11. Brannok
ELEVEN
brANNOK
The council chamber smells of incense and cowardice.
Seven faces stare down at me from their elevated seats—High Councilor Varn with his death warrants stacked neatly before him, Councilor Thessa with her traitor’s smile, the others arrayed in various poses of calculated outrage.
The viewing window behind them shows the execution square, empty now but for the gallows that have defined my life.
Ismerie stands at my side. I insisted on that, despite protocol that says mates wait outside during official proceedings. Where I go, she goes. The council can add it to their list of grievances.
“Gallows Warden.” Varn’s words carry the practiced disappointment of a man who has signed thousands of death sentences without losing a moment’s sleep.
“You have been summoned to explain your failure to carry out lawful execution orders. Thirty-seven condemned prisoners remain in the cells when they should be decorating our platform.”
“The orders were unlawful.” I keep my tone flat. Controlled. The tone I’ve used for two decades to deliver sentences and maintain authority. “Mass execution of suspected death-witches without proper trials violates the city charter.”
“The emergency provisions—”
“Are meant for external threats. Invasion. Plague. Not convenient purges of citizens the council finds inconvenient.”
Thessa leans forward, her witch-blood ancestors betrayed by the zealous gleam in her eyes. “The death witches are a threat. They feed on our executions. They grow stronger with every hanging. Surely even you can see the danger they represent.”
“I see the danger.” Ismerie stiffens beside me and I reach for her hand, lacing our fingers in full view of the council.
“I’m looking at it. Seven people who have used the gallows to maintain power, eliminate rivals, and terrorize the population into compliance.
The death witches aren’t your enemy. Your own system is. ”
Silence. The kind of silence that precedes violence.
“You know what’s beneath that scaffold.” I continue before they can respond, meeting Varn’s gaze without flinching.
“You’ve always known. Every wrongful execution fed it—you were warned of that when the Hall was first built, and you chose profit over conscience.
” I let that land before adding: “Mass hangings won’t solve your problem. They’ll make it unstoppable.”
“And your solution?” Varn’s words drip with contempt. “Let the witches go free? Abandon the gallows that have maintained order for three hundred years?”
“Yes.”
The word falls into the chamber like a stone into still water.
“Yes to both.” I squeeze Ismerie’s hand, draw strength from her presence. “The executions stop. The condemned are released. And we find another way to destroy the Judge—one that doesn’t require feeding it more death.”
“You’re mad.” Councilor Marsh—the youngest, the one I’d hoped might be reachable—stares at me with a mixture of horror and fascination. “You’re asking us to abandon everything that keeps this city stable.”
“I’m asking you to stop pretending that terror equals stability.
” I pull Ismerie closer, my arm around her waist. Let them see.
Let them understand that I’ve chosen her over everything they represent.
“Fear isn’t order. It’s only fear. And if Blackhook City can’t survive without the gallows, then maybe it deserves to fall. ”
Varn rises from his seat. His face has gone the particular shade of purple that precedes apoplexy.
“Brannok Redrope, you are hereby stripped of your position as Gallows Warden. A bounty of five hundred gold marks is placed on your head. You are declared rogue, enemy of the state, and condemned to death by hanging.” He slams his palm against the desk. “Guards! Arrest him!”
The chamber doors burst open.
Halvard enters first, his loyal guards at his back. Behind them come the council’s men—soldiers who have never served under me, who know the gallows only as a distant threat.
“Captain Halvard.” Varn’s words carry triumphant certainty. “Arrest the traitor and his witch.”
Halvard looks at me. Looks at Ismerie. Looks at the council members in their elevated seats, their hands unstained by the blood they’ve ordered spilled.
“No.”
The word echoes through the chamber.
“Sir?” One of his guards—Torren, who has served the execution platform for eight years—steps forward uncertainly.
“I said no.” Halvard draws his blade, but points it at the council’s men rather than at me.
“The Warden’s right. I’ve watched what the gallows have become.
I’ve seen the innocent hang alongside the guilty.
I’ve sensed the wrongness in the ropes, the hunger in the wood.
” He meets my eyes. “If he says the executions stop, then the executions stop. Anyone who wants to argue can take it up with my blade.”
Half my guards step forward to join him. The other half hesitate, torn between loyalty and self-preservation.
“This is treason.” Thessa’s words have gone shrill. “You’ll all hang for this!”
