The Scumbags Guide to Enslaving Demon's

The white roots beneath Grand Meridian solidified.

The territory map above the arena floor vanished.

Vharra watched it go calmly. Expressionless as ever, stone-faced worse than rage. The Queen had tried to turn a home into property. Every person who’d made that house their home had answered her call. None of them needed to speak for everyone.

The blank circle reappeared.

’WITNESS ROUND.’

The black- glass walls refocused into mirrors.

Austin Veyron saw himself reflected around the arena. Each image off time, wrong angle. One showed the man who’d first stepped foot into the Grand Meridian arena. Another had demon blood smeared across his mouth. One climbed atop dead wardens. Another held the Devour seed aloft like it was a trophy.

Vharra raised a single hand.

"We are done accusing," she said. "Witness round will now begin."

The first mirror cracked open.

Out of it stepped a demon Austin had killed in the larder. Dead as ever, but remade from memory and accusation. The hollow lacked eyes or nose. It had no mouth, only a torn throat with a voice like gravel poured into it.

"You ate because you could."

Austin Veyron offered no defense.

"I did."

The mirror court braced for an explanation. Instead, he offered none.

Turning away from Austin, the broken figure addressed Elena. "Why side with him?"

Elena eyed Austin Veyron carefully before answering. "I am not siding with everything he’s done wrong. I am siding with what he chooses to do now. If he makes me a pawn, I walk away."

It shattered like a mirror under their feet.

Vharra narrowed her gaze. The next mirror solidified into a broken chain wagon.

The chains groaned as a woman climbed out of it, wrists branded with chains. She looked upon Austin Veyron with eyes wide, horror carved into every feature.

"You bargained with people who were given no choice."

"I did."

Austin agreed.

The chains-body spun towards Rin. "Why fight beside him?"

Rin’s face twisted in disgust. "I fight beside him, not for him. I tell him when he’s wrong. If he ever stops listening to me, I will cut him loose."

The chains constricting the court shuddered.

Vharra took a step forward. "You excuse him because you walk away. It does not excuse his behavior. He killed people. Behind his back."

"He did." Rin agreed. "That’s why he needs people who won’t walk away."

The second mirror shattered.

The questions only got harder from there.

One mirror showed Malrec’s chain lord form ripping through a crowd. Another showed the first market auctioneer Austin Veyron killed.

Each mirror-witness piled mistake after mistake atop Austin’ shoulders. Each one clawed away at the seed in Austin’ wrist, daring him to silence them forever.

He refused.

Veyra testified for herself on witnessing the Queen break her word. Maelis responded to trial questions about why she assisted Reynard. Nahlia recalled aiding the scribes who trapped people in contracts.

Tessa flat-out said people shouldn’t be freed from contracts.

None of them said Austin was innocent.

None of them said forgiveness was theirs to give.

Not while they were chained into the arena.

Then they reached the final mirror.

It showcased a small cell beneath the Queen’s palace courtyard.

Before Vharra stood a human man, eyes as black as hers.

He was younger than Austin Veyron. His arm wore a black mark bracelet.

The Devour seed.

Nahlia gasped. "Another?"

Vharra’s smile returned. Gentle, affectionate.

"He came to me before you did," she explained. "He breached my chamber doors and begged for power without consequence. I indulged him."

The mirror image warped. The human took a crown woven from chains. Placed it atop his head, and screamed until his voice embedded itself into the court’s foundation.

"He failed witness round," Vharra said evenly. "Because no one was there to testify for him."

Because they chose not to.

Austin stared into the memory, and then back at everyone standing inside the white circle.

"What is your question?" he asked.

’THE COURT:’

’THE FINAL QUESTION IS: ASK THE CANDIDATE ONE FINAL QUESTION’

Submitting any question will forfeit the right to respond.

The lever began to glow.

That was the point.

Elena stepped forward. "I ask if he deserves our forgiveness. I testify he has hurt people." She held up a hand. "I know he can hurt more. But he also listened when we told him no."

Veyra gave her answer too. "He deserves to be punished. But that doesn’t mean we decide how."

"You’re a scumbag," Rin said flatly. "But I’m here because I choose to be."

Every witness in the arena made their voice heard after that.

Few of them were kind.

Austin Veyron listened to each of them.

When the last testimony ended, the judging circle expanded.

It stretched across the arena floor to the balconies housing every freed construct. It reached the wardens they helped liberate and every citizen of Grand Meridian who watched from the territory map outside.

The witness round had concluded.

Absolute silence befell Vharra’s throne room.

Then a locked ledger rose up from beneath the floor itself.

Its cover was embossed with the First Queen’s personal seal.

Second Candidate.

Your trial has concluded.

Beneath Austin Veyron’s name, a single word sat alone on the ledger.

’SECOND CANDIDATE. FIRST CANDIDATE REMAINS UNRESOLVED.’

The inner palace trembled.

Somewhere underneath Throne Court, Austin wasn’t the first person to take that seed.

The ledger’s pages flipped again.

Route markers blossomed beneath every unresolved candidate’s name.

Every path lead away from Throne Court.

Every one of them descended deeper into secret prisons hidden beneath Grand Meridian’s warden tiers.

At the end of each path, a single warning, written in notes with the First Queen’s antiquated penmanship.

’DO NOT RELEASE HIM FOR POWER.’

’RELEASE HIM ONLY FOR TRUTH.’

Golden chains cracked against Vharra’s skin.

She finally cracked.

Authority trails formed across her throat, wrists.

"You will not take that ledger," she snarled.

"It’s not yours," Nahlia shot back. "It belongs to everyone you left trapped down there."

Guards started filing into the witness chamber from the balconies.

Some answered to Vharra’s authority. Others listened to the trial but forgot their marching orders when it came time to pick sides. They dropped their blades and didn’t know which seats to take.

Vharra pointed at the ledger. "Make him touch that book and he will burn through you. The first candidate failed witness round because people were there to support him."

She gestured at Austin’s empty line of text. "But desire will burn away the chains we use to contain it anyway."

Austin eyed his own verdict. Saw the route curving away underneath them, leading somewhere old and terrible below.

This was the easy path now. Destroy the ledger.

Leave the first candidate forgotten in his prison.

Tell themselves there was no point in finding him.

That’s what Vharra had always done.

Lock away problems underground, pretend like nothing wicked stirred beneath those chains.

"I will not release him for power," Austin said. "But I will see what happened to him."

The First Queen’s ledger clicked open.

A white route yawned beneath the arena floor.

Below their feet.

That’s when Vharra’s sovereign seal shattered and crumbled to dust.

The trial was over.

Austin Veyron was no longer bound by law beneath his enemy’s throne.

The Queen turned away, back toward the black doors.

"You still have to pass through my court to reach him."

Maelis stepped up behind Austin Veyron, ember blade in hand.

"Then that’s what we’ll do."

Every freed warden positioned on the balconies picked a side.

This trial wasn’t going to change any minds.

Vharra’s doors slammed shut behind her.

Locks clicked throughout the rest of the palace.

Queen Vharra was sealing routes, deciding who lived and who died. The court would smother this insurgency before it reached those prisons beneath Throne Court.

Austin Veyron cracked open the transfer book they’d recovered.

Some routes glowed throughout its pages, but the white chain below them promised a way to sever those bonds at the very source.

He wasn’t alone.

Elena stood beside him. "We go down there, we free him, and we free everyone Maelis’ folk got stuck protecting."

Austin nodded.

Others didn’t wait for orders. They tested blades against blades, traded routes with those nearby, and braced themselves for what fought waited below.

Downward, always downward.

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