"Baron Bertrand Vemorel," she announced, "you stand accused of the following crimes. Treason against the Imperial Crown. Bribery of imperial officials, including three members of the late Emperor’s privy council..."

"...Collusion with foreign powers hostile to the interests of Iondora, specifically the merchant-princes of the Veldt Confederation and the separatist lords of the Eastern Reaches. Repeated and documented use of the assassination guilds to eliminate political rivals, including—"

She began to read names. A trade minister who had opposed Vemorel’s shipping monopoly. A rival baron who had discovered irregularities in his mine contracts. A foreign diplomat who had threatened to expose his smuggling operations.

The list went on and on, each name accompanied by dates, sums of money, the coded messages used to communicate with the assassins, the confirmation notices posted to the guild boards after each kill.

The evidence piled up on the white marble floor. Letters in Vemorel’s own hand. Ledgers showing payments to known guild fronts. Testimonies from captured guild operatives. Bank records from the Veldt Confederation. Correspondence with separatist lords, promising them weapons and gold in exchange for support against the imperial throne—

"This is absurd!" Vemorel shrilled. "I am being set up! These documents are forgeries! Someone is trying to destroy me! The Crown Prince, no, the Emperor himself must have fabricated—"

"And finally," the prosecutor continued, "this court presents evidence that Baron Aldric Vemorel, on the night of the late Emperor Zircon Iondora’s death, made a payment of fifty thousand golds to an intermediary known to represent the assassin rumored to be codenamed ’Roarke.’"

The hall went silent.

"This payment," the prosecutor said, holding up a final document, a bank draft, signed and sealed, its ink still crisp and damning—"was made three days before the Emperor’s death. It matches the exact sum that the assassin Roarke, in a notice posted to the guild networks, claimed he was owed as the down payment for the successful assassination of Emperor Zircon Iondora."

"The notice, verified by imperial intelligence, states that the commissioner has yet to pay the second half of the agreed-upon fee."

She lowered the document. Her cold eyes fixed on Vemorel’s face.

"Baron Vemorel. You had the means, a fortune large enough to fund an army. You had the method, a well-documented history of using the assassination guilds. And you had the motive."

"The late Emperor had recently signed an imperial decree authorizing a comprehensive audit of your mining operations, an audit that would have exposed decades of tax evasion, illegal labor practices, and the systematic bribery of imperial inspectors. The decree was found on his desk, awaiting his seal, on the morning after his death."

Vemorel’s face went grey. Not pale. Grey.

"Fifty thousand gold," the prosecutor repeated. "The exact amount you withdrew from your private accounts three days before the Emperor died. The exact amount ’Roarke’ claimed as his fee."

"I—I was set up! Someone used my name! Someone—"

"Take him away," Damon said.

The Imperial Knights hauled Vemorel to his feet. The baron was screaming now, incoherent and desperate. His words dissolved into unintelligible noise as the great bronze doors swung shut behind him, cutting off his protests like a blade through silk.

The hall was silent.

And in the front row of the noble pews, Saintess Ruby Vaiva stood frozen, her eyes wide.

Vemorel had fallen once more. In her previous life... and now, again.

"The Imperial Court will prosecute the rest of the people involved in this incident. And we announce to whoever holds additional evidence, whether in defense of the accused or against them, please come forward to serve the empire." The prosecutor said as a bell struck once.

Ruby subtly shook.

In her previous life, Damon Iondora had killed his father. She was sure of it. Everyone had been sure of it. The rumors had swirled for years, fed by his rumored ruthlessness and the way he had ascended the throne.

No one had ever proven it, but everyone had known, so to speak. Damon Iondora had murdered Emperor Zircon, and the empire had simply... accepted it. Because what could anyone do? He was Damon Iondora.

But this—

These documents. These testimonies. These receipts.

Fifty thousand gold. A baron with everything to lose and nothing to gain from an emperor’s continued life.

This didn’t feel like a frame job. Every document cross-referenced. Every payment accounted for. Every motive explained. If Damon had fabricated this, he had done so with the kind of exhaustive, obsessive thoroughness that bordered on madness.

Or—

Or he had not fabricated it at all.

Ruby’s mind raced. If Damon had not killed the Emperor in this timeline, if he truly had nothing to do with his father’s death, then what did that mean for her? For her prophecies? For everything she thought she knew?

And what about her previous life?

If Damon had not killed the Emperor then, either... Had she been wrong all along?

Her prophecy about the Emperor’s death had been accurate. The Emperor had died exactly as she had foreseen. But her prophecy had not included how or why. After all, that future from her previous life was just as vague.

And this time—

This time, her prophecy had caused the palace to tighten security.

What if... it was the thing that had caused him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, forcing him to catch his own mother’s blade and nearly die because she had announced the Emperor’s death without understanding its shape.

Had Prince Jove survived? Yes. Lady Sees’s miraculous elixir had saved him. But if that elixir had not existed, then Prince Jove would be dead. And his blood would be on her hands.

Ruby’s hands trembled beneath her sleeves. No one noticed as no one was looking at her. All eyes were on the new Emperor with a crown on his head and a baron’s fate sealed behind him.

Did she cause this? Did her prophecy nearly kill a prince?

And...

What else had she been wrong about?