Ismerie
THREE
The chains bite into my wrists with every breath.
Suppression manacles. I recognize the design—iron etched with death-dampening runes, the kind practitioners learn to fear before they learn to walk. The magic carved into the metal drains my power, leaving me gutted, shaking, barely conscious.
I’ve imagined being captured a thousand times. Played out the scenarios in my head during sleepless nights, calculated escape routes and contingency plans, told myself I’d know what to do when the moment came.
I never imagined it would be like this. Like drowning in slow motion. Like watching my own death approach with absolute certainty and absolute helplessness.
The lanterns emit that greasy yellow light I noticed on the way in. The shadows dance and reach in ways that seem deliberate. Water drips in the darkness, counting seconds with maddening regularity.
My arms ache from being stretched above my head. The chains anchor to the ceiling through iron rings, pulling me upward until my toes barely brush the floor. It’s a position designed for interrogation—keep the prisoner off-balance, vulnerable, unable to resist whatever comes next.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Hours, maybe. Long enough for the adrenaline to fade, for the power I expended in the execution square to leave me gutted and raw. Long enough for reality to sink into my awareness.
I’m going to die.
Not eventually. Not someday. Tomorrow morning, when the sun rises over Blackhook City and the citizens gather for their daily entertainment. I’ll climb the platform stairs the way Mira Thornwood did, watch the noose tighten around my neck, see the Gallows Warden’s hand close on the lever.
And then nothing.
Relief.
That’s what registers. No more hiding. No more feeding on deaths I didn’t cause, sustaining myself on suffering I couldn’t stop. No more calculating how many executions I need to attend, how much ending magic I need to absorb, how long I can stretch my survival before the hunger becomes unbearable.
Ending. Quick and clean, if the Warden’s reputation holds.
The door opens.
I don’t lift my head. Don’t give him the satisfaction of watching me strain against the chains, trying to see who’s entered.
I already know. His presence registers through instinct, not magic.
The way the air changes when a predator enters the room.
The way my body responds to threat and power in equal measure.
His footsteps echo on the stone floor. Heavy, deliberate, the measured pace of a man who has all the time in the world.
He circles behind me, and I track his movement through sound alone—the creak of leather armor, the soft clink of metal against metal, the whisper of breath that tells me he’s stopped beyond my line of sight.
“Death witch.”
His words roll over me, deep and cold as the grave. He says it the way a doctor might say cancer—clinical diagnosis, not accusation. Stating what I am, what I’ve always been, what I’ll die for being.
“That’s the rumor.” My voice comes out hoarse, roughened by hours of silence and the drain of power depletion. “Though I prefer ‘survival enthusiast.’ It’s more optimistic.”
He moves into my field of vision.
But seeing him up close, in the confined space of the interrogation chamber, makes the reality land harder than observation from a crowd ever could.
His skin is dark green in the lamplight, weathered and scarred. Newer bruises circle his neck—purple fingerprints left by the revenant that nearly killed him.
His gaze finds mine.
Pale amber, almost gold. Cold as winter sunrise, assessing me with the same flat calculation he probably brings to measuring drop distances and knot positions.
My breath catches. My pulse quickens.
Inappropriate. Extremely inappropriate. He’s going to kill you in the morning.
My body doesn’t seem to care about appropriateness.
It notices the breadth of his shoulders, the controlled power in his movements, the way he holds himself with absolute certainty of his own strength.
It responds to threat the way prey responds to predator—heart racing, skin flushing, every nerve ending painfully aware.
“How long have you been feeding on my executions?”
The question cuts through my inappropriate observations. I force my attention back to his face, away from the muscles shifting beneath his armor, away from the scars lacing his forearms, each one a history I don’t have the right to ask about.
“Long enough to know you enjoy them.”
The words slip out before I can stop them—defense mechanism, the sarcasm that’s kept me alive when nothing else could. Provoke them. Make them angry. Angry people make mistakes, and mistakes create opportunities.
The Gallows Warden doesn’t get angry.
He watches me, those amber irises never wavering, waiting for me to continue with the patience of a man who has conducted a thousand interrogations. Who knows exactly how to wait someone out.
