The man sits silently, framed by white light streaming through the window at his back. His face is shadowed, his eyes dark, and he doesn't move as they bind his hands and then drop them roughly again, their faces curled with disgust. The metal is cold. It burns. He doesn't care.
"After long deliberation and thorough analysis-"
He doesn't hear. A blackness is forming between his arms.
"-taking into account the words of Nelac of Lirigon-"
He is wrenched forward as the shape, now defined, breaks loose. A girl screams. He can't move.
"-been decided that-"
A man is yelling in the distance, and then toppling down in a slow, curving arc. The blackness swoops away from the prone figure.
"-unmistakably Dark-"
Her eyes are wide, her face white. She doesn't scream now.
"-for the safety of the Schools-"
The blackness rushes forward. It lunges. She falls.
"-the girl-"
It lunges. She falls.
"-the First Circle of the School of Norloch-"
She falls.
"-declares-"
He is running, screaming, his lungs are bursting, his heart has stopped, he tumbles forward, desperately, please, please, don't be-
"-in the name of the Light-"
She is dead.
"-that Cadvan, once of Lirigon-"
Gone. She is dead. Forever.
"-may be henceforth considered-"
His fault.
"-a traitor to the Light, and-"
His fault. All his fault.
"-banished from all Schools."
Her face is cold, empty. She is gone.
His fault.
A sudden bang resonates through the room, and the man's head jerks up. His eyes are blank.
"Cadvan receives permanent exile, as witnessed by representatives from the Schools of Annar and the Seven Kingdoms. May justice be preserved."
A life of banishment.
He doesn't care.