Suara cried in her cell. It was dark and wet, and she was sure the rats were the cleanest thing in it. She’d been given no indication of how long she would be stuck there. They might just let her rot there forever. So until then, she sobbed into one of her patties.

A rat scurried up to nibble her crumbs. It wasn’t afraid of her at all. She would have pet him if he wasn’t so dirty.

“Be careful,” she warned. “The meat is spicy.”

After finishing her patty she sat wishing she’d bothered to pick up the mirror and some cake during her last stop at the inn. Or that she hadn’t trespassed in the Princess’s gardens. She couldn’t change that, though. So what could she do? Cry, she supposed. Cry until she died of dehydration. Would she return to the Spawning Square if she did? Would that… count as breaking out?

Either way, she couldn’t cry on purpose. Time lost meaning as she sat there in the cell with nothing happening around her. She couldn’t sleep. She was too upset to even daydream. She just waited, and sometimes she cried, sometimes she didn’t.

After what felt like a hundred years, a guard emerged from the dark, holding a bright torch. “Suara Kurisol?”

“Hm?” she rolled her head up to her shoulder groggily to look at the man’s face. He looked like a man dressed like a guard. The most interesting thing she’d seen in a million years. Or however long it had been. “Huh?”

“It’s time for your trial,” he said.

Trial? She started to panic. There were a half-dozen witnesses to her trespassing, including the princess and king themselves! Whatever charges they wanted to raise against her, she would be found guilty for sure!

The guard pulled the cell gate open and prodded her out at spearpoint. She tried not to cry any more as he brought her up through the dirty dungeon steps and out through side passages in the castle. Finally, they arrived at a courtroom where she was ushered into a stand. An old man with long grey hair stood across the room from her.

Raised benches curved around the room, flanking the old man on both sides. The people in them were looking down on her, and everyone she knew was there. Including the king and queen, and their daughters.

The old man stood up. His flowing blue robes made him appear twice as large as he was. He cleared his throat. “We are here, in the presence of His Highness the King, Vonethan Tildrassen, his wife the Queen, Illera Tildrassen, and their two daughters, Borethelle and Ziarra Tildrassen, to determine the severity of the crimes committed by the accused, Suara Kurisol, who was apprehended while trespassing in Princess Ziarra’s gardens.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. He held his hand up to hush them. “I, Magistrate Deshn, will conduct the proceedings.” He cleared his throat again. “The first witness we call is the King himself, who was present when the trespass occurred, and whose word is law in Wreathmill.”

The king stood and approached the stand to the magistrate’s left. The room hushed. Suara was concerned that even the sound of her breath was too loud.

“I will speak plainly and briefly,” the king said. His voice was gruff and loud. “I was having supper with my daughter at her favourite spot in the gardens around the castle when this girl appeared, clearly trespassing. She took no threatening actions, and in fact seemed so distracted by a daydream or something of the sort that she did not even notice we were there until a warning shot was fired.

“All that said, the punishment for trespassing is hanging until death. I acknowledge that a small mote of blame lies with us, for allowing an area so strictly off limits to be so easily accessible, ‘so everyone can see the flowers,’ as my daughter put it. We will have to reconsider this policy, lest further crimes occur. In light of this, I will hear the other testimonies before allowing judgement to be passed, and thank you all for taking the time to be here for this trial today.”

The king returned to his seat.

The magistrate waited until the king was seated before stepping back up and speaking. “We call the adventurers next, beginning with the elf called Xander Fey. Please tell us what you know.”

Xander glanced at Suara and then stood up, taking a stand at the magistrate’s right. “Uh,” he said. “Well I wasn’t there, so I can only be a character witness. Suara is… a bit strange. She seems to have trouble understanding everything around her, but she is nice and just wants to have fun and help people.”

The magistrate addressed Xander. “And what happened the first time you met her?”

Xander tugged his collar uncomfortably. “Ah, what do you mean?”

“The first time you met, what did she do?” He leaned closer. Expectantly.

“She killed me,” Xander laughed. His smile quickly vanished. “Ah, it was my fault though, I thought she was… someone else, and stuck her with an iron dagger. She hit me back, and I died.”