“The capable ones, anyway.” I can’t seem to stop talking. The silence is worse than questions. “You get a little thrill when the neck snaps clean, don’t you? Pride in a job well done. I’ve watched you enough times to notice.”
Still nothing. Not a flicker of reaction, not a twitch of muscle. His face might as well be carved from the same stone as these walls.
“You need death to survive.”
Not a question. A statement. He already knows—saw enough in the execution square to understand what I am, what I require. The interrogation isn’t about gathering information. It’s about understanding.
“Yes.” No point lying. He’d know, and the lie would give him power over me.
Better to own the truth, ugly as it is. “Without ending magic, I weaken. Wither. Die within weeks.” I manage a smile that tastes of ash and self-loathing.
“Ironic, isn’t it? I need your hangings to stay alive.
You need my kind dead to keep your position. We’re made for each other, Warden.”
His expression shifts. A flicker—there and gone before I can identify it. But I saw it. For a moment, his composure slipped.
He moves closer.
Close enough that I can smell him—sweat and leather and an undertone that makes my breath turn shallow despite every rational thought screaming warnings. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze, the chains pulling taut as my body shifts.
“You knew what exposing yourself would cost.”
“Obviously.” I can’t seem to stop talking. “Do you have a reason for everything you do, Warden? Every decision perfectly calculated, every action weighed against consequences? Because I don’t. Sometimes I do things. Stupid things. Things that get me chained in execution halls waiting for dawn.”
“Why?”
The word is barely a breath. He’s so close now that I can sense the heat radiating from his skin, can see the individual scars crossing his forearms, can count the faint lines etched around those predator’s eyes. This isn’t interrogation technique. This is a search for understanding.
A search that makes my breath catch.
“Because you were dying.” The admission scrapes out of me, raw and honest and utterly damning. “Because that thing was going to kill you, and then it was going to kill everyone else, and I was the only one who could stop it. Because—”
I cut myself off. The rest of that sentence lives in territory I’m not willing to explore. Not here. Not with him. Not when my body responds to his proximity with something that has nothing to do with fear.
“Because what?”
“Does it matter?” I force steel into my voice. “You’re going to hang me either way. Tomorrow at dawn, if I had to guess. The city needs to see that even people who save the Warden aren’t above justice.”
“Yes.”
He says it without emotion. Without hesitation. The flat acknowledgment of a man who has spent his career executing people and has no intention of stopping now.
Hate him. Feel rage, betrayal, anything other than this awareness of his body inches from mine.
Instead, respect registers. He’s not pretending. Not offering false comfort or empty promises. The truth, ugly and absolute.
“Then do it.” I hold his gaze, refusing to look away. “Do what you do best, Warden. Pull the lever, drop the floor, let the rope do its work.”
He doesn’t step back.
I expected him to. Expected the cold dismissal, the turn toward the door, the professional distance he maintains with everyone else. Instead, he stays exactly where he is—close enough to touch, close enough that I can see his pulse beating in his neck.
The bruises there are darkening. The revenant’s fingers left marks that will take weeks to fade, purple shadows against green skin. He would be dead if I hadn’t made the choice that landed me in these chains.
“Whatever raised that revenant is still out there.”
My words sound strange in the thick silence. Too loud. Too desperate. But I can’t stop them from coming—self-preservation instinct, maybe, or the need to matter. To leave behind more than another name carved into these walls.
“It called me sister. Said it’s been waiting for someone like me.
” I lean forward against the chains, ignoring the bite of metal into my wrists.
“This wasn’t random. Wasn’t an accident.
A presence has been growing under that platform for a long time, feeding on your executions the same way I have. And it’s finally strong enough to act.”
Interest flickers in his gaze. Cold, calculating interest—the look of a man assessing a threat, gathering intelligence, planning his response.
“You know what it is.”
“I know what it resonates like.” I shake my head, as much as the chains allow.
“Ending magic. Old ending magic, the kind that accumulates in places of mass death. Your Grand Gallows have been standing for centuries, Warden. How many people have died on that platform? How many of those deaths were unjust?”
He doesn’t answer. But his expression shifts—the faintest tightening around his eyes, the barely perceptible clench of his jaw. He knows. He’s always known. He hasn’t let himself dwell on it.