There was bitter irony in knowing that he could lay to rest everyone's ghosts except his own. While he could intercede on behalf of all of his petitioners, the spirits of his mother and sister remained beyond his reach, trapped in Arontala's orb, in torment.
Tris looked at the desperate faces of those who came to beg his help. For him, the inability to reach Kait and Serae was an aberration, as all the other spirits responded to his call. But Tris knew that for those who came to seek his intercession, the silence was unbearable. Try as he might to distance himself from the emotion of the crowd, his own loss was too fresh for him to be objective. And so he drove himself to exhaustion, giving closure to others that he could not find for himself.
He had seen at least fifty supplicants since morning, and Tris knew he could not go on much longer before he was exhausted. Tris motioned to the bailiff. "Please-close the doors and bid them come again tomorrow. I'll hear this spirit's request, but then I've got to rest."
The spirit who awaited his attention was the ghost of a man in his fifth decade, with the tight-jawed look of a merchant. He bowed when he was brought to stand before Tris. Tris willed for the spirit to become visible to the others in the room, and the man's spirit took form.
"My lord Summoner," he said formally. "A petition, if you will."
"What do you seek?"
"Justice, m'lord," the ghost replied. "I'm Hanre, the silversmith. For twenty years, my partner Yent and I built a profitable business. I did not know that Yent was seducing my wife and that he wanted all the profits of the business for himself. He put poison in my cup, and told the doctors that it was a weak heart when I collapsed at my work bench. Within a few months of my death, Yent married my widow. He stole my life from me. My lord, I beg of you. Let there be justice done!"
Tris stretched out his mage sense, but read no falseness in the spirit's words. He gestured, and one of Staden's guards approached. "Tell your story again to this guard," Tris instructed. Hanre repeated his tale, and the guard listened solemnly.
"Bear the news to King Staden," Tris told the guard. "It's for him to determine how to deal with the murderer. You can witness that you heard the story yourself."
"Yes, Your Highness." The soldier bowed. Hanre watched solemnly as the soldier departed.
"No punishment can return my life," Hanre said sadly. "It grieves me to know that all the work I've done these many years is now to the profit of a murderer!"
