Grayson Aldric stood in Blüthaven's town square on a cold morning in late autumn and committed career suicide.
James watched from the crowd, his mother beside him, as his father climbed the speaker's platform normally reserved for official announcements. Around them, citizens gathered. Curious, wary, some already moving to leave before trouble started.
"My name is Grayson Aldric," his father began, voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. "I've served as a territorial archivist for fifteen years. I've documented our history, preserved our records, maintained the knowledge that defines who we are as a people."
A territorial guard shifted position near the platform's edge. Watching and taking notes.
"In those fifteen years, I've never seen our government act with such transparent corruption." Grayson's voice grew stronger. "The Crown's Protection Tax is not about protection. It's just persecution. It targets common-blood families for having magical children, children who didn't choose their abilities, who pose no threat, who are simply trying to live normal lives."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Agreement from some. Fear from others.
—he's going to get himself arrested, this is insane, why is he doing this—
James heard his mother's terrified thoughts but kept his own expression neutral. Watching and understanding exactly how his father was destroying their lives for the sake of principle.
"Forty gold coins per quarter. Do you understand what that means for most families?" Grayson gestured to the crowd. "That's food. Medicine. A child's education. And for what? For the privilege of being monitored like criminals? For the honor of having your name on a registry that strips you of basic civic protections if you can't pay?"
More guards arrived at the square's edges. Six... then Eight.
"But the tax is just the visible cruelty. The real crime is what they're doing to our knowledge." Grayson's voice turned harsh. "The archives I've spent fifteen years maintaining are being gutted. Books confiscated. Records destroyed. Any historical analysis of how magic and science once coexisted, removed."
The head guard moved forward and Grayson ignored him.
"They're not just taxing us. They're erasing the truth about what we once were. What we could be again. King Patrick wants us ignorant, poor, and compliant. He wants magical families desperate enough that we'll accept any terms he offers. And most of you..." Grayson's gaze swept the crowd, "most of you are letting it happen because you're not mages. Because it doesn't affect you directly. Yet."
"Mr. Aldric, you need to come down from there." The guard sounded a warning.
"I'll come down when I'm finished." Grayson turned back to the crowd. "Today it's mages. Tomorrow it'll be scholars. Then merchants. Then anyone who questions, anyone who remembers how things used to be. Tyranny doesn't stop at convenient boundaries. It spreads until someone stands against it."
James felt his mother's grip tighten on his shoulder.
—he's not going to stop, he's going to let them arrest him, gods Grayson what are you doing—
"The Crown's Protection Tax is illegal under the Territorial Charter of Rights, Article Seven, which prohibits discrimination based on inherent characteristics. King Patrick knows this. His advisors know this. They're counting on us being too afraid or too ignorant to challenge them." Grayson's voice rang clear. "I'm challenging them. Publicly. Officially. On record."
Two guards mounted the platform, and Grayson still didn't move.
"My name is Grayson Aldric. I'm a citizen of Blüthaven, a servant of historical truth, and a father who refuses to watch his son be persecuted for the crime of being born with gifts he didn't ask for." He looked directly at the guards approaching him. "Arrest me if you must. But know that arresting me proves everything I've said."
They arrested him.
James watched his father's hands pulled behind his back, wrists bound with iron cuffs that clicked shut. Watched him led from the platform while the crowd stood in shocked silence.
Eliza pushed forward. "What are the charges?"
"Sedition," the head guard said. "Public incitement to rebellion. Slandering the Crown. He'll face tribunal within the week."
"Those charges are—"
"Legal and proper, madam. I suggest you go home. Unless you'd like to join him."
James saw his mother's jaw clench. Saw her weighing options. Protest and join his father in custody, or stay free and fight to release him.
—have to stay free, have to help him, can't help if I'm imprisoned too—
"I want to see him," Eliza said.
"Family visitation pending tribunal review. You'll be notified." The guard gestured for his men to move. They led Grayson away, through streets that parted silently.
