Chapter 212: Chapter 212— Feeling Lost

It was the day of the trial.

A day like any other in some ways. Students scurried around campus moving to their classes. Instructors practiced their materials, preparing lessons with the routine focus of people who’d done this hundreds of times.

But it wasn’t lost to anyone paying attention that there was a minute tension spreading around the academy like a fart from a very obese child—thick, pervasive, and lasting far longer than anyone wanted.

Word had spread about Duncan’s tribunal. About the frameup. About the fact that a major noble house was prosecuting an outpost recruit for theft with evidence that couldn’t quite be proven but also couldn’t quite be dismissed.

Students whispered in corridors. Took sides. Placed bets.

Some thought Duncan was guilty and getting what he deserved. Others thought the case smelled like political manipulation. Most just wanted to see what happened when an outpost recruit faced judgment backed by noble house power.

Entertainment value, if nothing else.

Duncan was called into the disciplinary committee chamber at precisely 0900 hours.

The chamber was smaller than he’d expected. More intimate. A semicircular room with five chairs arranged in an arc facing a single seat where the accused would sit.

Three of the five seats were occupied by academy administrators. The fourth held a representative from House Selaris—not Theodore, but someone older. A cousin or uncle, Duncan guessed. Someone with the authority to speak for the house without being directly implicated in the frameup.

The fifth seat was empty. Reserved for additional testimony or witnesses as needed.

Caldwell sat in the center position, his expression carrying the professional neutrality of someone who’d overseen hundreds of disciplinary cases and knew exactly how this one would end.

“Duncan Varn,” Caldwell began, his tone clipped and formal. “As previously stated, you stand accused of theft from House Selaris’s secured armory. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty.” Duncan forced his voice to remain steady, though a knot of tension twisted in his stomach. “I wasn’t at the event. I didn’t steal anything. The evidence against me is fabricated.”

Caldwell didn’t react.

“The case includes sworn testimony from three noble witnesses,” he continued, as if reading from a script. “In addition, physical evidence—your training gloves—was recovered at the scene.”

“I already explained that,” Duncan said, frustration creeping into his voice. “Those gloves went missing weeks before the theft. Someone planted them.”

“We have no record of such a report.”

Duncan’s jaw tightened.

“Then your records are incomplete,” he replied. “I filed the report. I know I did.”

For a moment, silence hung in the chamber.

But it wasn’t the expectant kind—the silence before a revelation or new discovery.

It was the weary quiet of a conversation that had already happened.

Again.

And again.

The same questions.

The same answers.

The same dead ends.

No new evidence. No new testimony. Just the slow grinding repetition of a process that seemed determined to circle the same points until the outcome became inevitable.

The House Selaris representative leaned forward slightly. “The accused claims conspiracy. Fabricated evidence. A coordinated frameup by multiple noble students. Does he have any proof of these extraordinary claims?”

“I have—” Duncan stopped. He didn’t have proof. Not the kind that would satisfy a tribunal dominated by people predisposed to believe noble testimony over outpost recruit denials.

He had Peyoro’s intelligence. Adam’s investigation. Logical arguments about why the timeline didn’t make sense.

But none of that was proof. Not the kind that mattered here.

“No,” Duncan admitted. “I don’t have proof of the conspiracy. But I’m telling the truth about not being there. About not stealing anything.”

“Truth is a matter of evidence and testimony,” Caldwell said. “And the evidence currently weighs against you.”

This was a foolhardy affair, Duncan realized with sick certainty.

He wasn’t being judged by his innocence or guilt. He was being judged by the amount in the coffers of his judges. By the political weight backing the accusation versus the political weight defending him.

And he had no political weight.

He stated the same things he’d said during the initial tribunal. About not being present at the event. About his training schedule that evening. About the impossibility of him accessing a secured noble house armory.

The prosecutors presented their evidence with clinical efficiency. The three sworn testimonies—noble students who claimed they’d seen Duncan in the restricted wing. The training gloves with his identification embedded. The timeline that technically allowed for his presence despite his claims otherwise.

In all honesty, the prosecution’s evidence was circumstantial at best. Not really able to hit the nail in the coffin with definitive proof.

But still—this wasn’t a usual nail, and the hammer was in fact the full brunt of a nobleman without scruples.

Thievery in the Republic was not given lenient punishment. It was judged harshly. In some cases, perpetrators were told to take a knife and cut out the hand they’d used to commit the act.

A barbaric affront by any standard.

But that was the law. Old law from the chaotic post-catastrophe period when resources were scarce and theft could mean the difference between a community’s survival and starvation.

The law had never been updated. Never modernized. It remained on the books as a deterrent, occasionally enforced when the political will existed.

And this case? This wasn’t a mere merchant being stolen from. This was a very prominent house. House Selaris. One of the Republic’s major political powers.

Duncan had come into the tribunal with his largest expectation of damnation being expulsion from the academy. Losing his advancement opportunities. Being sent back to whatever remained of outpost civilization.

But he was sooner coming to realize there was more to the depravity of nobility than he’d imagined.

They weren’t just trying to expel him.

They were considering maiming him.

The tribunal discussion shifted to sentencing possibilities—hypothetical, Caldwell claimed, but the direction was clear. Physical punishment. Loss of hand. Permanent marking as a thief that would follow him for the rest of his life.

Duncan felt himself drowning in a sea of sorrow and rage.

This was what “justice” looked like when you had no backing. When your word meant nothing against noble testimony. When the system was designed to protect certain people and destroy others.

He was almost lost to despair—

That was until Celestine showed up.

—–

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