Chapter Text
The mood in the ritual chamber is somber and the air is filled with the chill that so frightened him as a boy. Unlike in his youth, however, Emmrich is not alone. To the contrary, he is surrounded by his fellow Watchers. Each sits stiffly in formal attire in the room’s amphitheater. The scene would almost feel almost familiar, despite how long it has been since his elevation from apprentice to Watcher, were it not for the troubling cause of their gathering. There is no promotion scheduled for today.
The bell tolls and Watcher Johanna Hezenkoss stomps into the room. She glares at them each in turn, defiant despite the circumstances, before taking her seat on the stage below.
“THE TRIAL BEGINS.”
How has it come to this?
The accusations against his friend, one of his oldest, have been provided along with writing implements. Emmrich knows what they are.
But seeing those words applied to Johanna is a shock to the system.
Certainly Emmrich knows how dogged Johanna can be in her research. Her frustrations with the limitations she feels their oaths impose upon them; and, if he holds his oaths to the Order closer to his heart than anything else he could name, he can at least understand her annoyance even if he disagrees with it.
They’ve quarreled for years over her willingness to bend or even break the rules. She’s been censured for defilement of tombs before, even if she argues to this day that her activities could not be so defined. But her thirst for knowledge is nearly without parallel, and her discoveries are not quite unmatched but it is close.
She is a brilliant researcher, pushing Emmrich even higher when they work together. Her prickly nature and sarcasm are not always the best accompaniment to weeks of pursuit, but sometimes they are. She has left him in stitches with her biting humor. And she’s saved his life more than once.
Until today, when he received his materials, Emmrich would have sworn Johanna’s place amongst the Watchers was, on the whole, positive. Missteps here or there in her zeal were not preferred, but hardly disqualifying.
If the charges are proven today, Emmrich knows it means he has severely misjudged her. He looks at the page again, as though the accusations might have changed while his mind drifted.
Use of Forbidden Magic.
Blood Sacrifices.
He has never seen her engage in such depravity. She has never mentioned it either.
Still, she knows Emmrich well. Would she have told him she was engaging in such behavior if she were?
He is not as certain that she would as he wishes he were.
The reading of the charges is painful. The presentation of the evidence moreso.
Johanna’s defiant declaration that not only had she engaged in the horrible acts of which she stood accused, but would do them again?
It is agony.
Emmrich feels hyper aware of his surroundings. Of Myrna’s frown, the groans of the pipe down the hallway, the tapping of Florian’s foot.
The unsettling smirk that plays on Johanna’s lips.
An ember alights in his chest at her expression. Anger. No, rage.
She is treating this as a game. Treating her transgressions against the living, her murders in the name of advancement, like they are unimportant in the face of her work.
Johanna had always been confident in her acumen, and why should she not be? She was brilliant. Is brilliant. But this goes far beyond that.
She is arrogant. And in her arrogance, cruel.
Where had it happened? Has she always been this way, and he was too fool to see it? Or did she change before his eyes while he was blinded by the rush of discovery?
Could he have stopped this outcome? Was he not equally culpable through his inattention?
Emmrich already knows those questions will haunt him longer than any being within the Necropolis’ ancient walls.
“WE SHALL VOTE.”
It takes only a two-thirds vote to expel someone from the Mourn Watch. As hands rise around him in favor of Johanna’s banishment, Emmrich knows his vote will make no difference in the outcome.
He raises his hand anyway.
For the first time since the trial began, Johanna’s face twists. But it is not remorse, or fear, or sadness as the verdict comes clear.
It is anger.
“JOHANNA HEZENKOSS IS NO LONGER A MEMBER OF THE MOURN WATCH.” Vorgoth turns to her and continues. “YOU SHALL NOT REMAIN IN THESE HALLS.”
A wave of Vorgoth’s arm binds her to her chair until two undead warriors can properly apprehend her. And, as they march her out, Emmrich’s last glimpse of an old friend is of the hatred blazing in her eyes as she looks upon him.