16. Ismerie #2
It’s not perfect. Blackhook City still bears scars that will take generations to heal.
The system Brannok helped build doesn’t disappear overnight.
Citizens still flinch when they see an orc in black armor, still lower their eyes when passing the old execution grounds, still carry the bone-deep fear that centuries of public death have bred into them.
The new council struggles to maintain order without the gallows’ terror to enforce compliance.
Crime has risen—not dramatically, but enough that some voices whisper about restoring the old ways.
But the gallows are gone. The platform has fallen. And in the silence where screams used to echo, a new way of living is taking tentative root.
Brannok finds me after the ceremony, in the shadow of the memorial wall where the names of the wrongfully executed are carved deepest.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. He takes my hand, pulls me against his side, and we stand there in the candlelight, reading names that belong to people who should have lived.
“You were good.” I squeeze his fingers. “The speech. You were good.”
“I was honest.” His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand. “Not the same thing.”
“Sometimes it is.”
We fall into a comfortable silence. Around us, the crowd begins to disperse—families heading home, couples walking hand in hand through the memorial pathways, children reluctantly abandoning the garden’s wild beauty for bed and breakfast. The candles will burn through the night, tended by volunteers who have taken it upon themselves to ensure the dead are never left alone in the dark.
“The death witches want to meet with you.” Brannok breaks the quiet. “Era sent word this morning.”
I nod. The old blind witch has become an informal leader among our kind—the death witches of Blackhook City, who had to find new ways to survive when the executions stopped.
Without public hangings to feed on, we’ve had to adapt.
Hospital deaths. Natural endings. The gradual, inevitable mortality that doesn’t require gallows and spectacles.
It’s not as potent. The ending magic from a peaceful ending carries less power than the surge of a public execution. But it’s cleaner. Kinder. It lets us survive without being complicit in the system that nearly destroyed this city.
“What do they want?”
“Formalization.” Brannok guides me toward the edge of the memorial, away from the lingering mourners. “Recognition. A role in the new order that doesn’t require hiding what they are.”
“Death witches as official members of society.” I consider the idea as we walk. “Three months ago, that would have been a death sentence.”
“Three months ago, a lot of things were death sentences.” His hand finds the small of my back again, steadying me as we navigate the uneven ground of the memorial’s edge. “Including saving the Gallows Warden’s life.”
“Lucky for me, the Gallows Warden had other ideas.”
“Lucky for both of us.”
We leave the memorial behind, walking through streets that have begun to seem known in new ways.
The fear that once permeated Blackhook City hasn’t disappeared, but it’s changed shape.
People no longer eye the gallows with the dread of potential victims. Instead, they eye each other—uncertain about the rules, uncertain about who holds power, uncertain about what kind of city they’re building from the rubble.
It’s uncomfortable. Chaotic. Occasionally dangerous.
It’s also alive in a way Blackhook City hasn’t been for centuries.
“I got a message this morning.” I keep my tone casual, though what I’m about to say is anything but. “From a contact in Saltgrave.”
Brannok’s stride falters. “The port city?”
“The one with its own execution platform overlooking the sea.” I stop at the entrance to the Execution Hall—still standing, still serving as Brannok’s quarters, though the name has become ironic.
“The platform there hasn’t been used in months.
But my contact reports the ropes have started moving on their own. ”
He’s silent for a long moment. The sigil on my collarbone flickers—not alarm, but awareness. The sense of his presence sharpening as his mind works through the implications.
“Another one.” His words are flat. “Another entity forming.”
“Maybe. Probably.” I turn to face him, reaching up to trace the bond on his neck. “The Judge fell, but the conditions that created it exist everywhere in the Veillands. Cities built on terror. Order maintained through blood. Ending magic accumulating in places of mass ending.”
“We can’t save every city.”
“No.” My fingers linger on his pulse point, sensing the steady rhythm beneath my touch. “But we can save this one. And we can help others who want to save theirs.”
“By traveling to port towns where ropes move on their own?” One eyebrow rises. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Dangerous is what we do.” I smile—the sharp-edged grin that makes him growl and pull me closer. “Besides, you’re getting comfortable. I can tell. All these speeches and council meetings—you’re starting to look like a politician.”
The sound he makes is half-growl, half-laugh. His arms wrap around me, lifting me off my feet, pressing my back against the stone wall of the Execution Hall. “Take that back.”
“Make me.”
His mouth finds mine—fierce and practiced and perfect.
The kiss deepens, his body pressing against me, the bonds on our skin blazing in answer to each other.
Three months of this, and it hasn’t gotten old.
Three months of falling asleep in his arms and waking to his touch and knowing exactly where he is at every moment of every day.
When we break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“Saltgrave.” He spits the word like a curse. “When do we leave?”
“After the council stabilizes. After the new guard rotation is established. After you’ve trained Captain Halvard to handle things in your absence.” I press my palm flat against his sternum—the steady beat that has become known to me as well as my own pulse. “A month. Maybe two.”
“And then?”
“And then we do what we did here.” I hold his gaze, let him see the certainty I sense.
“Every gallows that’s fed long enough will have an anchor stone in its foundations—the same death-ward structure I found beneath ours.
A death witch who knows what she’s looking for can corrupt it anywhere.
A skilled executioner can hang what’s left.
We find the entity feeding on Saltgrave’s fear.
We destroy it. We tear down the platform and help them build a memorial in its place. ”
“And the next city after that?” His words are quiet, but I hear the question beneath the question. How long? How many? How far are you willing to go?
“And the next one. And the one after that.” I rise on my toes, press my forehead to his. “As many as it takes. As long as it takes. The Veillands are full of cities that need saving, Brannok. And we’re the only ones who know how to save them.”
“We.”
“We.” I kiss the corner of his mouth. “The death witch and the executioner. The killers who decided to be heroes. Claimed and choosing, wherever we go.”
His arms tighten around me. His lips find my temple, my cheek, the bond on my collarbone.
“I love you.” The words are rough, worn from a windpipe that still isn’t used to saying them. “You know that.”
“I know.” I press closer, let him sense the truth of my answer. “I love you too.”
We stand like that as the memorial bell tolls one final time—a single note of remembrance, echoing across a city that is learning to honor its dead instead of creating them.
The candles flicker in the distance. The names of the wrongfully executed shine in the moonlight.
And two killers hold each other in the doorway of the Execution Hall, planning their next battle against the darkness.
It’s not redemption or absolution or the promise that everything will be easy from here.
But it’s ours. And that’s enough.