The Case is Open
After the carnage at the flea market, the reckoning came swiftly. Word spread like wildfire. Witnesses—traders, bystanders, and shaken novitiates—filed formal reports, their testimonies hurriedly transcribed at the nearest guardhouse. It wasn’t long before the academy’s high council heard of the incident. The verdict was cold and immediate. Lisabelle Arbona, daughter of a storied house and now seemingly a disgrace to it, was taken into custody.
Not to a prison. To the Special Institution for Underage Rehabilitation.
It was not cruel. The stone walls were clean, the corridors bright and orderly. The staff spoke in measured, professional tones. There were no shackles, no barred cells—only quiet rooms, structured routines, and a prevailing sense of discipline wrapped in courtesy.
Lisabelle followed every instruction without friction. She rose when told, ate what was served, attended the required sessions, and returned to her quarters when the schedule dictated. But interaction, real interaction, never came. She answered no questions, offered no clarifications, yielded no confessions. Even the kindest inquiries—the soft-spoken, well-intentioned ones—were met with the same impermeable silence.
When night fell, she retired at once, laying on the plain cot and slipping into sleep as if it were merely another task to complete. Inspectors visited her quarters regularly, each hoping for a shift, an opening, a crack in her guarded stillness. They asked their questions patiently. Consistently. Repeatedly.
Her answer, when she deigned to give it, never wavered.
“I was wrong. I have nothing more to say. I will comply.”
No bitterness, no defiance. Just quiet finality.
The first time she spoke it, her voice was steady and clear. By the fifth, it was thin as parchment. By the twentieth, it hovered just above a whisper—intact, unchanging, unyielding.
The officials recorded her words faithfully and withdrew. They were not cruel to her; they simply did their duty, waiting for the tribunal day to come.
Lisabelle gave them no more than that. No less either.
She was polite, compliant, and utterly unreachable—like a figure sealed in glass, present but forever out of reach.
On Junda, the eighteenth day of her confinement, the monotony fractured. The officials introduced a disruption to the institution’s measured quiet.
Two guests arrived at the counseling chamber, escorted by an inspector whose steady gait and crisp uniform made clear he was more sentinel than chaperone. The visitors seated themselves opposite Lisabelle across the polished oak table: Randia, impassive as ever, and the woman Lisabelle had struck. The overseer settled at her side, his presence close but unobtrusive, a quiet reminder of the rules enclosing them all.
“Please be courteous to our guests today, Miss Arbona,” the overseer intoned evenly. “They have chosen to speak with you despite risking multiple code violations.”
Lisabelle said nothing. Her gaze stayed fixed on her lap, her fingers motionless against the drab linen of her uniform. Randia, unfazed, assumed control with a voice as level as glass.
“Lisabelle Arbona. Do you recognize her?”
She remained immobile—or so she willed herself to, until something unseen cracked the stillness of her mind.
A sharp ringing knifed through her ears. Pressure coiled around her skull, tight as an iron vice. Beneath it, an alien voice reverberated—low, commanding, reverent as an echo through stone.
You have to cooperate. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Your grandmother is worried sick.
Her body slackened, her spine faltering as though gravity itself had turned against her. Sweat beaded at her temples. Then, as abruptly as it had come, the voice ebbed into nothingness. Lisabelle’s breath caught raggedly, her heartbeat drumming behind her ribs. Slowly, mechanically, she lifted her head—meeting Randia’s cool, deep blue gaze. The unspoken answer lay clear between them.
". . . No."
“So,” Randia continued, his voice measured but unyielding, “you assaulted her without even knowing who she was. Am I wrong?”
“. . . No. You’re not.”
“Why?”
“They wore cloaks. Moved furtively. I thought they meant to harm me . . . as others have before.”
