“Stop calling this a contest, Chief Judge,” Ilyra said, her clear voice ringing off the vaulted stone ceiling as she stood between Vaska Ren and Seyun’s stool.
Trained since childhood in the charter law and trial forms of White Heron Hall, Ilyra didn’t speak with the rough road anger of Pera or the weary pragmatism of Osen Tal. She spoke with the cold care of a student who had once believed the Aperture Court’s laws were honorable. And now saw exactly how those laws were bent to guarantee a predetermined verdict.
“In a lawful contest between two parties,” Ilyra said, her dark eyes fixed on Vaska’s narrow face, “a challenger has the right to decline the wager and keep what he already owns. Under the terms you just stated, if Seyun declines to walk into that courtyard, you confiscate Master Uren’s tablet and detain him as a bound researcher. If he walks into the courtyard and falls on the third exchange, you confiscate the tablet and detain him as a bound researcher. A bargain where refusal carries the exact same penalty as defeat isn’t a contest—it’s plain coercion dressed in trial courtesy.”
Beside her, Daro Kesh stepped away from the worktable, his hand resting squarely on his dark Bronze handle.
