What had begun a fine autumn's day was no longer so. Darkening clouds crowded the once-blue sky above the towers of Domino Castle, and a chill wind stirred the air. Prince Atem stamped his boots, glad at least for the fur-lined cloak clasped about his shoulders, although it did little enough to block out the cold. The magistrate was still droning on, though Atem doubted a single soul was listening. Cut from the same cloth, him and the priest, it seemed. At this rate, it would be the dead of night before they made it to their suppers. Couldn't they just hang the knave and be done with it?

His eyes traveled to the man standing on the wooden platform before the magistrate. A more base-looking scoundrel, he'd never seen. Unnaturally pale hair stuck out at angles, and a jagged network of scars crisscrossed across the side of his face. Despite the priest's sermonizing, the man didn't look the least repentant. Defiance smoldered in his eyes, was written in the almost careless way he held himself. Atem scowled. They'd see just how bold this fellow was when he was dangling from the gallows, wouldn't they?

"Justice is one of our noble kingdom's most fundamental precepts," the magistrate was droning on. "Our great laws and traditions must be upheld. The very foundations of our way of life depend on it." Atem stifled a yawn. At this rate, his hair would be as a grey as the magistrate's before this trial was over.

"But justice must always be tempered with mercy. As the poets have said, 'the quality of mercy is not strained.' In the soul of the one who is truly great and wise, justice and mercy are not rivals, but the dearest of friends. They are not opposed, but find their truest fulfillment in the other."

What was this old fool even saying? You could string fine-sounding words together like pearls on a string, but that didn't make them mean anything.

"The law is clear," the magistrate continued in his plodding tones. "The penalty for poaching in the royal forests is death by hanging."

Finally! Atem wanted to shout. Why had it taken the dotard the better half of an hour to come to the point?

"This sentence is binding, and can only be overturned or amended by a royal pardon."

Silence fell over the assembled crowd. It took Atem a moment to realize that they were looking to him, waiting for a response. Was it possible that anyone here actually thought this criminal deserved a royal pardon? The thief had been caught red-handed, a stag's corpse slung over his shoulder.

The magistrate coughed. "Your highness?"

Atem waved his hand. "Pray continue."

The old man blinked. A startled look crossed his face, but then he managed to recover himself. "Then let justice be done, and the sentence be carried out."

A sudden, biting wind roared from the north, tossing foul black smoke from the torches in his face. Atem's nose wrinkled. The stink of it would be in his cloak for days.

When the smoke cleared, a woman was standing on the wooden platform. She was like no woman that he had ever seen before. Her skin was dusky, and her robes of white and gold spoke of some exotic land far beyond the kingdom's borders. Long, jet-black hair streamed down her shoulders, bound only by a golden coronet that encircled her head. A queen? A goddess? A gypsy fortuneteller, more like, Atem told himself cynically. Yet there was something undeniably authoritative about the way she held her head, and her dark eyes were arresting.

"Yes, let justice be done." Her words were a mocking echo of the magistrate's. A hard, enigmatic smile curved her lips.

"Who are you?" Atem demanded.

The woman waved a slim hand, golden bangles jangling about her wrist. "Does it matter?"

What a ridiculous thing to say. Of course, it mattered. His lip curled. "This is a trial, gypsy, not a circus. Unless you have come to bear witness, depart from here."

Her eyes glittered with amusement. "But I have come to bear witness." Her voice lifted, carrying above the murmurs of the crowd, as she raised a hand to the sky.

"I have come to bear witness, O prince, against cruelty, against corruption, against selfish gain bought with the lives of the innocent." In a single swift motion, she lowered her arm and leveled a finger directly at his chest. "You are the accused." Her eyes flashed dark fire as they met his, and something twisted inside him, a cold horror in his gut unspooling, spreading through his veins.

An involuntary shiver wracked him. Still, he could not look away from her face.

Her face was impassive as a marble statue. "Do you deny the charges?"

Everything within himself screamed yes, but when his mouth opened, the word that came out was, "no." It was a hoarse whisper, forced between his teeth, dragged from somewhere dark and cold.

And it was true.

The world seemed too bright, too cold. Another shiver wrenched through him, and his vision went fuzzy around the edges. A haze of noise rose all around him, but he could no longer see the crowds of peasants, nor make any kind of sense of their sheep-like bleating. A shape that might have been the magistrate stretched towards him, but blindly Atem shoved him away. The effort sent a sudden spasm of pain shuddering through him. What was happening to him? His limbs felt limp as uncooked dough; his head weighed as much as a boulder. He felt himself falling, felt the smooth, unyielding stone of the courtyard beneath his skin, but he was beyond pain now. He was melting, like a taper lit too long. Wax dripped from the guttering flame of his spirit and pooled, shapeless, now soft like jelly, now hardening, slowly, painfully, into a new, contorted form.

The glare of sun on a field of snow seemed to dim. His eyes ached, every part of him, ached, but his vision was coming slowly into focus. The flagstones of the courtyard swam before his eyes, along with the feet of someone Atem thought was the magistrate. Words rang in his eyes, but the words were as formless. They dripped through his mind like water through his fingers. Gasping for breath, Atem tried to get to his feet, but his legs wouldn't work properly. They felt like sticks—too thin, too frail—and it was impossible to maneuver his weight onto them.

"Help me," he tried to call out, but no sound escaped his lips. Panic burbled in his chest. A shadow fell over him and he desperately reached out towards it. To his horror, his arms felt as stick-like as his legs had, and his hands… what had happened to his hands?

A laugh floated over him, and he knew it belonged to the gypsy witch. "This is my judgement, O prince. You have made yourself great while your people know want and despair. You have made yourself blind and deaf to their cries, because you have loved gold and beautiful things rather than mercy and justice. This is the price for your arrogance, for your hard heart so full of greed and so empty of love." Every word she spoke ripped into him like a red-hot iron, but all he could do was gasp for breath, unable to even make a sound. Let your heart be changed from a man's, to a beast's. They will drive you from men, and you will make your home in the wild places. You will be wet with the dew of heaven and eat grass like an ox. Your portion will be with the beasts in the field, until your proud heart is humbled, and you know what it is want when there is nothing to satisfy, to hope when there is nothing but despair, and to love when it profits you nothing."

The words resonated within him like a church bell ringing, ringing, endlessly ringing, far too loud. He wanted to clap his hands over his ears and recoil from the force of it, but it was inside of him and there was no escape, nowhere to hide, and nothing to shield him.

"You have hoarded the deer of your forests like dragon's gold. You have valued them above the blood of your people. No longer, then, will you be their prince. Go to the deer, if you will." Scorn dripped from her words. "Be their prince."

Dimly, beneath the endless tolling of the bells within his head, he could hear horrified screams and shouts coming from the crowd, a new flood of pain washed over him, and above him, a flash of golden light exploded across his vision.

Silence, within and without, for a blessed second, and then…

And then, the world was remade.