The overseer’s quill scratched methodically against parchment. Across the table, the woman—Lady Diene—regarded Lisabelle with a softened expression: not accusation, but something sadder. Understanding, perhaps. Pity, perhaps. Randia, for his part, allowed a breath of relief to slip unseen between his lips. She had spoken nothing of Viena.
Earlier, when Randia himself had stood before the inspectors, they had pried at the name Vivi. He had given them nothing—only the precise truth and no more.
“This is Lady Diene,” Randia said, gesturing subtly to the woman Lisabelle had felled. “The woman you violently attacked.”
Their gazes locked.
Lady Diene’s hair was straight and dark, falling just past her shoulders. Her black almond-shaped eyes reflected calm resilience, and an amber pendant rested at her throat—glinting against the buttons of her linen gambeson.
Lisabelle’s throat constricted. Shame clawed up her chest. She dropped her eyes and closed them tight, as though by sheer will she could erase the memory.
“My deepest apologies, Lady Diene,” she murmured, voice stripped of artifice. “I will submit to any punishment you deem fit.”
.
.
.
Silence pressed heavy between them. Seconds unspooled like slow-drawn silk.
Then, at last, the soft sound of Lady Diene inhaling cut clean through the stillness.
“We are finished here,” she said simply. Her tone held neither malice nor magnanimity—only finality. She rose to her feet. “Thank you for the opportunity, Inspector.”
No one had expected it to end so abruptly. Without a glance back, Diene strode from the chamber, boots tapping lightly against the stone floor. Randia rose a moment later. He paused mid-step, casting one last look at Lisabelle, whose head remained bowed, shoulders folded inward like wilted parchment. His lips parted, as though words hovered at their edge—but in the end, he spoke none.
He turned and left in Diene’s wake.
Nearly three weeks had passed since the incident. Whether by grace or by oversight, Lisabelle’s captivity at the rehabilitation center had been uneventful. No fresh interrogations. No new visitors. No unexpected turns.
Now, at last, the day of judgment had come.
Lisabelle was escorted under guard to the 3rd District Court of Rosmayne. For the journey, she rode in a sealed black carriage—its windows shuttered tight, its crest unmarked. A courtesy rarely afforded to common criminals. Or perhaps a precaution.
Upon arrival, the grim veneer of privacy shattered.
A crowd had gathered at the court’s iron-wrought gates—pressed close and murmuring like a sea about to break its banks. Gasps rippled outward as Lisabelle disembarked, shackled but proud-backed. Whispers sharpened into curses; jeers cut through the morning air. Strangers, ignorant of the particulars, spat condemnation as though truth was irrelevant.
The local press had gotten wind of her case—and in the weeks since, the story had metastasized across the district, perhaps even beyond.
Inside the courthouse, the gallery brimmed with power and curiosity alike. Officials in velvet-trimmed mantles. Academy heads in austere robes. Stern-faced officers in polished cuirasses. Even the Minister of Youth Development had made an appearance, his entourage a silent testament to the case’s gravity. And lurking at the edges of every colonnade, sharp-eyed reporters poised their quills, hungry to distill today’s proceedings into tomorrow’s ink.
When the judges entered, the entire hall rose as one.
Counsels and spectators bowed low in unison; the judges returned the gesture—a mark of solemn mutual respect. The bailiff’s voice rang clear across the marbled expanse:
“All rise has been observed. You may be seated. The court is now in session.”
At the head of the tribunal sat Lord Bernard Marshall—a man whose reputation for impartial severity outstripped even his patrician lineage. Years ago, he had exiled his own firstborn son for corruption; his integrity was neither for sale nor sway. Silver-haired and broad-shouldered, he adjusted his black mantle and surveyed the assembly with hooded, deliberate eyes.
He cleared his throat. Though he had yet to utter a word, the room tensed—collective breath cinched tight.
“Good morning,” Lord Marshall finally intoned, his voice resonant and unhurried. “I am Bernard Marshall, entrusted by Her Majesty the Queen to preside over today’s matter.”
