6. Ismerie
SIX
ISMERIE
The claiming scar sears my collarbone like a brand that won’t cool.
Three days since Brannok seared it into my flesh.
Three days since he destroyed his career, his reputation, his entire identity to keep me breathing.
Three days of hiding in the Execution Hall while the city riots outside, and I still can’t decide if he saved me or condemned me to a different kind of death.
I turn away from the window and its view of the execution square.
The Grand Gallows loom in the morning light, their damaged wards still visible where Brannok’s blade carved through the timber.
The ropes hang motionless now—no writhing, no reaching, no hungry awareness pressing against my senses.
Whatever was waking inside the platform has retreated since the claiming.
Or it’s waiting. Gathering strength for another attempt.
You think you’ve saved her, Gallows Warden.
The voice echoes in my memory, that chorus of wrongful deaths speaking from beneath the Hall’s foundations.
I haven’t told Brannok about it. Haven’t mentioned the laughter that seemed to rise from the soil itself, the promise that the entity could wait centuries, the certainty that it would claim us both eventually.
What would be the point? He already knows we’re not safe. He doesn’t need my nightmares confirming it.
The door to the Warden’s quarters opens.
I sense him before I see him—the brand surging hot against my collarbone, my whole body orienting toward his presence like a compass finding north.
He fills the doorway, massive and dark-armored despite the early hour.
Those amber irises find me immediately, sweeping over my position by the window with an assessment that’s equal parts tactical and… heated.
Don’t think about the heat. Don’t think about the way his gaze lingers on your neck, on the claiming mark he seared into your skin, on the pulse point that jumps every time he enters a room.
“You’re awake early.” His words are a low rumble that does unfortunate things to my concentration.
“Couldn’t sleep.” True enough. The dreams have been getting worse—fragmented images of courtrooms made from bone, of faces shifting through the features of executed innocents, of a presence that watches me from the darkness and calls me sister. “The bed is too soft.”
A lie. The bed is perfect, far better than anything I’ve slept on in years. But admitting that I can’t sleep because I’m hyperaware of his presence in the next room seems like information he doesn’t need.
“The riots have quieted.” He moves into the chamber, and I force myself not to track his every step. “Halvard reports the council has called an emergency session. They’re debating how to respond to… the situation.”
The situation. A polite way of describing the chaos that has gripped Blackhook City since the claiming.
Street fighting between citizens who support the council and those who’ve decided the Gallows Warden must have had good reason for defying orders.
Arson in the merchant quarter. Three execution bells silenced when angry mobs stormed the Bell Towers.
“They’ll want your head.” I keep my words level. “Mine too, probably, but mostly yours. You’re the symbol of everything they built. If you can defy them, anyone can.”
“Let them want.” He stops near the weapons rack, running his fingers over the blade he used to carve through the scaffold. “They’d have to get through Halvard’s men first. And none of them are eager to test whether the guards’ loyalty has shifted.”
“Has it?”
His jaw tightens. “Some of them. Enough to hold this position, for now. The rest…” He shakes his head. “The rest are waiting to see which way the wind blows. They’ll follow whoever seems most likely to win.”
Pragmatic. Survival instinct. I understand that better than most.
I push away from the window and cross to the desk where execution orders still sit in neat piles. Three days, and neither of us has bothered to move them. The Warden’s office, frozen in time, waiting for an authority that no longer exists.
“I need to go out.”
The words hang in the air between us. I sense his attention sharpen.
“Out.” Not a question. A flat statement that demands explanation.
“The Gallows Quarter.” I meet his gaze without flinching. “There are people there who might know more about what’s living under the scaffold. Other death witches, practitioners who’ve been feeding on executions for decades. If anyone understands what we’re dealing with, it’s them.”
“You want to walk into the most dangerous district in Blackhook during a riot.” Still flat. Still waiting.
“I want to find out what’s trying to kill us before it succeeds.” I cross my arms, aware that the posture is defensive and not caring. “You can come with me or you can stay here and review guard rotations. But I’m not going to hide in this Hall waiting for that thing to wake up again.”
