Ismerie #2
“Every wrongful death generates more power than a just one.” The words tumble out, information I’ve gathered over years of feeding on execution magic.
“The universe notices when innocent people die. It marks those deaths, remembers them, stores the energy they release. And that energy has to go somewhere.”
“The gallows.”
“The gallows. The square. The soil beneath, saturated with generations of blood.” I meet his gaze, willing him to understand. “A presence is living in all that accumulated death. Waiting for the right moment to wake up. And when it does—”
“You think killing you will trigger it.”
Smart. Faster than I expected. Most people need more explanation, more hand-holding through implications they’d rather not face.
“I think killing me will feed it.” I hold his stare.
“I’m a death witch, Warden. My power comes from ending.
When I die—especially when I die on that platform, surrounded by all that concentrated death magic—every bit of energy I’ve absorbed goes somewhere.
Gets released back into the system.” My laugh sounds hollow even to my own ears.
“You’ll be giving that thing the biggest meal it’s ever had. ”
I watch him process the information, watch the calculations happening behind that cold gold gaze. He’s weighing options. Assessing risks. Doing exactly what I hoped he would—treating me as an asset instead of a condemned prisoner.
“You could be lying.”
“I could be.” I don’t look away. “I’m a death witch facing execution. I have every reason to say whatever might save my life. You’d be a fool to take my word for anything.”
“But?”
“But I’m also the only person in this city who sensed what that thing was.
Who understands what made it, what feeds it, what it wants.
” I lean back against my chains, exhaustion dragging at my bones.
“Kill me, and you lose that. You’ll face whatever’s coming blind and ignorant, with nothing but your blade and your reputation to protect you. ”
He considers this. I can almost see the thoughts moving behind his eyes, the ruthless pragmatism warring with duty and law and two decades of conditioning.
“You’re asking me to spare your life.”
“I’m asking you to think about what happens after my life ends.” The distinction matters. “I’ve made peace with dying, Warden. I’ve been making peace with it for years. But I’d rather not be responsible for unleashing a force that kills everyone else in the process.”
More silence. The water drips in the darkness, counting seconds that stretch like hours.
Then he moves.
Not toward the door. Toward me.
His hand rises, and I flinch before I can stop myself—instinct, pure and shameful. But he doesn’t strike. Doesn’t threaten. His fingers brush the side of my face, calloused and surprisingly gentle, tilting my chin up until I’m forced to meet his eyes.
The touch sears through me. Not painfully—heat of a different kind. Heat that sends fire racing through my depleted veins, that makes my breath catch and my pulse stutter. His skin against mine resonates like a brand, like a claiming, like a force I should fight against but can’t.
“You’re not what I expected.”
His words come lower now. Rougher. Shifted into something I can’t name.
“Sorry to disappoint.” The words come out breathless. Weak. “What did you expect? Begging? Pleading? Tears?”
“Calculation.” His thumb traces along my jaw, a whisper of sensation that makes my whole body shiver. “Strategy. A death witch facing execution should be looking for angles, weaknesses, opportunities to escape.”
“Maybe I’m too tired for strategy.”
“Maybe.” His gaze bores into mine, seeing things I’d rather keep hidden. “Or maybe you mean what you’re saying. Maybe you don’t care if you live or die, as long as a worse fate doesn’t die with you.”
I can’t answer. Can’t think. His touch has scattered every rational thought, left me suspended between chains and heat and the impossible awareness of his body so close to mine.
“That would make you dangerous.” His hand drops away, and the absence of his touch registers like a wound. “A woman with nothing to lose is the most dangerous creature in the world.”
“Then hang me.” I force the words out through a windpipe that’s gone tight and dry. “Get it over with. I’m sure the crowd will be thrilled.”
He steps back.
The distance between us stretches like miles. I watch him retreat to professional remove, watch the composure slide back over his features—cold, calculating, the Gallows Warden who has executed people without hesitation.
“Dawn.” His words flatten again. Controlled. “The execution is scheduled for dawn. Sleep if you can.”
He turns toward the door.
“Warden.”
The word stops him. He doesn’t turn back, but he doesn’t keep walking either. Stands there, framed in the doorway, waiting.
“Whatever made that revenant isn’t done. It’s going to try again—maybe not tomorrow, maybe not for weeks, but eventually. And when it does, it won’t stop at one body.” I swallow hard. “It wants the gallows. Wants to make it a throne. And it wants me to help it.”
“Why?”
He stands motionless for a long moment.
Then the door closes, and I’m alone.
The darkness presses in.
I hang from my chains, arms screaming, power depleted, mind racing in circles that lead nowhere useful. The water drips. The names of the dead stare down from the walls. The greasy lamplight flickers and dies, leaving me in blackness so complete I can’t see my own hands.
I wonder how many death witches have hanged from these exact chains. How many waited in this same darkness, counting hours until dawn. How many carved their names into these walls before the rope took them.
I could add my name. Leave some mark, some evidence that I existed before I stopped existing.
But even if my hands were free, I can’t imagine what I’d write.
Ismerie Ashfall? The name belonged to someone else—a girl who had parents once, who lived in a village outside Blackhook City, who didn’t yet know what she was or what she’d become.
That girl died a long time ago. What’s left is survival. Instinct. The desperate clinging to life that made me attend execution after execution, feed on death after death, sustain myself on suffering I couldn’t stop.
Maybe ending is what I deserve.
Don’t.
Familiar as an old wound, that certainty. I’ve carried it for years—the conviction that a creature like me shouldn’t exist. That every day I survive is borrowed time, stolen from people more deserving.
But the thing beneath the platform…
That’s different. That’s dangerous in ways my death can’t justify.
I told him the truth. Whatever raised that revenant isn’t finished.
It has plans, ambitions, a hunger that won’t be satisfied by one dead witch or even a dozen.
It wants the gallows as its throne, and it wants me as its anchor—a living bridge between the world of the dead and the power source it calls home.
If I die, it feeds.
If I live, I might be able to stop it.
Simple calculation, if you ignore the part where staying alive means convincing the most feared man in Blackhook City to defy the law he’s enforced all his life.
The darkness seems to press closer. The water keeps dripping. Somewhere above me, the city sleeps—or pretends to sleep, while whispers spread about the death witch who saved the Warden and the revenant that shouldn’t have risen.
I close my eyes.
His face appears immediately. Those pale eyes, cold and assessing. Those scarred hands, gentle where they shouldn’t have been. The way his words dropped when he told me I wasn’t what he expected.
What did he expect?
What do people think death witches are—cackling monsters who delight in ending? Twisted creatures without conscience or humanity?
Maybe some of us are. I’ve met others who’ve lost themselves to it entirely, and I can feel myself moving in that direction with every execution I witness, the guilt growing quieter each time.
That’s the real reason I saved him.
Not instinct. Not stupidity. Not even some noble impulse toward heroism.
I saved the Gallows Warden because I needed to prove I still could. Needed to know that there was a part of me left capable of choosing sacrifice over survival.
And now I’m going to die for it.
The irony is bitter enough to taste.
I let my head fall back against the stone wall, ignoring the pain in my arms, the cold creeping into my bones, the darkness pressing against my closed eyelids. Tomorrow the sun will rise. Tomorrow the crowds will gather. Tomorrow the Gallows Warden will do what he does best.
But tonight, for a few hours, I let myself remember the sensation of his touch.
And wonder what might have been different, in some other world, some other life.
Where death wasn’t entertainment.
And monsters got to choose what they became.