His father looked back once. Met James's eyes across the distance. His expression had no regret. Only a kind of sad acceptance, and something else like pride, maybe, that he'd finally said what needed saying.
Then he was gone, around a corner, toward the territorial garrison.
The crowd dispersed quickly. No one wanted to be associated with sedition. No one wanted their names noted by the guards still present, still watching, still recording who'd listened to Grayson's speech.
Eliza walked home in silence, James beside her. Their small house felt cavernous and wrong without his father's presence.
"Why did he do that?" James asked, though he already knew.
"Because someone had to." Eliza moved through the house like a robot, gathering items she'd need for the tribunal. Legal documents. Character references. Evidence of Grayson's loyal service. "Because he believed it was right."
"Will they release him?"
"I don't know." His mother's voice cracked. "Sedition charges... they're serious, James. Even if the tribunal clears him, there will be consequences. Lost position. Blacklisted from employment. Maybe worse."
She didn't say what "worse" meant. She didn't have to.
James spent the afternoon alone in his room, surrounded by plants that seemed to sense his mood and drooped sympathetically. The Soul Splitter sat hidden in its planter, useless for this problem.
Magic couldn't fix systemic corruption. Couldn't rewrite laws or intimidate judges or make tyranny disappear.
For all his abilities, he was still powerless in the ways that mattered.
Miranda appeared at his window after dark, having climbed the tree despite the cold.
"I heard what happened," she said, dropping into his room. "Is your father—"
"Arrested. Tribunal in a week. Charges are sedition." James's voice was controlled. "He gave a speech against the tax and the knowledge purges. Made it all official and public and... suicidal."
"James, I'm so—"
"Don't." He held up a hand. "Don't apologize. Don't say it'll be fine. Don't offer comfort I don't need."
"What are you going to do?" Miranda asked instead, realizing James was going colder than usual.
"Wait. Watch. Prepare for worst case scenarios." James pulled out a notebook and began writing. "Mother will fight the charges legally. It won't work. The tribunal is Crown-appointed, the judges are territorial officials. They'll convict regardless of evidence. But she'll try."
"And you?"
"I'll be ready when trying isn't enough."
Miranda studied him for a long moment. "Don't do anything stupid."
"James never does anything stupid." James met her eyes. "Go home, Miranda. Your family can't afford attention right now. Being seen with the son of a convicted seditionist won't help you."
"I don't care about—"
"Your father cares. Your mother cares. They're already struggling to keep you fed. Don't make it worse." His tone softened slightly. "I'll be fine. I'm always fine."
Miranda was hesitant at first but eventually left, climbing back through the window into the night.
James returned to his preparations. Made lists of what he'd need if his father didn't come home. Updated his emergency plans. Checked his supply caches. The Soul Splitter. His hidden journals. Escape routes from the house.
Preparing for disaster was easier than thinking about his father in a cell, waiting for a tribunal that had already decided his guilt.
The week passed slowly. Eliza spent every day at the garrison, demanding updates, filing motions, gathering testimony from neighbors about Grayson's character. She returned each evening exhausted and increasingly hollow-eyed.
James maintained routine. Attended school. Practiced magic in secret. Pretended normalcy while his world fractured.
The tribunal was scheduled for Friday. Thursday evening, Eliza finally broke.
James found her in the kitchen, surrounded by rejected legal documents, sobbing into her hands with the kind of desperate grief that came from knowing you'd lost before the fight even started.
"They won't let me testify," she said when she could speak. "Won't accept character witnesses. Won't consider his service record. The tribunal chair said the case is 'administratively straightforward.'" She looked at James with red-rimmed eyes. "They're going to convict him. Tomorrow. And there's nothing I can do."
James sat beside his mother, let her cry against his shoulder. Felt her thoughts spiral through desperation, rage and helplessness.
"We'll figure something out," he said, knowing it was a lie.
"How? How do we fight this?" Eliza sounded bitter. "Your father was right. About everything. The corruption, the persecution, the systematic erasure of truth. He was right. And they're going to destroy him for it."
James had no answer. Just held his mother while she grieved for a man not yet dead but already lost.