The magistrate rolled his eyes. “Adventurers, I will remind the court, are prone to exaggeration and liken every scratch to a death worthy of immortalization in the minstrel’s ballads. Embellishments aside, I think this act of violence is quite telling of the kind of girl this Suara is.”

“Ah, I said it was my fault. She thought she had to defend herself.”

The magistrate wore a nasty grin that showed all his yellow teeth. “And what happened the next time you met her? You have met her on more than one occasion, have you not?”

“She uh… she killed me again, bu—”

“There you have it,” the old man interrupted. “The girl has violent tendencies, even according to her own ‘friend’.” He said the last word with a sarcastic tone. “Return to your seat, elf.”

Xander shook his head and walked reluctantly back to his seat. The magistrate called Celeste de l’Ouest to the stand.

“A member of our own town guard, you had an altercation with this girl as well did you not?” the magistrate asked her.

Celeste nodded. “I challenged her to an honourable duel to settle a matter that turned out to be a misunderstanding. She tried to accept, but lacked the cards. We fought anyway and I was defeated. I didn’t notice anything unsavoury about her behaviour the entire encounter.”

“Did she not take a sword from you? Your Knight’s Straightsword, a symbol of your status as a commissioned officer?” The magistrate grinned with self-satisfaction.

“Because our fight was outside the bounds of a proper duel, and I struck her first, she became entitled to one of my active cards when I was defeated.” Celeste looked uncomfortable on the stand. Suara was grateful to her for keeping her testimony polite and honest, though.

The magistrate on the other hand was determined to poison her image. “More of the adventurer’s code… you do realise this code is not law in Wreathmill? What I see as an arbiter of the King’s law, is a delinquent who has no qualms in taking state property. Stealing from the guard is another offence punishable by death.”

He waved Celeste back to her seat. “Next I would call the two members of Celeste’s platoon who witnessed the encounter.” He called Fandha to the stand.

“Everything is as Celeste explained,” Fandha said. “I have nothing to add.”

The old man clicked his tongue. “Do you not? What happened to you when Celeste was struck down by the girl’s blade?”

Fandha sighed. “I was standing next to her, and the spell she used had an area of effect, so Hokey and I were killed too.”

“Again with the embellishments. Well, no matter. It is obvious what happened here. A disgusting disregard for the safety of others while engaging in violent combat in the streets. As town guards, you have a certain amount of leeway afforded you in order to keep the peace, but this petulant child has no such consideration. Clearly, she is a danger to the common folk of Wreathmill and should be put out of our misery.”

“How many times are you going to kill me?!” Suara cried.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Since you can only die once, we will simply have to drag that death out for each additional death sentence you accrue.”

Suara’s lips trembled as she tried to hold her tears back.

“By the way, you are not permitted to speak during the proceedings. I will add one additional death sentence each time you do.” He waved another woman to the stand. The Adventurer’s Guild receptionist. The woman regarded Suara with contempt.

“Adventurer’s Guild Receptionist, you met the girl when she visited the Guild, did you not?”

“I did. She was incredibly ignorant of basic procedures. To the point where I was forced to assume she was mocking me. She completed one quest, and then abandoned the Guild without a word for the Church of the Unicorn.”

“I see,” said the magistrate with a shake of his head. “So she’s crude, ill mannered, and irresponsible. This aligns with the testimonies we have received thus far. You may return to your seat.”

Suara exchanged glares with the receptionist as she returned to her seat. Next he called priestess Ayoe to the stand. At this rate, Suara expected her life would just become one continuous execution.

“Can you tell us what happened when the girl joined the Church of the Unicorn, Lady Ayoe?” Now the magistrate was wringing his hands with anticipation. Somehow, he seemed to already know everything the witnesses were going to say. Or at least he knew how their meetings had gone.

The priestess looked thoughtful, as though she was considering her words carefully. “That elf, Xander Fey… shall we say, encouraged her to join. We anointed her with holy water and had her impaled right away. She barely put up a fight. An ideal acolyte in that regard, I would say. I would even go so far as to take responsibility for her leaving the Adventurer’s Guild so abruptly. I would not have allowed her to go and inform them even if she had asked; too many potential acolytes escape that way.”

“Very good,” the magistrate said, “but surely that cannot be all that happened?”

“No, of course not.” Ayoe began.

Suara wished she could disappear into herself.

