The Author's Extra: My SSS Skill Turns Souls into Anything!

The inside of the palace hall was the kind of quiet that forms when everyone in a room is waiting to see what kind of person the man with the most power is going to be right now.

Isabella finished telling what happened on the mountain pass and the room stayed still. Alistair Solaris, ruler of the Astern Kingdom, had kept his face controlled while she spoke. The kind of control that comes from years of sitting on a throne where showing the wrong emotion at the wrong moment costs you something. His hands rested flat on the arms of his chair. His back was straight.

Then Isabella stopped talking and his eyes moved to Alden.

He stared at him for several seconds. His son was dead, and the person who killed him was standing in his hall with his hands bound behind his back, not shaking, not looking at the floor, not performing any of the things you were supposed to perform in front of a king.

"Execute him."

The command dropped into the hall and the quiet became a different kind of quiet. Two members of the royal court exchanged a quick look. A guard near the far wall adjusted his grip on his spear.

Alistair’s voice settled lower and harder. "I do not care who he is or what excuse he brings with him. He killed the Crown Prince of this kingdom. Take him below and end it before tomorrow."

Isabella stepped forward at a normal pace.

"That will not be possible, Your Highness."

Alistair turned his eyes to her.

"You heard me clearly," she said with the voice of someone who has said difficult things to powerful people before and has come out of those conversations intact. "His execution cannot happen without a formal court judgment."

"Miss Ashford." Alistair said her name like he was pressing a bruise to see how much it hurt. "My son is dead. The man who killed him is standing in front of me. Are you telling me I need permission to deal with him?"

"I am telling you that you need a court order," Isabella said. "You rule this kingdom but the crown follows the law the same as everyone else. He is an Astral Academy student, not a declared enemy or a rogue combatant. Whatever happened on that battlefield has to go through proper judgment. Until a court speaks, executing him is against the law."

The hall was very quiet.

Alistair stared at her for a long moment. His jaw moved slightly. Then he raised one hand and pressed his fingers against his eyes, and when he lowered it his face was still angry but it was controlled again.

"You are right," he said. A long exhale. "My apologies, Miss Ashford. I let grief move faster than reason."

Isabella gave one small nod.

Alistair’s gaze moved back to Alden and the hatred in it was easier to read now that he wasn’t trying to hide it behind authority.

"Lock him in the palace cells on full guard until tomorrow’s hearing."

Theodore gave a short nod. "The correct choice until the court speaks, your highness."

"See that it is done." Isabella turned toward the door. "Our job here is finished. We’ll return to the Upper Academy."

Alistair rose from his chair. The entire royal court rose with him, and he lowered his head to Isabella and Theodore with the kind of respect you give to people who outrank you in something you cannot name but can very clearly feel. The rest of the family followed.

Kings and generals never bow to students. Whatever the Spires were, whatever the Upper Academy was, the title carried a weight that had nothing to do with rank or political power. It was something else. Something that made even a grieving king step back and follow the rules when Isabella told him to.

The two Spires bowed in return, then turned and walked out. Before leaving, Theodore gave a short nod to Alden. Alden nodded back for a second before Theodore kept walking alongside Isabella.

Alden watched them leave.

Then two guards took Alden by the arms and pulled him toward the corridor that led downward, and the hall disappeared behind him.

__________

The cells below the palace were cold in the way stone is cold when sunlight has never reached it. Faint torches on the damp walls threw orange light across the floor in uneven patches. The air smelled like old iron and water.

They chained his hands above him against the wall, high enough that his feet barely touched the ground, and left a guard with a whip inside the cell.

Alden had known this was coming. He had not stopped thinking clearly enough to pretend otherwise.

The first strike came without warning.

THWACK.

His body jerked against the chains. He did not make a sound.

His breathing changed but his face stayed down and his mouth stayed closed. The guard hit him again. And again. Alden counted the strikes because counting something gave his mind somewhere to be that was not the pain.

An hour passed this way.

When the guard finally stopped, breathing hard himself, he looked at Alden with an expression that was half exhaustion and half something he did not want to name.

"He has not begged us to stop," the guard told Alistair, who had come down and was standing outside the bars watching. "Not once did he speak or say a word."

Alistair’s hands were shaking, drawn tight by something deep inside him that could not find an exit.

"Why is he not crying?" His voice had broken down from a king’s voice into something smaller and rawer. "What are you doing? Can’t you do it properly?"

The guard swallowed. "Your Highness, we have been at this for an hour. I do not think he is going to—"

Alistair took the whip out of his hand.

The guard stepped back fast. "Your Highness, please—"

Alistair walked into the cell.

He swung. The whip caught Alden across the cheek and threw his head sideways. Another followed before Alden’s head came back to center. Then another. His breathing was heavy now. His shirt was gone and his skin had a map of raised red lines across it that were starting to bruise at the edges.

But he did not raise his head.

Alistair brought both hands down in one hard strike that slammed Alden back against the stone.

"BEG ME."

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