One long beam ran the length of the platform over the heads of five figures assembled in a line facing the crowd, hands tied behind their backs. Five thick ropes hung from the beam. A giant in a red hooded robe, face a mask of pure black, stepped between each of the figures in turn, tugging the nooses tight around each of their necks. One of the condemned, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a hooked nose, slumped to his knees, his eyes full of tears.

“This isn’t right!” he cried. “We’ve done nothing! This is murder!” But nobody in the crowd rushed forward onto the platform to free him. The woman beside him stared silently at the crowd, her eyes wide, as though she’d just realized where she was. She might have been a few years older than Anji.

The crowd murmured on as the man wept, as the woman at his side picked at her noose. The others were a pair of men with barely enough scruff between them to make a full beard and an old woman shivering with cold and fright. Her pale legs were webbed with varicose veins.

Another figure wearing a bright yellow robe took the stage.

His dress was so garish it made the square and surrounding buildings look grubby by comparison. The figure glided across the planks on slippered feet to the platform’s front edge and lifted his hood. An old man, balding, with streaks of gray hair riding above his long ears. His pallid skin hung like melted wax, wrinkled and fixed in a deep frown. The eyes sucking in the gathered citizens were gray and hard as steel. He looked over the crowd, sparing not a glance for the condemned at his back. In his stubby fingers he clutched a leather-bound book with a circle embossed in gold on its cover. He held a hand up, and the crowd quieted, though some of them still whispered to each other. The man kept his hand raised until silence overtook the square.

“Citizens of Tideron!” the man said, ignoring the whimpering at his back. “I am Illuminator Escadora, of the Conclave Wardens Sun. I apologize for the disruption of your daily tasks,” he said, simpering. He gazed across the crowd, and shook his head. “A market day. Such a blessing, especially on a day granted so blue a sky by the One On High. But disruption can so often bring forth the milk of tomorrow’s virtue, if you’ve the courage to drink.”

Though he spoke softly, his voice rang clear as a bell. The crowd was enraptured. He went on.