He let his gaze sweep the gallery once more before a faint smile tugged at his lips. “A weighty charge indeed. If memory serves, it was three days after the birth of my fifth grandson when last I sat judgment over a case involving an underaged defendant. The boy is eight now.”
A few muffled chuckles broke through the taut atmosphere. The chief judge’s understated levity eased the air, loosening knotted shoulders and clenched jaws.
“And by that very fact, I am acutely aware how sharply all eyes are fixed upon these proceedings,” he continued smoothly. “Let us waste no further time. Counsels—introduce yourselves.”
The opening statements commenced.
The prosecution and defense laid out their positions in precise, clipped tones. Arguments were spun, rebuttals hurled. Evidence surfaced in crisp sheets and sworn testimonies. The judges interjected only to clarify or cut through obfuscation.
The counsels themselves were no minor figures—seasoned litigators and ambitious legal scholars, many keen to etch their names into the public’s memory through the sheer spectacle of this case. Some were drawn by the lure of prestige, others by gold-lined contracts, and a few by more obscure satisfactions known only to themselves.
Hours crawled by. The air thickened with rhetoric and revelation. Debate sharpened to the edge of a blade—until, at last, momentum slowed. A verdict loomed.
And then—unexpectedly, irrevocably—Lady Diene rose from her seat.
“Your honor.”
Her voice, clear and calm, cut straight through the murmur of exhausted proceedings.
“I am not a woman versed in law. I know little of its articles, its customs, or its consequences. But despite all that has been argued and unearthed today . . . I have weighed the larger matter. And I have resolved to forgive the defendant—Lisabelle Arbona.”
The chamber detonated.
Voices cascaded over one another—angry, confused, incredulous. Prosecutors barked objections. Diene’s own counsel turned on her, their faces contorted in disbelief as they tugged urgently at her sleeve. She did not so much as flinch beneath their hands.
It took no fewer than five strikes of Lord Marshall’s gavel to restore order. When quiet finally settled, the judge leaned forward, brow arched—not displeased, but palpably curious.
“Well. That is no small revelation, Lady Barmont,” he remarked, steepling his fingers. “Might I ask why?”
Diene inclined her head, composed as ever.
“Because, your honor, Lisabelle Arbona is no mere perpetrator. She is a victim herself—a casualty of a malformed ecosystem that professes to foster youth but in truth leaves them vulnerable and unguarded. Thus, I believe the charges have been misdirected.”
With calm precision, she turned her gaze—not to Lisabelle, nor to the judges, but to the row of academy heads seated stiffly across the aisle. Her meaning landed like a stone through glass.
A new ripple of whispers surged through the crowd.
Lord Marshall did not react at once.
He sat very still, elbows resting on the armrests of his chair, fingertips pressed together beneath his chin. His silvered brows knit just slightly—not in confusion, but in calculation.
The gallery dared not breathe.
At length, the chief judge exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate. His gaze drifted towards the row of academy officials whom Diene had so pointedly indicted. His voice, when it returned, was even and unsparing.
“Lady Barmont.” He tasted the name like a weight on his tongue. “You speak of an ecosystem. Be precise. Do you imply negligence? Malfeasance? Willful endangerment?”
“I imply all of the above, your honor,” Diene replied, her tone unflinching. “The academy failed to safeguard one of its own. It fostered an environment where paranoia and violence could take root unchallenged. That is what Lisabelle Arbona was steeped in long before the day she lashed out.”
A cold murmur unfurled like a ripple across water.
Across the aisle, one of the academy heads—a hawk-nosed man draped in the steel-grey regalia of the High Pedagogue’s Office—shifted uneasily. His jaw twitched; his fingers fidgeted with the hem of his robe. Beside him, a woman in emerald-trimmed robes narrowed her eyes but said nothing, lips pressed into a thin line.
Lord Marshall’s stare pinned them like insects to cork.
“I see.”
