart. Serena retreated several paces, ensuring the gallery had a clear view of the judgment.
The unseen force tightened. Aren pressed his lips thin, strangling the groan rising in his throat. For a heartbeat, it felt as though his heart were being pulverized in a titan's fist.
He expected this. He didn't panic. Instead, he waited. Only the cold sweat slicking his spine betrayed the agony of the strain.
The moment stretched, infinite. Yet nothing changed.
The crowd stirs. The uneasy murmur of thousands filled the temple. He was supposed to be screaming. He was supposed to be dying in a paroxysm of pain. Instead... silence.
When the sacred sword withdrew, Serena's world fractured. A knot tightened in her throat, stealing her breath.
Why? her mind shrieked. Why isn't it reacting? Evidence was absolute! The bodies were real! The sword is real… If he's innocent, then the Nyx we cleared sixty-six years ago—
A single drop of cold sweat traced a line down Serena's forehead. The roar of the crowd faded into a distant blur as his thin smile drove into her mind like a dagger. In that instant, the truth struck her like a landslide.
Aren hadn't just survived. He had dismantled her.
"W-what...?"
"What is this?"
"Look! The sword is retreating... It's not harming him!"
As if refusing to mar a soul it found pure, the sacred sword withdrew of its own accord, hovering in the stagnant air. The eyes of the crowd widened—a sea of shock, doubt, and dawning disbelief.
"What does this mean?"
"Is he… innocent?"
"After all that evidence, the sacred sword says he's guiltless?"
Shocked whispers rippled through the crowd like a rising tide, yet the corner of Aren's mouth quirked upward.
He had walked this path, knowing its lethality. He knew that suspicion would forever shroud him, no matter the verdict.
The logic behind his gamble was chillingly simple. In Divine Judgment, the sword scrutinized the soul, not the flesh.
Despite the body's past terrible deeds, its current soul bore no guilt. The sacred sword could only condemn the one who carried the sin, and Aren was a stranger to this man's crimes.
No one felt the weight of the result more than Serena Winter.
Six decades ago, she had been the one to suggest a hollow blade, sacrificing the people's faith for political necessity. The sacred steel cleared the guilty man in her sight.
Her mind went blank.
When her eyes met his, a primal chill raced down her spine. For the first time, Serena experienced the terror of prey. She recoiled, a single, involuntary step backward.
"Your Honor..." his voice struck her like a whip, cracking through her paralysis. "When do you intend to announce the result?"
Serena forced herself to stand rigid, though her legs turned to water beneath her robes. All eyes were on her. Reporters hovered, pens poised like daggers, waiting for the word that would reshape the kingdom.
If I claim the sword is broken, I destroy my authority. If I declare him guilty, I defy the sacred law.
But if she released him...
The glint in his eyes whispered her worst nightmare. Serena clenched her teeth until a sharp ache bloomed in her jaw.
For the first time in her life, she felt truly powerless. So small. Delivering this verdict was like kneeling before a criminal.
Aren raised his voice, his expression a mask of perfect, mocking innocence.
"As the head of this sacred court, I ask you to uphold the law," he prompted. "Announce the verdict of the sacred sword."
Serena swallowed a scream. If she rejected the sword's judgment now, the man they had cleared sixty-six years ago would have to be dragged to the gallows as well. The entire foundation of her power was crumbling.
Even if the public questioned the legitimacy of the ruling, a chasm lay between hushed whispers and open accusations.
The moment Serena rejected the sacred sword, every past verdict would crumble under scrutiny.
The families of those who died sixty-six years ago would rise, the kingdom would fall into chaos, and every verdict since would be questioned.
Serena clenched her teeth, the muscles in her jaw jumping in a frantic rhythm.
"I, Serena Winter, as Head of the Mohen Sacred Court, declare Aren Donovan innocent by the judgment of the sacred sword," she proclaimed.
Each word sounded as if it were being ripped from her throat. "This judgment clears Aren Donovan of all charges."
Her declaration sparked more confusion than relief, but Serena didn't stay to witness it. Still clutching the sacred sword, she struck her staff against the floor with a final, hollow thud and ended the trial.
It was over in the blink of an eye.
Three days later, Aren stood outside the prison gates. The sky above was an endless blue, as if the heavens were trying to scour away the suffocating weight of the past weeks.
Aren took a deep breath. The air was biting, but after the damp, mold-ridden stench of the dungeon, it tasted like life itself.
I did it, Aren thought, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the brilliance of the sun. I tore this body's fate out on the very first page of the story… and discarded it.
A different smile touched his lips—not the jagged, cunning grin of the courtroom, but something quieter. Genuine.
He could almost hear the fury of the crowd behind him; he could almost see Serena Winter in her private chambers, her hands shaking with impotent rage.
They dragged me onto that stage as the killer, he thought. Too bad for them—I won't play the part they wrote.
As the wind brushed past his face, scattering his hair, the jarring sensation of being an outsider ebbed.
This world was no longer just a novel he had stumbled into. It was the first battlefield where he had claimed victory.
Now, he told himself, slipping into the throng of the deeper streets, it's time to weaponise this 'innocence.'
As he descended the steps, navigating the crowd that seemed to watch his every move, a man in a black suit intercepted him.
"Mr. Aren Donovan," the man said, extending a crisp envelope. "Madam Donovan asked me to deliver this to you personally."
Aren paused, then took the letter.