Chapter 25 · Crown Comes Counting

"On your knees. Now."

A gauntlet caught the back of Ryan's neck and drove him down. Frost-slick boards slammed into his kneecaps, and above him, the scaffold rope swung empty, waiting for a neck that wasn't his yet.

"Get up," Ryan said. "Or come say that without a guard doing it for you."

The gauntlet tightened. Someone laughed.

Then the horns sounded.

"Make way for the Crown."

The crowd split. Boots scraped over frozen mud as a tall man crossed the square, black sash over gold trim, gray at his temples, walking like the road owed him an apology.

"About time," Victor Lane called. "Hang him and let's all go home."

"Nobody's hanging anybody until I say so."

The newcomer stopped below the scaffold. "Judge Alaric Voss. Crown's word, Crown's ears. Get this man off his knees. I want to see his face."

Two guards hauled Ryan upright. His legs shook, but he kept his expression flat. The rope burn around his wrists had reopened. Blood warmed one finger before the cold stole the feeling again.

Voss studied him. "You're the ledger boy.