Kwame Mensah Jäger's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Kwame Mensah Jäger had drafted the same decree nine times, and nine times he had burned it. The tenth draft lay before him now, ink still wet. He was Grand Commander of the Order of Witch Hunters, the man who taught his hunters to find witches and end them. Tonight he wanted to write a law that would spare the harmless ones. He read the key line again. "A witch who has done no harm shall not be put to the blade." Then he saw the trap. Who decides a witch is harmless? His own men. The same men who called every witch guilty before trial. He set down the quill. The decree could not work. A hunter who wanted blood would simply swear the witch was dangerous. His word was proof enough. Any law Kwame wrote would hand those men a cleaner sword, not a dull one. The study door opened without a knock. Prince Valentin von Rosenfeld came in, crown crooked, cloak still dusted from the road. He was Snow White's son and heir, and he spoke against the Order openly at his mother's court. Most men in Kwame's hall hated him for it. Kwame did not. "You look like a man who has lost a war in his own head," Valentin said. He lifted the draft and read it. His smile faded. "This is good. This is also useless." "I know," Kwame said. "My hunters would name every witch guilty. The decree gives them cover." "Then stop asking your hunters to judge." Valentin dropped the page. "You need proof that comes from the witch, not the hunter. Something a butcher can't fake." The door opened again. Röselin Roth hurried in, red cloak swinging, a cloth bundle in her arms. She was Kwame's apprentice, the girl he once saved from a demon wolf. She talked before she stopped walking. "Master, I found something, I wasn't supposed to be in the cells but I was, and I saw it." She unwrapped the cloth. Inside sat a cracked clay cup, lined with dried salt streaks. "A captured witch wept into it. Her tears healed a guard's burned hand. I watched it close up. Only witches make healing tears. Humans can't." Kwame went still. Here was the thing Valentin named. Proof from the witch's own body. A test no hunter could lie around. "If her tears can heal," Kwame said slowly, "we can test any accused witch. A witch who heals has not killed. The decree can rest on that." "That," Valentin said, "is a law even my mother would sign." Kwame took up the quill and crossed out the broken line. He wrote the test into the decree. The proof was real now. The blade would still cut. But it would cut less. Then Röselin spoke again, quiet. "Master. The witch who wept. She asked for you by name. She says she knew you, long ago."