The sound was not a knock, but a final, grinding declaration. The heavy bolt of my cell door, which had been my world for days, was drawn back with a screech of protesting metal. It was the sound of a tomb being opened, not to release the living, but to claim the dead.
Two Paladins of the Order stood silhouetted against the pale, sickly light of the dawn corridor. Their armor was polished to a mirror shine, their faces grim and impassive beneath their plumed helmets. They were instruments of Kaelen’s will, cogs in the grand machine of justice that was about to grind me into dust.
“The High Inquisitor awaits,” one of them stated, his voice devoid of any emotion.
A gauntlet of calloused leather closed around my arm, yanking me to my feet. The straw and filth clung to my ragged tunic. I di