He reclined slightly, folding his hands across his abdomen. The gavel sat untouched by his elbow. He no longer needed to wield it; authority radiated from him like a rising tide.
“I am obliged to remind the court that today’s purpose was to examine the conduct of the defendant, not the institutions surrounding her,” he began, his voice ironclad. “However . . . it is neither the spirit of justice nor the habit of this bench to ignore credible claims of systemic failure. Especially when they are laid bare, under oath, in this very hall.”
He shifted his gaze back to Diene.
“Your words carry weight, Lady Barmont. And consequences.” His eyes glinted, sharp as ground glass. “Are you prepared to submit an official deposition naming parties and particulars, should the court deem it necessary?”
“I am.”
No hesitation. No blink. Her answer landed like a dropped coin on marble.
For the first time since the trial had opened, a flicker of something like surprise crossed Lisabelle’s face. Her posture, which had remained stoic and contained, slackened by a fraction—her brow furrowing faintly as she studied Diene with cautious, dawning comprehension.
Lord Marshall nodded once—curt and satisfied.
“Then let us conclude today’s business properly, before we trespass into unchartered jurisdiction.”
He turned to the clerk and spoke crisply:
“Record that the plaintiff has withdrawn her personal grievance and extended formal pardon to the defendant, Lisabelle Arbona. The charges pertaining to assault are to be vacated.”
His gaze swept the court again, settling last on Lisabelle herself.
“However, in light of testimony now introduced suggesting institutional failure, this court will recommend immediate review of the Academy’s internal practices by the Ministry of Youth Development and the Crown Judiciary Oversight Committee. Notices will be dispatched within forty-eight hours.”
A thin, measured silence fell over the chamber. No cheers. No applause. Only the collective awareness that something far larger had just been set in motion.
Finally, Lord Marshall lifted his gavel and brought it down once—clean, resolute.
“This session stands adjourned.”
The hall stirred—benches creaking, murmurs rising anew. Reporters broke off in flurries, quills scratching furiously. Academy heads conferred in tight, anxious knots.
Guards stepped forward to escort Lisabelle from the defendant’s bench.
As she rose to her feet, her eyes met Diene’s one last time. The older woman inclined her head—not in triumph, nor pity, but acknowledgment. A measured, deliberate courtesy between two people who, perhaps, now understood each other more clearly than the rest of the room ever would.
And as Lisabelle was led out beneath the vaulted arches, the weight on her shoulders felt—if not lifted—at least no longer hers alone to bear.
Meanwhile, at the Arbona estate — a modest but timeworn manor nestled in the quieter folds of Rosmayne’s noble quarter — the air had grown thin with waiting. Eleanor was waiting anxiously for the result. The past few days had taken a toll on her health, and by the time the trial began, she no longer had the strength to attend. Thankfully, Viena stayed by her side, tending to her needs just as Randia had instructed before leaving for the court that morning.
Viena herself wasn’t doing much better. Her mind had been full ever since the incident, and even now, it showed on her face. Eleanor often caught her deep in thought, unsmiling, as she went about the small chores around the room. She couldn’t help it. What she had seen weighed too heavily to ignore. Back when she first met Lisabelle, when they fought and struggled, Viena had thought she had barely survived that day. Only now did she realize that Lisabelle hadn’t even been serious — not in the slightest. She’d been holding back all along, almost playing, while Viena had fought with everything she had.
Now that Viena had seen what Lisabelle looked like when she wasn’t holding back, a quiet fear settled into her chest.
“Why would she do that…?”
The words slipped from her lips as she folded a blanket. Eleanor, sitting nearby, heard her. She closed her eyes for a moment and looked toward the window, her gaze distant. After a quiet breath, she answered.
“She must have her reason. My granddaughter has always been a good girl, and I know she still is.” Her voice was steady, but her fingers rested uneasily on her lap. “I’m sure this is all just a severely unfortunate misunderstanding.”