A long pause. I watch thoughts move behind those amber irises, watch him weigh risks and options with the same ruthless calculation he brings to everything.
“Two hours.” His words carry the authority that has commanded this city for two decades. “Halvard accompanies us. We stay close, and we leave at the first sign of trouble.”
Us. We.
I should argue. Should insist that I can handle myself, that I don’t need a bodyguard, that his presence will only draw more attention. Instead, the concession comes out before I’ve decided to give it.
“Fine. Two hours. Then we come back and continue hiding like trapped rats.”
His lips twitch. Not quite a smile, but close enough to count.
“Get dressed.” He turns toward the door. “Clothes that don’t scream ‘condemned death witch.’ We’re trying to blend in.”
“I’ll do my best to look like a completely different condemned death-witch.”
This time, he does smile. A small expression, barely visible, gone almost before I register it.
But I saw it.
Don’t. Don’t let yourself feel this. Don’t let yourself want this.
Too late.
The Gallows Quarter is exactly as bad as I remembered.
Narrow streets perpetually shadowed by the Grand Gallows looming overhead.
Buildings that lean against each other like exhausted mourners, their foundations rotted by centuries of blood runoff.
The smell of death is strongest here—bodies awaiting burial, fear sweated into every wall, the accumulated weight of endings pressing down on everything.
I’ve walked these streets a hundred times. Attended executions, fed on ending magic, disappeared into the crowd before anyone could notice what I was. The Quarter has always felt like a second home—the one place in Blackhook where being touched by death wasn’t automatically a death sentence.
Today, it feels different.
So much for blending in.
Halvard trails three paces behind, his hand resting casually on his sword hilt. His presence is both reassuring and suffocating. Every eye in the Quarter is tracking us. Every whisper follows in our wake.
The Gallows Warden and his witch. Come to see how the other half lives.
I ignore the stares and focus on our destination. The tavern called The Last Drop sits at the corner of two particularly narrow streets, its sign depicting a noose with a single drop of blood falling from the rope. Gallows humor. The Quarter is full of it.
Inside, the common room is half-empty. A few dockworkers nurse ales in the corner. A woman with gray-streaked hair deals cards to herself at a table by the hearth. The barkeep—a heavyset man with scars that speak of a violent past—looks up as we enter and immediately goes still.
“Warden.” The word is flat. Unwelcoming.
“We’re not here for trouble.” Brannok’s words carry quiet authority. “Looking for information.”
“Information about what?”
“The gallows.” I step forward, drawing the barkeep’s attention to me. His eyes flicker over my face, my clothes, the collar of my shirt where the claiming brand is barely visible. “About what’s growing underneath them.”
A long pause. The card-dealing woman has stopped her game, though she doesn’t look up. The dockworkers have gone quiet.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” The barkeep reaches for a glass, begins polishing it with a cloth that’s seen better decades. “Nothing growing under the gallows except dirt and old bones.”
“Bodies that twitch longer than they should.” I keep my words measured.
“Whispers from fresh graves. The feeling of being watched by faces that don’t have eyes.
” I lean against the bar, deliberately casual.
“I’ve been feeding on execution magic in this city for years.
I know what normal death feels like. And what’s building under that platform isn’t normal. ”
The barkeep’s hands still on the glass. Behind me, Brannok shifts his weight—a subtle movement that puts him in a better position to react if things turn violent.
“You’re her.” The woman at the card table speaks without looking up. “The death-witch who saved the Warden. The one they tried to hang.”
“Ismerie Ashfall.” I turn to face her. “And you are?”
“Someone who’s been waiting a long time to have this conversation.” She finally lifts her head, and I see what I should have noticed immediately.
Her eyes are white. Completely white, the irises and pupils replaced by milky film that should mean blindness. But her gaze finds my face with unerring accuracy, and power brushes against my senses—ending magic, old and deep and carefully controlled.
A death witch. One who’s been practicing far longer than I’ve been alive.
“Era.” She gestures to the chair across from her. “Sit. Your Warden can loom menacingly from the bar. We have much to discuss.”
Era’s hands move across the cards with the ease of long practice.