The silence hung in the amphitheater like the dust after a stone quarry blast.
Noll Vey kept his right stone hand flat upon the cold limestone rail. Through the shallow cup-mark carved into his palm, he felt the deep, ancient pulse of the bedrock—a slow, unyielding thrum that registered every heartbeat in the room.
Across the scarlet hazard line, the Last Guest tilted its smooth, river-chalk face by half an inch. The cutlery on its coat made a single, faint clink, like a dry spoon dropped onto a pewter plate.
“There is no salt on his tongue, Host,” the Last Guest said, its voice whistling softly like a winter draft through an unchinked sill. “I taste grief. I taste cold river water and wet apples. I hear the pulse of a man who watched his house wash away in the dark. It is not an invented coin.”
Lord Auditor Orin Vane sat behind the evidence table, his hands folded across the lid of his brass register, his face calm, composed, and terrible in its certainty.
“You see, Vey?” Vane murmured, his polite court voice echoing softly off the limestone tiers. “Your monster was born of belief. And belief cannot strike down what is true. You may call me cruel. You may call the Crown’s containment warrant harsh. But you cannot make the ledger call me a liar for seeking an order that keeps men from drowning one another in the dark.”