“Maybe.” I guide Ismerie toward the door, keeping myself between her and any potential threat. “But not today. And not on your gallows.”
We leave the council chamber with rebellion at our backs and chaos ahead.
The city fractures within hours.
Word spreads faster than fire through dry timber—the Gallows Warden has turned traitor. The executions have stopped. The platform stands empty, its ropes swaying without wind, its floor unstained by fresh blood for the first time in living memory.
Some citizens celebrate. I see them in the streets as we make our way back to the Execution Hall—families of the condemned, weeping with relief that their loved ones won’t die at dawn.
Death witches emerging from hiding, their amethyst-tinged eyes bright with cautious hope.
The poor and the desperate, who have spent their lives cowering under the gallows’ shadow, daring to walk with their heads held high.
Others riot.
“Traitor!” A stone flies past my head, missing by inches. The thrower is a merchant I recognize—his brother was hanged for theft three months ago, and now he blames me for not carrying out the same sentence on others. “Orc scum! You let the witches live while honest men die!”
I pull Ismerie behind me, shielding her with my body. More stones follow. More screams. The crowd that has gathered isn’t a mob—not yet—but it’s close. Fear and confusion have curdled into rage, and rage needs a target.
“Keep moving.” Halvard flanks us, his blade drawn. “We need to get off the streets.”
We push through the chaos. Ismerie’s hand grips mine with desperate strength, her ending magic flickering at the edges of my vision. She could unleash it—I’ve seen what she can do when threatened—but she holds back. Killing would only make things worse.
A woman blocks our path. Young, grief-carved, wearing the black of permanent mourning.
“My daughter.” Her words are barely a whisper.
“You hanged my daughter. Two weeks ago. Fifteen years old, accused of stealing bread.” She stares at me with eyes that have seen too much death.
“Now you say the executions stop. Now you say it was wrong.” Her hands clench into fists.
“Where was your mercy when she was begging for her life?”
I have no answer. There is no answer.
Ismerie steps forward, puts herself between me and the grieving mother. “He can’t undo what’s been done. No one can. But he can stop it from happening again. He can make sure no more mothers lose their children to a platform that feeds on innocent blood.”
The woman stares at her. At the claiming sigil visible on Ismerie’s collarbone. At the way I’m holding onto her like she’s the only thing keeping me upright.
“You’re one of them.” The woman’s words crack. “A death witch. You fed on my daughter’s death.”
“Yes.” Ismerie doesn’t flinch. “I did. I’ve fed on hundreds of deaths, and I hate myself for every one. But hating myself doesn’t bring them back. The only thing that matters now is making sure the killing stops.”
A long moment. The crowd presses in around us, waiting to see what happens.
The woman steps aside.
We push through, leaving her grief behind us, carrying the weight of it on our shoulders.
The Execution Hall has become a fortress.
Halvard’s loyal guards patrol the perimeter. The condemned prisoners—released on my orders—have mostly fled into the city, but a few have chosen to stay. Death witches, mostly. They have nowhere else to go, and they understand better than anyone what the Judge represents.
Halvard meets me at the lower corridor. “The old witch from the Gallows Quarter came to the gate an hour ago.” His expression is carefully neutral. “Said you’d want to hear what she has to say. I put her in your quarters.”
Era sits in my chambers, her blind eyes fixed on a point I can’t see.
“You withheld something.” Ismerie says it before I can. Her voice is steady, but her hands are tight around the arms of the chair. “In the tavern. You knew more than you told us.”
“Yes.” Era doesn’t apologise. Her cards remain in her pocket, stilled.
“I’ve known how to end the Judge for twenty years.
I’ve also known that knowing isn’t enough.
A method without a person capable of executing it is worthless—worse than worthless.
It gives false hope and gets people killed.
” Her blind gaze moves toward Ismerie. “I needed to see what you were made of. What you’d do when the Judge had you on its platform, when everything it said carried weight. Whether you’d break.”
“And?” Ismerie’s words are quiet.
“You didn’t.” Era’s lips curve in a smile that holds no humor.
“You fought it. Then you fought it again. You stood in a graveyard and told the Gallows Warden exactly what he was, and then you chose him anyway. That’s the person the method requires.
” She settles her hands flat on the table.
“So. Now I’ll tell you how to destroy it. ”