The courthouse was laid out in concentric rings deep in the city center. Veilhome was shaped much like a spiral, the twisting terraces giving way to sweeping gardens and polished marble. There was no ocean, but there didn’t need to be—not with the well-manicured verandas sprouting sparkling water in the heat of the summer, freezing over for fine tracks of ice for messengers at the winter. At present, those channels were bursting with storm water, the decorative streams at the top of the room burbling merrily.

  It should have been a peaceful place—a place for civilized debate and argument, perhaps. Seven had been there hundreds of times before with her own family, and the courthouse was well-known for hosting colorful performances, on better days. In its current state, the concentric rings surrounding her felt a bit like a noose, closing around her throat.

  Seven sat in the middle of that tangle of seats, alone. Isolated. Even the judges sat a row back, six in total. Anything to avoid the cursed number after it. Seven. Most courthouse patrons wore red—a traditional color on the day of someone’s final judgement. And while before there had been few guards, today Seven didn’t miss those posted at each exit—as if they’d take her by force if she wasn’t willing to cooperate.

  Her siblings, of course, were in fine form nearby. They sat in the second row behind the judges, though her parents sat with the judges themselves—obviously ignoring any sort of rules against partiality. Her father watched her sternly and coldly, and her mother’s nose might float through the roof if it could go any higher. Some of that was an act—a sort of armor her mother used to defend herself from the world—but some of it, Seven knew, was real. A true disdain for her daughter. She couldn’t be sure which parent had asked for her trial, but it may well have been both of them.

  Aleph, the oldest, sat as a perfect model of their father, his clothes perfect, his hair coifed, his posture flawless. Malachi sat sternly nearby, a notebook in his hands, obviously ready to take notes—probably not to defend Seven with, though he could occasionally be soft with her.

  Tessa, her only sister, was elegant in a gown and gloves, looking ready for a ball, not a trial, and the three youngest boys Quaid, Finn, and Juno sat in a huddle together, whispering to one another. They were perhaps the most sympathetic to her cause, but it didn’t matter; they certainly weren’t the ones who’d brought her to trial.

  Finn avoided her eyes. Juno looked worried. Quaid just looked bored, ready to leave his seat. And Seven, for her part, sighed through the buzzing of the crowd and propped her boots up on the table. There was an audible gasp from the crowd, and nearby, she heard Moore sigh.

  “Order!” Marcus called. He’d been the head judge for years under her father. He was usually fair, though it was impossible to be fair with a trial that had been rigged from the start. Dice were carefully tracked once brought into Veilhome, especially if they were being used in a game of Beggar’s Chance. There was little reason—besides Seven’s own testimony—to question the ruling of the dice commission at all.

  “The princess may choose to sit any way she chooses,” Marcus pointed out to the crowd, then frowned at Seven. “Though her legal counsel may advise her otherwise.”

  “We advise Princess Seventra on very little,” Arnott said, stepping forward. “We only wish to represent her—respectfully, of course.” He bowed towards Seven’s parents and she rolled her eyes. A lawyer who couldn’t stand up to her parents was of little use to her, but she and Moore hadn’t been able to find anyone who would. To Seven, they were just people, but to the rest of Veilhome, they might as well have been deities.

  “If you could get on with the ruling, Marcus, that would be ideal.” That slimy voice belonged to one of Rook’s robust legal team. “Two years is quite long enough to debate about this topic that was already clear on the night of the crime. Dice don’t lie, and they were independently verified by the gaming commission to boot. I understand we’re considering other punishments today?”

  Seven stiffened, but tried to keep her face neutral. She wouldn’t let them rattle her, even if that was their goal. Maybe they’d exile her, but she wouldn’t let them have the satisfaction of making her out to be a complete fool.

  “If the ruling finds Seventra of House Veil guilty,” he said pointedly, looking at Rook’s team over his glasses, “we will consider other forms of punishment.” Marcus checked a few papers on his desk, pulling at his glasses. “Currently the honorable judges are debating between imprisonment, fines, exile—” Seven flinched at the word, but Marcus kept going, his gaze falling from the paper to meet her eyes with just a touch of shock. “—and execution.”

  “Execution?” Seven snapped, launching to her feet so hard the table in front of her nearly toppled over. Around her, the crowd burst into a hive of activity, many messengers fleeing from the room to deliver the news to criers across the city. Her father certainly hadn’t mentioned this as a possibility. “You’d consider execution for a trial initiated by my own family, with shoddy evidence to boot?” She gestured at the judges, knowing she should keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t help it. “We know what this is all about, don’t we? This doesn’t have anything to do with what I may or may not have done—it has everything to do with House Veil saving face, even if it involves sacrificing their own—”

  “Seventra.” Seven flinched at the deep rumble of her father’s booming voice. “You will not hold this court in contempt, nor will you smear the family name in public.”

  “I’ll smear whatever I damn well please if it’s trying to send me to the gallows, father.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Her father didn’t answer, but instead nodded at Marcus, who tapped a large dice on the table, its thump echoing unnaturally through the room. The rest of the room quieted down, but Seven remained on her feet, her heart racing.

