The Cistern Courts

The Cistern Courts sit beneath Asterhold, where judgement hears water moving in the dark. Damp stone, tally rods, emergency decrees, rusted grates, accusation benches, and channels cut under the floor give the place a grave honesty absent from the upper halls. Here captains explain why a village burned. Quartermasters answer for sealed grain. Magistrates learn whether necessity excused them or merely taught them cleaner words for cruelty. Caerdun sends its hardest questions below ground because the city knows survival is not noble in the abstract; it is pipes, stores, bodies, testimony, and someone left alive to count the cost.