“The girl refused to return the ceremonial mantle. In fact, she is still wearing it now. I demanded it back, and the Unicorn himself saw fit to intervene. While he did grant her permission to keep it, she also earned me impalement by causing so much trouble.”

“Such a troublemaker,” the magistrate said. “A mannerless tot, a thief, and a violent intruder besides. Yet, somehow I get the impression this is not the end of your testimony, Lady Ayoe.” He showed his ugly teeth again.

Ayoe continued Suara’s condemnation. “She returned later, on an errand for the Export Emporium, and was caught trying to steal our apples. I will remind the court that most of those are sold so the church can afford to feed the city’s orphans.”

“What did you do, catching the thief red-handed? A prompt impalement, I should hope.”

“She was caught by sister Veronica, not me, but she is busy as she always is, so I will speak on her behalf. Veronica accepted labour as penance. Suara did Veronica’s entire day’s work, and she did it well, so she was let off with only a warning.”

The magistrate shook his head. “This lenience seems to have been misplaced. You may return to your seat, Lady Ayoe. We have only three witnesses left to call.”

Suara gulped. Tun Yeer was called to the stand.

“This is a waste of everyone’s time,” Tun Yeer scowled. “Do you morons have any idea how much work I have? I can only imagine how Vonethan feels having to sit around for this crap.”

“Master Tun Yeer, please, just explain your experience with the accused, and we will allowed you to return to the Emporium.”

The bunny-man sighed. “She showed up looking for… ginger or something that Aurea was waiting for. I had a hundred damn things to deliver, all overdue, and believe it not this girl didn’t hesitate to take on the challenge when I offered it to her. And then she got every single thing delivered to the right place in four or so hours. I lost track of time, but she did it all in the afternoon. Every delivery to the right place. The only complaints we got were from people saying she threatened impalement, but I haven’t had a chance to ask her about that.”

“Threats now, on top of everything else.” the magistrate feigned disappointment.

After Tun Yeer was seated, the red-dressed woman was called.

“Lady Ariastira, you met the accused just before she intruded on castle grounds, did you not?”

She bowed politely, flashing the entire audience a view of her deep cleavage. “I did. As I have put together from context it appears I was her final delivery. There were no issues with it, but I believe I can comment on these supposed threats. Poor Suara confused ‘impalation’ with ‘impalement’. Unfortunately, as an ex-priestess I can tell you that while these words normally mean the same thing, when used by the church they carry very specific intentions. She was rightfully embarrassed to hear she had made a mistake; the shame was written plainly across her face. The mistake however, was made out of sheer stupidity, not malice, and I am sure if you examine her actions more closely you will find that is typically the case.”

Suara mouthed the word ‘wow’, but managed to avoid actually saying it outloud. She was not stupid! And she didn’t want to pretend to be just to get out of trouble. Not that it mattered. The magistrate had made up his mind before she even entered the room. “Just kill me,” she blurted. “I don’t even care anymore. I’m not stupid and I’m not a bad person, but no matter what anyone says you’re going to hang me all day. You’ll probably hang me for a hundred million hours or something. So just do it! Do whatever makes you feel important.”

Magistrate Deshn shook his head with that same look of faux-disappointment. “You may take your seat, Lady Ariastira. Thank you for your valuable testimony. Miss Aurea, you will be our final witness.”

Suara was happy to see Aurea. Surely, nothing she said would incriminate her more.

Aurea smiled at her. “Suara is a sweet, kind girl. She helps me when she can, and is wonderful company.”

The old man frowned. “You must have more to say than that.”

“Why? So you can wring my words for poison as you did all the others? I think not. It should be clear to everyone in this room from the King himself to the lowly elf, that the only one with ill intent here is you, magistrate. You clearly care nothing for good, or truth, only for vitriol and pain. Consider yourself lucky I am not the ruler here, or I would have you banished for poisoning the royal court with your hateful outlook.”

“I see,” said the magistrate. “A widow so desperate for attention that even this miscreant will do to fill the rotting hole in your heart. Pathetic.” He waved Aurea off. She had never seen the innkeeper so upset. “The last to speak will be the accused herself. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Suara took a deep breath. She was surprised they even offered her the chance to defend herself. Now all she had to do was focus on what was important.