...The magistrate's tailor made the final stitch as evening fell on Baldur's Gate, the needle pulling the last thread through the hem of the judge's robe. Black would have been simpler, more traditional, but the magistrate had specifically requested bloody plum, citing a philosophy that justice shouldn't hide in absolute darkness. The dyer, a master whose hands bore stains that no washing would remove, had taken a month to prepare the colors. The purple spoke to contemplation, he'd explained; the red to the cost of judgment, the blood spilled when verdicts were upheld.

On her first day wearing the robe, the magistrate sat in judgment over a merchant accused of poisoning his wife. The case was circumstantial, the evidence thin as silk, and she watched the crowd lean forward as she rose to speak. Her words were measured, careful, and when she pronounced sentencing, she could feel the weight of the colors settling on her shoulders like responsibility made manifest. A family member spat in anger, and the guards moved forward, but the magistrate simply sat, the bloody plum catching the gallery light, steady and immovable. Later, in the archive beneath the court, she found records of a previous magistrate who'd worn the same colors. The cases she'd judged lined the shelves, decades of decisions made in that particular purple-red. She traced one spine at random and found a murder that had been prevented by her predecessor's careful eye. The colors had held that wisdom. They would carry hers forward as well...