Stealing the Elf-King's Roses: The Author's Cut Read Free

he said.
    Lawrence Blair came out from behind the defense table, exchanged a suddenly nervous glance with Alan Hess, and stepped out into the well. He stood there with a most neutral expression, one which for Lee didn’t hide his feelings at all. Finally, this late in the proceeding, he had had the sense to become afraid.
    Lee let her gaze rest on Lawrence Blair and concentrated on letting Justice here present see so clearly through her that others wouldn’t be able to help seeing as well. Across the aisle, Alan Hess was doing the same. And leaning against them like sunlight made solid, heavy and intent, the Power looked at Blair.
    Lee looked at the defendant, and waited, letting the Sight work, concentrating on keeping her own thoughts quiet and making of herself a transparent conduit through which Justice could gaze unimpeded. Trained and inured to the Regard though she was, it hurt somewhat. Lee was better than usual at bearing the discomfort, partly because she did so much work in the forensic side of Seeing—perceiving the truth about things. But things hurt less to look at than people, and Lee stood there and shook as the pain increased.
    Standing there in the well, among swords of light that he could not see but was beginning to feel, Blair started to tremble too…and inside him, the Balance shook itself loose and wavered between rise and fall. In it lay his soul, and Justice’s other tool, the sense of true right or wrong, even more powerful than the mind to work its will on the harboring body. And the Balance began to sink. Lee Saw in Blair the swathing concealment of self-delusive good intention (…  I’ll pay them as soon as I have it …) and expediency (…  I really need the funds more for this new project, they can wait a little longer …) and calculation (…  If I don’t pay this guy, he’s powerful enough to make trouble down the line …). And from long ago, from sometime buried in his past, the image: his mother’s words, when she first caught him stealing. “You little w—”
    Even now he tried not to hear the word, to see the image. But Lee saw it as Justice, looking through her, did. She felt the Balance inside Blair shift with a groan—the soul admitting itself, in the unavoidable hot glare of Justice’s regard, to have been found wanting, and weighing the scales hard down.
    The first sound came from someone on the jury, the kind of angry gasp a man might make when he’s cut himself. Then came another, someone wishing they could deny what they saw, and unable to. If only one juror failed to see what both the prosecution and Justice saw, the judgment would not take.
    One last soft moan came from the jury box. Lee didn’t see who it was, but she felt the mind behind the moan make the verdict unanimous. The Power in the room with them struck through her and Alan like lightning; and the nest of unseen swords rose up, surrounded Blair, and sliced him through.
    Blair didn’t have a throat for long enough to finish his scream—not a human throat, anyway. The “containment area” in the well, defined by the two meter wide, dull-red square outline of forcefield on the floor, activated with the administration of the sentence. And in the middle of the square, crouching, stunned, was a weasel. It was a very large weasel, for though Justice might affect the soul in a body, and that body’s shape, it had no effect on mass. Clenching its claws against the floor, staring around at its counsel, at Lee, at the magistrate and the jury, the weasel began to make a small, terrible rough sound in its throat, over and over, like a whispered screech.
    The pressure of the Regard was gone, vanished like a dream or a nightmare. A lot of people sat down, shocked, but more kept standing, to see better. Lee and Alan both staggered, released, and made their way back to their tables.
    Mr. Redpath looked down over his desk at the containment area. “Guilty as charged,” said Mr. Redpath. “Defendant will