Friday morning arrived cold and clear.
The tribunal was held in the administration building, a stone structure that represented everything official and unmovable. James and his mother sat in the public gallery while Grayson was brought in, looking thinner than a week should allow.
The charges were read. The evidence presented: recordings of his speech, witness testimonies from guards, citations of specific seditious statements.
Grayson's defense was brief, presented by a territorial advocate who clearly wanted to be anywhere else: "My client spoke from genuine civic concern. His statements, while critical, were not calls to violence or rebellion. Freedom of speech is protected under—"
"Freedom of speech does not protect deliberate incitement against the Crown," the tribunal chair interrupted. "This tribunal finds sufficient evidence of seditious intent. The defendant's claims of 'civic concern' do not excuse the inflammatory nature of his public statements or his deliberate attempts to undermine lawful Crown taxation."
The conviction took five minutes.
"Grayson Aldric, you are found guilty of sedition against the Crown. Sentence: imprisonment for a term of five years, with eligibility for review after three years served. You are stripped of territorial employment privileges and placed under permanent civic monitoring upon release."
Five years.
James felt his mother collapse beside him. Heard her choke back a sound that was half sob, half scream.
On the stand, his father's expression didn't change. Just nodded once, accepting the sentence with the same calm certainty he'd shown on the platform.
As if he'd known this was coming. As if it was worth it anyway.
Guards led Grayson away. He looked back one final time, eyes finding his family in the gallery.
His lips moved, shaping words: I'm sorry.
Then he was gone.
Eliza stood on shaking legs, supported by James's shoulder. They walked out of the administration building into the cold autumn air that felt like mockery.
"Five years," his mother whispered. "James will be sixteen. You'll be almost grown. We'll be..." She stopped, unable to finish.
James said nothing. Just guided his mother home through streets that suddenly felt hostile, populated by people who'd heard the verdict and were already calculating the social cost of associating with a seditionist's family.
At home, Eliza moved through the house like a ghost. Made tea she didn't drink. Sorted papers that didn't need sorting. Tried and failed to hold herself together.
"I need to figure out the appeal process," she said finally with a hollow voice. "There's always appeals. Clemency petitions. I'll write to the territorial governor. Maybe even the King himself. Someone will listen. Someone has to—"
"Mother." James caught her hands. "It won't work. The system isn't designed to work for people like us."
"Then what do we do?" Eliza's eyes were wild with grief and desperation. "Accept it? Let your father rot in prison for speaking truth?"
"We endure. We wait," he said quietly.
"For what?"
For the moment when I'm strong enough to break things that need breaking, James thought. But he couldn't say that.
"For three years. When Father becomes eligible for review. We fight then, with evidence and time and—"
"Three years." Eliza pulled her hands away. "Three years of him in a cell. Of us struggling to pay taxes we can't afford. Of you growing up with your father imprisoned for trying to protect you."
She was right, of course. Three years was forever. By then, James would be taking the Affinity Test. Would be enrolled in an academy. Would be too far into his own path to help.
But he didn't know what else to promise.
That night, he documented everything:
Father convicted. Five years imprisonment. Mother broken. Family destroyed for speaking truth about corruption.
King Patrick wins through legal channels. No violence required. Just tribunals and charges and sentences delivered with administrative efficiency.
Miranda was right. As powerful as I am, I wouldn't make it past the palace gates. I'm eleven years old with abilities I have to hide and a family that's now marked for persecution.
Fourteen more months until the Affinity Test. Must survive. Must maintain cover.
Next time, I'll be able to protect the people I love.
Next time, I won't watch tyranny win from a spectator's gallery.
Next time.
James closed the journal with shaking hands which he immediately held and willed to remain calm.
His father was gone. His mother was breaking. His family was marked.
The helplessness was suffocating.
Outside, autumn rain began to fall. Inside, James's plants drooped sympathetically, sensing grief they couldn't understand but responding to it anyway.
Tomorrow would come. His mother would try her futile appeals. Life would continue in the hollow way it does after everything important gets taken away.