Cast in Stone by A. F. Dery

Author:A. F. Dery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: wizard bodyguard romance, clean fantasy romance, sweet fantasy romance series, wolf shifter legal romance, fantasy books for adults
Publisher: Ring Drop Press LLC
Published: 2015-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

One day when Celia had been younger and new to the knowledge of Judges, she had looked up from the book Marcus had given her about a Judge’s expected duties and obligations troubled by what had seemed, to her young mind, to be an insurmountable problem.

“Sir, I’m supposed to do all these things in the name of justice, but many of them need other people to do what I tell them to do, or at least for them to let me do what I’m supposed to. What if they don’t? What if they say no? How am I different from any magistrate? The magistrates say ‘pay back what you stole,’ but if the thief says no, the guard takes him to jail. I can’t do that. Why would anyone listen to me?”

“The one you judge has no choice but to do what you say, if you are the one to carry out his sentence,” Marcus had told her soothingly. “The magic will make sure of that.”

“But what about the others?” she had persisted. “What if they try to stop me? What if the thief has an angry brother?” She had immediately envisioned an entire pack of angry brothers, each of them armed with a pitchfork and carrying a kitten, for no better reason than she was absurdly fond of cats.

“Hopefully your guardian would take care of that, Celia. That is one of the reasons you will be given one when the time comes.”

“But what if my guardian can’t, either? What if it’s the two of us against a whole village? What if there’s a mob?”

Celia’s imagination in those days could not be held in check by the mere promise of a guardian that she liked to picture as a giant with a big club who would swat away Angry People Who Don’t Like Justice like so many bugs.

“Celia, the magic has its own ways of working these things out,” Marcus had told her cryptically. “You need not concern yourself. Once you have declared a sentence, it will be enforced to the letter. That is one of the many reasons why you must always be very, very careful in the sentence that you set down. The magic will make it binding, whether you will it to or not, even if enforcing it would kill you.” He had lowered his face to hers, his eyes intense. It raised the little hairs on the back of her neck. “So be careful what you choose, Celia. Never issue a sentence impetuously. You are much too important to lose.”

As the years passed, in practice, Celia had encountered few opportunities to sentence anyone; her guardians frequently perished within days of her departure, forcing her to return. She was aware that this had, in fact, become a kind of joke at the castle, one that, for the sake of her pride, she did her best to ignore. Marcus had assured her many times that it wasn’t her fault, nor was it any sign that she was less than competent at her duties.

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