Chapter 132 Before the Throne

At noon the doors swung wide, sending a thousand heads turning toward the princess in gray as she entered.

Riven walked one step behind her shoulder, a witness in a borrowed coat carrying a sword with a cracked spine. Silk rows filled the gallery on every side, the Academy staff standing stiff along the whole left wall like sentries.

"Do not kneel to anyone today, that includes the floor," Yukine said, eyes forward.

"I’ll do my best, no promises about the floor, it looks very persuasive."

Mara, Nix and Veska held the back rail together, with Isolde beside them clutching a folded statute book. Cassen and Bram filled the end of the row, two men guarding a door that was already broken.

"Yukine looks like she is walking to her own coronation," Isolde whispered.

"She’s walking to somebody’s funeral," Nix said, "I just haven’t decided whose."

"Twenty guards on the walls, six of them ornamental," Veska reported, counting under her breath.

"The statute allows any citizen to stand surety, I checked it twice," Isolde murmured.

A single drum rolled from the back of the hall, silencing the murmuring gallery at once.

Dorian waited at the foot of the dais in white, his smile polished for the front rows of nobles. Prince Caius stood above him while the King sat on the throne, studying his own folded hands in silence.

’Dorian’s in white and the old man won’t even look up... I don’t like how calm that is.’

Caius unrolled the decree and read it aloud, every clause landing like a seal pressed into hot wax.

"And I see our gutter staff came to watch," he said, "how touching."

"Gutter staff costs less than palace staff and works harder," Riven said.

The soldiers along the walls shifted, spears turning an inch toward the Overdue Company’s row.

"Touch him with a spear and I’ll bite the handle in half," Mara muttered.

Ysabel sat in the third row with her fan opened, staring straight past everyone at absolutely nothing very loudly indeed. Her gloved fingers twitched every time the word wedding left Caius’s mouth, which was far too often for her comfort.

"Lord Dorian has served the Crown with distinction," Caius finished, "Her Highness will accept his hand."

Yukine stepped out of the aisle, her gray hem whispering across the floor toward the dais with each careful stride. Dorian’s betrothal gift waited at the foot of it, a small chessboard set on a velvet cushion in plain view.

"Highness, please step back from the board before you catch a chill," Dorian murmured, smiling through it.

"I have studied this gift with great care," she said.

She raised one finger and touched the white king, a gentle tap, like a nurse waking a patient from sleep. The piece rocked once before it toppled, rolling off the edge to ring against the floor in front of everyone.

"I resign the match... all of it," Yukine said, loud enough to reach the back rail.

On the throne, the King raised his head for the first time all day.

A hundred gasps landed in the same breath, rolling back from the gallery in one very long wave. Dorian looked at the fallen king, then at the room, searching it desperately for his next scripted line.

"Highness, you are speaking from fear... nobody here will hold it against you."

"Fear does not use this much ink, I wrote the refusal myself."

Caius lifted his hand, silencing the chamber as completely as a lid dropped on a boiling pot of water. He descended one slow step from the dais, speaking to the court instead of to her, his voice smooth.

"Defiance of a decree is answered by the Crown’s Answer, which is trial by combat."

"The defiant must also name one to stand surety," he added.

"I accept the Answer," Yukine began, lifting her chin toward the gallery, "I name as surety—"

Riven was already walking down the aisle, "I’m here to collect."

He stopped at her shoulder, the floor cold through his soles, every eye in the room fixed on his sword. Caius studied him the way a man studies a stain on good cloth, then gave a single nod, very slowly.

"I did not ask you to volunteer," Yukine whispered.

"You asked for a witness, I’m witnessing with a sword, that’s all."

"You were not invited to this hearing, villain," Dorian said, stepping between them.

"I RSVP’d with a sword," Riven said, rolling his wrist so Overdue caught the light.

In the gallery Cassen gripped the rail hard, torn between cheering and demanding to know who had a plan. Nix leaned toward Mara, whispering a number for the bet, while she pretended very badly not to be tempted.

"Surety accepted," Caius said, "let the Champion come."

[ Claim Event: royal champion defends the betrothal | Refund if broken: 3,000,000 RF ]

A side door opened slowly behind the throne, turning the whole room quiet in a way that nobody there expected. The man who walked through wore plain plate with no crest, carrying a long drawn blade low against his thigh.

"Ser Hallam Crowe, Champion of the Crown, bearer of Decree-Steel," a herald called.

Hallam’s face was ordinary, the kind of face a man wears while sorting letters for a living in some office. Nothing about him bragged, which made the silence that gathered around him feel earned rather than staged by the court.

’Cael said survivors weren’t recorded... guess nobody ever bothered to write down how.’

Writing ran down the length of the sword in tiny crowded lines, sentence after sentence of it, every line unsigned. Hallam bowed once to the King, then settled into a stance without a single wasted edge anywhere on his frame.

"The Crown does not duel with the accused, it sentences them," Hallam said.

"Please stand where I can see you."

"I’m standing right here," Riven said, drawing Overdue, "tell me when to start."

Hallam crossed the distance in three unhurried steps, making one lazy diagonal cut from shoulder to hip across the air. The air tasted of pressed wax, then the blade spoke in a flat voice belonging to absolutely nobody at all.

"Kneel."

Riven’s knees struck the marble before he decided anything, his sword hand slamming down to catch him against the floor. The jolt rang through his hips, his whole body obeying a word that he never agreed to in his life.

"Huh... that’s not a sword, that’s a clerk," he muttered through his teeth.

’My knees listened before I did... a blade that skips the part where I get a vote.’

"Most men never reach the second sentence," Hallam said, lifting the blade.

"I’m not most men, I’m a billing dispute," Riven rasped, still on one knee.

Mara’s growl rose from the gallery, cut short when Veska clamped a hand on her arm to steady her. Yukine stood motionless beside his kneeling shape, her knuckles gone white around the edge of her long sleeve, silent.

"Stay down, villain," Dorian called softly, "the book allows it."

Somewhere behind him a bench creaked as Cassen half rose and Isolde pulled him down.

Hallam raised Decree-Steel for the second cut, unhurried, like a man reading out a verdict to a waiting room. The writing on the blade rearranged itself into a single word as the edge fell toward Riven’s bowed neck.

[ Decree-Steel: second sentence | "Yield." ]

His jaw loosened, his tongue lifting behind his teeth, his mouth beginning to open on its own.