A narrow, twisting passage ran through the shantytown, large enough to take the horses single file. We decided it safer to walk them than ride. With every step, I felt the squatters’ reproachful stares.

“Refugees and runaways. Admittedly it has … uh … grown a bit worse in the last few years,” Sir Baramon said.

“You mean it’s been like this for years?” I blinked at him. “Who holds their thudajé?”

“No one,” he said, surprised. “I mean, they are Marakori.”

A shout ahead drew our attention. Soldiers dragged a woman out onto the bridge and cuffed her to the ground, while a second band ransacked the cob house where they’d found her. After a few seconds, they exited, shouting and dragging a Marakori man out with them. The woman screamed and reached for him, but the soldiers struck her down.

Brother Qown tensed next to me. “Aren’t we going to do something?”

I hesitated. “It’s not our business,” I said. “Besides, those men wear the duke’s colors.”

My heart hammered in my chest. I wanted to do something. I should have taken the whole incident in stride, trusting the duke’s men to enforce the laws, but Barsine’s corruption still tasted sharp and bitter on my tongue. I could no longer—

Even as I debated my options, a guard pulled a dagger across the Marakori man’s throat.

The woman’s scream filled the air.

I grabbed Brother Qown by his robe before he could run over and try to save the Marakori man’s life.

“No, I can help!”

“You’re wrong.”

The soldiers left. They tossed the man’s body to the side, ignored the woman, and marched toward the gates. Whatever their objective, they had either accomplished it or didn’t think it worth the effort.

I let Brother Qown go. He ran over to the woman, who sobbed over the slain man. He might have been anything to her: brother, father, friend, husband. She ignored Brother Qown until he tried to comfort her, and then she lashed out at him, screaming.

“Come on, then,” Sir Baramon said as he pulled Brother Qown back. “I promise there’s not a thing you can do here.”

I felt Qown’s stare. Although he didn’t say the words, I knew what he was thinking.

You could have stopped this.

“Enough,” I snapped at him. “This isn’t our business. Anyone who lives here does so at the duke’s sufferance. We don’t know the circumstances.”

“You said the Joratese didn’t just kill criminals! What about saelen? Where was his trial by combat? His tournament? Who was going to win his thudajé?”

“Brother Qown—”

“How was this justice?” Tears spilled down his face, tears of furious anger.

“Ah, you sweet colt,” Dorna said, patting the priest on the shoulder. “You know that only applies to Joratese.”