"My lord, we've taken control of House Scarlawke's spire. How should I deal with them?" Shen asked.
Before him, the members of the Scarlawke household were gathered in the great hall. Troops guarded every exit, dragging out fugitives from hidden chambers and tossing them into the hall to await their fate.
"Yes, my lord, I understand."
Shen lowered his head and turned to the waiting officers. "They are all guilty. Deliver judgment upon them."
"No!"
A nearby noble, overhearing their exchange, let out a terrified scream. A soldier, thinking he was about to resist, put a round through his heart.
"No, please! Spare my child, at least the child is innocent!"
"Don't kill me, I have money! I know where the family vault is. I can give it all to you!"
The nobles realized what was coming. Women shrieked, men wailed, and begged for their lives.
Shen raised his hand without pity. When that hand fell like the blade of a guillotine, a crimson net of light engulfed the hall.
Gem-studded finery carbonized in an instant under the searing beams. Faces once carefully maintained twisted and vaporized in the heat.
The screams of these once-elegant men and women, in the final moments of their lives, were no different from those of lower hives' laborers they had once tormented to death.
…
"You're not afraid of false accusations?" Caelan asked.
Curze did not slow his pace. "In every future I have seen, the Scarlawke line never escapes darkness and rot. They are unworthy of salvation. They have no right to atonement."
In Curze's justice, not everyone could atone, not even children.
Even in Dorothy's family, only one child in a hundred was ever given such a chance.
But for the Scarlawkes, Curze did not even need to look. He already knew, every last one of them was beyond saving.
There were never false cases here. Everyone in the spire deserved death.
Even newborns carried guilt, the guilt of sharing in their family's countless crimes.
Shen and a few others survived not because they were innocent, but because Curze chose to give them a chance at redemption.
Curze could be generous with redemption, as long as he saw even a faint possibility in someone's future.
But the Scarlawkes were the exception. He would give none of them that chance.
"Indeed, not worth it," Caelan nodded in firm agreement.
Even if every soul on Nostramo could atone, the Scarlawkes were excluded.
Had Curze been softhearted enough to forgive them, Caelan would have advised otherwise; justice had to be carried out thoroughly, evil uprooted to the last trace.
Thunk!
Two round objects were hurled from the shadows beyond the door. They bounced and rolled across the ceramic-steel floor, leaving behind sticky trails of blood, before coming to rest at the soldiers' boots.
They were heads. Jando's eyes bulged wide in terror, his face frozen in his final instant of horror. His neck was a ragged mess of shattered bone and torn muscle, still dripping.
Just meters away lay Count Scarlawke's corpse, eyes open, glaring at his son in death.
The darkness behind the door churned like a living thing, as if something within was slowly emerging.
Thousands of rifles aimed at the black void. Fingers on triggers trembled.
"Lay down your weapons." The whisper from within seeped into their bones like ice water. "I promised judgment, not slaughter. Many of you can live, live to atone for the sins you and your families have amassed."
Curze had never believed fear alone could uphold justice. But for nobles who trampled order and scorned justice, fear was the only language they understood.
And when he delivered judgment, fear spread like a plague.
Curze had to admit, it was effective.
Clang!
A rifle slipped from trembling fingers. The metallic crash rang like thunder in the dead silence of the hall.
In moments, more weapons fell, a frantic storm of iron rain. Soldiers tore at their gun straps, desperate to rid themselves of weapons that suddenly felt like red-hot brands. Their pupils shrank under their helmets, throats convulsing as they swallowed back sobs of terror.
"Pick up your guns! Pick them up!" an officer shouted, his voice cracking, violence masking his fear.
He raised his weapon at Curze, finger quivering on the trigger.
Unlike the others, he had no chance of redemption.
Because he was a Scarlawke. Among the many who might live, he never would. Not self-pity, just clarity.
A plasma bolt streaked through the shadows, detonating against the wall as if it had struck something.
The officer's eyes lit with hope, that the monster had fallen.
But before hope could take root, his throat itched. He scratched instinctively, and his glove came away drenched in his own blood.
Silence smothered the hall like an iron curtain, broken only by the spasms of bodies in the dark.
The shadow moved, solidified, weaving between the cowering. It circled, inspected, judged. Each pause came with the wet hiss of an artery torn open.
Droplets pattered onto the floor like a funeral bell tolling for the survivors. Warm streams of blood trickled across the steel, pooling into crimson rivulets that mirrored faces twisted by terror.
Then the tide of shadow receded. From the void emerged a pale giant.
"Congratulations," Curze said. "You have survived. So have your families."
His tone was almost gentle, yet each syllable carried an icy weight, like the hiss of a serpent deliberately holding back its strike. The survivors' spines stiffened as if against a chill wind.
His hawk-like gaze swept the hall. Every soul he looked upon felt as though their very skin was stripped away, their deepest filth laid bare.
…
"I thought you'd blame me."
"Blame you for what? For using fear to cow them? Do I seem the sort who preaches against scaring strangers, the kind of saintly teacher who scolds his pupils for frightening others?"
"Of course not."
Curze smiled. He had known Caelan would support him, always.
"Fear can work wonders," Caelan added. "But it is no cure-all. I only hope you won't overuse it."
"I understand," Curze replied.
What he sought was a future where all longed for justice, not one where all cowered before it.
Fear could not create the future. A people who knew only fear would never have a future.
Fear would strike them still. But hope must guide them forward.
That was the nation Curze sought to build.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
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