Law of Vengeance 1

INTRODUCTION OF TERMS

Excerpt

Dusk Peterson

For many years, I have wished to make a memoir of my life to pass on to future generations of Emorians who desire to learn what it means to have complete dedication to the Chara and his law. This is not to be the memoir I intended, but I find the time passing slowly here in the Chara's dungeon, and I would rather spend my days thinking of what has happened than of what is to come. For in one month's time I will taken before the Chara so that he may pass judgment on me. After that – for we Emorians move swiftly in these matters – I will be taken to the execution yard, and my head will be sliced off.

It is a gentler punishment, says the Chara, than I deserve.

He told me this last night when he came to see me. He stood at one end of the cell, leaning back against the wall with his arms folded, and wearing the cold smile I knew he had learned from me. His tunic-flap was pinned shut with his royal emblem brooch depicting the Balance of Judgment, the Heart of Mercy, and the Sword of Vengeance. He has worn the brooch nearly every day since I gave it to him when he was a boy, but I knew from his look that he had worn it this time in mockery.

Mockery is an activity in which he has had much practice since my arrest. He has commanded me to address him as Peter, since I was always reluctant to presume on our friendship and address my ruler in so familiar a fashion. By the same token, he calls me Lord Carle, though I am no longer a council lord and will soon be nothing more than a court case that may interest future generations, since I am the first man in four hundred years to be charged with this particular crime.

The Chara Peter says that I ought to be happy to die in such a manner, since I have never loved anything more than the law books. He is right that I love the law, just as I have always loved the embodiment of the law, the Chara, who keeps this land alive through his judgment of the Emorian people. But it was not until my arrest that I realized what I love as much as the Chara and his law: the man named Peter, who for the past twenty-two years has been to me the son I never had.

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