  She should have run for her life today—last night, even. But she couldn’t have anticipated this. She’d been terrified of exile, not execution. She glanced at her father, but his face was impassable. Had this been what he was trying to protect her from? Royal pull or not, he could hardly reverse whatever call was made publicly in the courtroom. Her blood went cold as Marcus spoke again, all business.

  “I’m afraid, Princess Seventra, that Rook’s legal team have laid out the claim very well. If you’re found guilty of this crime, it falls under the old laws. Tampering with dice is a crime punishable by death.”

  Seven sank slowly back into her chair, her legs weak. There was little she could do. She’d stated the facts. She’d had Moore’s people defend her actions—spineless though they were—but she could do little against the Commission itself. How many other people had been in her position? How many people had been thrown in jail, hanged, or separated from their families because of false charges?

  “The judges will now give their verdict,” Marcus said quietly, and the entire room went silent. Some stood, watching Seven for her reaction. Guards stood ready at the exits—either to quell the crowd’s reaction or to prevent her from escaping. She was no longer sure which.

  And yet, her eyes fell on her family—on her mother and father, sitting there emotionlessly. On her oldest siblings, avoiding her eyes. Her closer siblings, watching her with a mixture of horror and discomfort. Someone has to do something about it, she told herself. One of them had to interfere with the sentencing. Surely family wouldn’t cast out family. Wouldn’t lead them to the gallows.

  Someone, at least, had been sending her money on the regular—even if she was functionally living like a peasant with it. And yet that meant there was at least one person in the palace on her side. One person who might have had the resources or connections to fight the verdict.

  The judges stood, and each held up a dice. She had their meanings memorized from childhood, but now she wished she hadn’t paid so much attention to the legal system—because it was easy to see her life evaporate before her eyes with the ruling.

  A six.

  Guilty.

  Another six.

  Guilty.

  The entire row read sixes, each number carved into the bloody red dice.

  “We find Seventra of House Veil guilty of tampering with the core of a dice, and of cheating with one at a game of Beggar’s Chance,” the head judge said.

  Marcus nodded solemnly, then glanced at Seven. “Please stand for your sentencing.”

  Seven stood numbly, barely feeling like she was in the room anymore. The crowd was distant, and her family members looked like strangers now. Dimly, she realized that her fingertips had gone numb with prickling fear.

  “Judges?” Marcus asked, and each held up another dice—this one black and final. A one would indicate fines, a two imprisonment, a three exile, and a four, death. Seven held her breath as each judge held up a dice.

  A three.

  Her mouth went dry.

  A four.

  Her heart skipped a few beats.

  Another three. Would they choose exile instead? She glanced at her father, who, to his credit, looked faintly green. That only made her feel worse. This clearly hadn’t been his plan.

  Each judge went down the line, alternating the numbers, and Marcus blinked at the result. “A tie,” he said. “Between execution and exile.” The room murmured, many looking between Seven and her family. Seven could barely look at her siblings. Could barely keep her eyes open at all. She just wanted to disappear. And yet, if the next roll didn’t go her way, she might get her wish. “Given the tie, we will allow the defendant to roll a single d20,” Marcus said, his face gone pale. “Odds will signal exile, evens execution.”

  An armed guard brought out a dice, placed it in a velvet container, and Seven took it, her fingers prickling with fear. What if something was off with this one? What if this one rejected her the way many others had? Holding it, she realized that she’d always felt this way with one in her hand—like she could feel its intentions, humming in the air around her.

  “May luck be with you,” Marcus said, and Seven kissed the top of her left hand for luck. She had to laugh quietly at it. Luck. Maybe her luck at the gambling tables never let her down, but her luck in the rest of her life had been somewhere in the sewers lately.

  Seven rolled the dice onto the table in the silent room. It tumbled over the fine wooden surface, and she felt a thrill of hope, watching it. It felt like…like it was hers somehow. Not her execution dice. Not the dice being rolled to determine the fate of the rest of her life, but a dice she could have had in a better life, a better time. The coming of age dice she could have inherited as her siblings once had.

  The dice clattered to a stop.

  She stepped back, letting the guards scoop it up, and her knees nearly collapsed in relief.

  “A seven,” one called out, looking at her in shock.

  But Seven’s eyes weren’t on her siblings, looking a mix of relieved and stunned, or her parents, their faces carefully blank. Her eyes weren’t on Moore, sinking into his chair looking like he’d aged ten years, or on the couriers leaving again to deliver the news through the city.

  No, what her eyes fell on instead was a man in the rafters of the courthouse, his eyes familiar. The eyes she saw each night before going to sleep. Those eyes that would haunt her the rest of her life.

  The last thing she’d seen before everything had changed.

  Rook, with a faint smile on his face.

  He gave her a mocking salute as if to say, better luck next time, and disappeared into the rafters. Seven lunged for him, but a troop of guards snatched at her clothing and dragged her away from the prying eyes of the crowd and her family.

  And from the last vestiges of her life in Veilhome.

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