At two o’clock in the afternoon, Ves Morn stood in the iron enclosure of the prisoner’s dock. He held his head high beneath the unclouded sun.
His silver hair was combed back with his fingers, his linen prison smock was clean, and though heavy iron wrist-irons linked his forearms before his belt, his stance remained that of a high official addressing a subordinate committee. He looked at the three judges upon the dais not as judges holding sovereign power over his life. But as foreign bureaucrats who had arrived late to a building crisis they didn’t possess the mathematics to understand. Around him, the tiered arena was hushed, the mountain wind carrying the sharp, cold scent of melting snow from the high peaks of the Guard.
Chief Magistrate Thorne broke the second black ribbon on the judgment roll, smoothing the calfskin thick parchment flat against his desk. His pen rested in its bronze tray, and his gaze was steady and merciless behind his glasses.
“Ves Morn,” Thorne read, his voice cutting through the dry mountain draft with total, cold and exact finality. “On the evidence presented to this trial, you’re convicted of high office treason against the Crown. The unlawful upkeep of an emergency sky shield for eleven years following the cessation of hostilities. Compulsory milestone extraction resulting in death across four hundred and twelve documented instances. The falsification of country vital registers. And the systematic misappropriation of civilian labor under color of executive office.”
