Palace Ghosts

Chapter 13

The day dawned with alarming speed, I waited with bated breath at the palace gates, Taviq stood by my side. A clock struck the second hour of the day, Zarek would be here soon.
"You ready?" asked Zarek, appearing out of nowhere.
I jumped.
"Yeah, are you?" I asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be," he said with a sigh.
"Come on, its this way," said Taviq with a wave of his hand. We followed him through a back entrance of the palace, weaving through the gardens, sneaking through servants passages, until we came upon the courtroom. Court had been in session since the second hour of the day, it had taken us about five minutes to get there.
"You ready?" I asked Zarek.
"You asked that already," he said with a wry grin, but nodded anyways.
He pushed the double doors open forcefully, so that they slammed against the walls. He earned the attention he wanted immediately.
"Sir, you can't be in here!" said a guard reaching for Zarek. Zarek brushed him away like a fly, and began to walk down the centre aisle with evident purpose.
"Your honour, my name is Zarek Latricia, brother of Kianna Emilia Latricia. And I would like to say a few words, right here, right now, for this particular audience," said Zarek, confidently.
"I'm sorry sir, but we are currently having a hearing for Baron Elwinn," said the Judge, trying to feint kindness.
"Are you indeed? Interesting how people, get twisted nowadays," said Zarek,posing in a thoughtful position.
I couldn't help smiling, I was proud of my brother.
"Guards please escort this man out the door," growled the Judge.
"But your honour, I have a few very paradoxical things to say, which this audience would be very interested in hearing. Even if you yourself might disapprove," said Zarek, putting a dangerous edge to his voice as he spoke the last word.
"GET HIM OUT OF HERE!" roared the Judge, turning purple.
"It's intriguing how greed and revenge control people nowadays—" The Queen's mouth fell open momentarily. "—such desires and lusts have been known to corrupt officials, Kings, and even Queens and Judges..." he let his words steal over the crowd. He was a master of manipulation. His eyes went from the Judge to the Queen.
"Seize him!" ordered the Queen authoritatively, no one moved.
Zarek ignored her. "In fact such corruption often ends with the loss of innocent life —Kianna Latricia and Taviq Elwinn— to name a few," said Zarek in a melodiously convicting tone.
"In fact, they're trying to pull the wool over our eyes yet again. I mean, Baron Elwinn is at this hearing because of an anonymous tip off about him creating counterfeit money. Tsk, tsk. But the things we often miss are typically the most obvious things, like the fact that Baron Elwinn is going to be hung for revenge purposes—"
"GET HIM OUT OF HERE!" yelled the Queen, her dignity fleeing from her with her outburst. None of the Royal Guardsmen responded. Zarek tsked a second time.
"Another thing most of us have missed is what is going on in our defendants room at this very moment? Nothing, or possibly a frame up? Maybe the Queen is having some of her people stuff counterfeit money under his bed, when everyone is busy, and distracted. And isn't it strangely convenient that Baron Elwinn's only maid was executed the other day?" asked Zarek pausing.
I heard Baron Calden order a few of his men to go investigate.
"GET OUT OF HERE!" roared the Queen.
"How easy would it be to bribe the Judge, or threaten the jury? After all it would look indisputably clean on her side,  if she were just an innocent bystander..." Zarek let his words hang over the crowd.
The words washed over them, they were beginning to understand what had just happened.
"Anyways your honour, that's all I wanted to say," Zarek smiled unnervingly and left the room, closing the double doors behind him. Taviq and I stayed in the courtroom to see how things would unfold. The audience started to shout and accuse. Baron Elwinn looked like he'd just had the weight of the world lifted from his shoulders.
In short order Baron Calden's men returned, there were four of them, three of which held masked and hooded men and the other man carried two huge bags.
The four men brought all the evidence to the front, the forth opened the bags and dumped the contents out in front of the Judge. Dozens of bricks of paper money fell out onto the Judge's podium.
"Evidence, your honour, from Baron Elwinn's room, these three men were found stuffing this money under Baron Elwinn's bed." For all of two moments the crowd was as silent as the grave, then the dam broke. Everyone began to shout and stomp at the injustice. I grabbed Taviq's hand in mine and squeezed it in happiness. I could see that we would win our case.
"Baron Susa, go find that Judge that had this post before Judge Calixt," said Baron Calden,, taking the situation under control.
No one besides Baron Susa and his men were allowed to leave the room. Even the Queen was warned that they would use force on her if necessary. Baron Susa returned shortly, Judge Zekus was more then happy to step in. Baron Susa had enlightened him on what had happened.
"I always knew that Calixt's eyes were too easily drawn to gold," Judge Zekus muttered to himself.

Everything was soon put into order, he received statements from numerous people about what had happened, all of which appeared to line up nicely. He ordered the Royal Guardsmen to imprison Judge Calixt, the Queen and even the jury, until things could be sorted out more thoroughly.
Judge Zekus looked into the evidence himself, apparently Judge Calixt had mysteriously acquired a hefty amount of gold in the last week, which proved to be an expensive piece of evidence. He investigated the jury, many of which had been easily bought off, but a few had been threatened until they complied. The three framers were interrogated, and they confessed to being employed by the Queen.
Now all that was left were the trials themselves. The jurors who had been threatened by the Queen were let off with a warning, but the rest of them would stand trial. Instead of it all turning into a fiasco, the trials turned into a justice marathon. The evidence against them was overwhelming, and the evidence for them was nonexistent. Each of the bribed jurors would receive five years imprisonment, Judge Calixt would receive life imprisonment, and the Queen was sentenced to a public hanging.

I almost felt bad for her, but not quite, as it was hard to when she carried that much contempt, veiled by an ever present curtain of haughty supremacy.
In the days approaching the hanging, I bid many of my ghost friends farewell, I would be carrying on into the afterlife, and none of them would be able to follow. I spent most of my time with Taviq, Zarek, Rhys, and Valena. They were good company. I would miss them. Except, of course Taviq, as he would be coming with me.

The day of the hanging approached, Taviq and I had decided not to go, I wasn't entirely sure why, but, it just didn't seem right. We stayed at Zarek's place. I heard a distant clock strike four times, it was the forth hour of the day, the time of the hanging.
I grabbed Taviq's hand and clasped it in mine. "I love you," I said.
He jumped at the statement. "Kianna," he took my other hand. "Me too."
Suddenly I was flying away, going straight up, through the ceiling, through the second storey, through the roof, up, up, up, and through the clouds. Then all I could see was white, bright, pure white, like holy fire.