Ascension to the Lost Throne novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Tobin's Last Act

The sect stood on the North Pass road in the last of the light, three hundred people with their faces turned to the open gate.

Jude came up the stair into the dusk with Marina on his arm and the ring in his hand.

Nobody cheered.

They looked at the black iron gate, at the lamps burning down the stair behind him, and at the two of them.

They looked at his torn coat, and her swollen eyes, and understood what had happened below without being told.

Fisk lay on a stretcher of rifles and coats at the side of the road, with a gray overcoat laid over his face.

Six riders stood at his head with their caps in their hands.

Tobin knelt in the road in irons.

The riders had taken his coat, and his fair hair hung in his eyes.

Four Council members stood behind him.

He lifted his head when Jude stopped in front of him.

"Is he dead?" Tobin said.

"Yes."

"Then I'm no use to anyone," said Tobin, and he laughed once, without any sound in it.

"Do you want to say anything to this sect?" Jude said.

"Everyone has come to hear."

"I do," said Tobin.

He did not get up, and he did not look at the crowd for a long while.

When he spoke, it was in a flat voice that carried to the last row.

"I dug your sword out of the mud at the Pass myself, Jude."

"I did it the night before the vote, with a spade from the stables."

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