He was a man watching his executioner fail.
The bone hand passed through his chest without leaving a mark, coiling around Aren's heart like a phantom's grip. Serena stepped back several paces, ensuring the gallery could witness the divine verdict.
Aren pressed his lips together, stifling a groan against the crushing pressure tightening around his heart.
Though it felt as if his very life were being squeezed, he did not succumb to panic; he had calculated this agony long ago.
He waited, a statue of endurance, even as the cold sweat slicking his back betrayed the toll it took.
As seconds stretched into an agonizing eternity, the crowd's bloodthirsty anticipation turned into an unsettling murmur.
Contrary to every expectation, Aren—who should have been dying in screaming torment—remained standing.
But as the blade slid free, leaving Aren's heart intact, the ground seemed to liquefy beneath Serena's feet.
Her empire of lies was tilting toward the abyss. The knot in her throat tightened until she could barely draw breath.
Why? her mind shrieked. Why isn't there a reaction?
The evidence was undeniable. The corpses were real! This sword is the true relic… But if he is innocent, then the Nyx we absolved thirty years ago—
A bead of cold sweat traced a path down Serena's forehead.
As the roar of the crowd intensified, ringing in her ears like a deafening toll, Aren's thin smile pierced her mind more sharply than any blade.
In that sudden, agonizing clarity, she understood.
Aren hadn't merely survived a trial. He had lured her into a trap of her own making. He had checkmated her—on her very own board.
"W-what is this?"
"What is happening?"
"Look! The Holy Sword... It's withdrawing without drawing a drop of blood!"
As if repelled by his innocence—or perhaps unwilling to strike—the Holy Sword retracted from his chest and hovered in the air, vibrating with a low, resonant hum.
The spectators stood frozen, their eyes wide with a mixture of terror and disbelief. The absolute silence of a shattered reality gripped the temple.
"What does this mean?"
"Is he… truly innocent?"
"Despite all that evidence, has the Holy Sword truly absolved him?"
As the whispers of shock and suspicion rippled through the air, Aren't lips curved.
He had gambled his life on this path, knowing full well that doubt would cling to him like a shadow, regardless of the outcome.
Yet, his confidence was rooted in a singular, hidden logic: in a Divine Trial, the sword does not judge the flesh—it judges the soul.
Even if this body was stained with blood, the soul inhabiting it was not. A soul that had committed no murder could not be found guilty.
The person most devastated by this revelation was Serena Winter.
Thirty years ago, she had been the one to propose the counterfeit blade, a decision she knew would erode the public's faith in divine justice.
And yet now, before her very eyes, the true Holy Sword was declaring a man she knew to be a monster as innocent. Her mind went numb.
When her eyes met Aren's, a primal chill raced down her spine. Feeling like a cornered animal caught in a hunter's snare, Serena took an unconscious step back.
"Your Honor," Aren's voice struck her like the crack of a lash. "Will you not announce the verdict?"
Serena stood rigid, her heavy robes concealing the frantic trembling of her legs. Thousands of eyes were pinned to her; journalists' pens hovered, poised like daggers above their pages.
If I claim the sword is defective, she thought, I destroy my own authority. If I declare him guilty, I violate the most sacred of laws. But if I release him…
The glint in Aren's eyes seemed to whisper her greatest nightmare back to her. She clenched her teeth so hard a sharp pain flared in her jaw.
Never in her life had she felt so small, so utterly powerless. To render this judgment was no different than kneeling before a criminal.
Aren raised his voice, his expression now a mask of pure, mocking innocence.
"As the Head of the Sacred Court, I ask that you uphold justice. Proclaim the judgment of the Holy Sword!"
Serena suppressed a groan. He was forcing her to cast herself into the flames.
If she rejected the Holy Sword's verdict now, she would be forced to drag the survivor of the thirty-year-old scandal to the gallows as well.
She was trapped by the very lies she had used to build her throne.
Even if the public continued to question the legitimacy of the verdict, there was a vast chasm between whispered doubts and an open challenge to the law.
The moment Serena verbally rejected the Holy Sword's judgment, every decree ever issued by the Sacred Court would be dragged under a microscope.
The ghosts of those who perished thirty years ago would rise, plunging the Kingdom into a frenzy of civil unrest.
From that point on, every sentence ever passed would be viewed not as justice but as a fabrication.
Serena's jaw tightened, the muscles twitching with suppressed fury.
"As the Head of the Sacred Court, I—Serena Winter—hereby declare that the Holy Sword has found the defendant, Aren Donovan, innocent! Pursuant to the Divine Verdict, I announce that Aren Donovan is absolved of all charges!"
Her proclamation incited a storm of turmoil that drowned out any sense of justice. Serena did not stay to witness it.
Clinging to the remains of her dignity, she brought the gavel down one last time, ending the session.
It all ended in the blink of an eye.
Three days later, Aren stood outside the prison gates.
The deep blue sky was piercingly clear, without a single cloud to mar its surface—as if the heavens themselves were exhaling the tension and suffocation that had been festering within him.
Aren drew a long, deep breath. The air filling his lungs was biting and cold, but compared to the mold-heavy, oppressive stench of the dungeon, it tasted like life itself.