...The great gavel rings once, final and absolute. In the Hall of Justice, witnesses stand bloodied and terrified before the judge who speaks no lies. Tyr's surviving eye, the left one, burning, reads the accused's soul like parchment. The silver scales hang perfectly still because he's already seen tomorrow; he's already weighed what they did before they did it. A hand is severed, bound, laid upon the judgment stone. Not the accused's. His own. The price of a promise kept two eternities ago, when he swore to lose his hand rather than let a tyrant slip through the fingers of law. Outside, the dawn breaks pale and absolute, and every mortal contract signed in daylight holds because Tyr bled for the principle. The shadows in the corners of the hall dare not move....