Publisher's Synopsis
A seemingly endless stream of time passed before one of the large double doors opened and the boy was finally taken into the courtroom. The air hit him as sharply as a thousand daggers... So many eyes locked on, drilling deep into his toughened skin, like screws that would never come out. For a flickering moment he looked around. These people... he barely knew any of them and yet they had already decided. To them, he was guilty already... These disgusted looks, these fearful glances of contempt...
Dax forced his eyes forward again as he was walked up to the front of the room. An official Peace Keeper, dressed in much finer clothes than most, swore him in to the court and the boy repeated every promise through trembling lips.
Moving around the small barrier, the child took his place in the seat he'd been gestured to before he glanced over at the jury. None of them looked back. As his fingers gripped at his forearm, the boy could do nothing but wait for the questioning to begin... Fear pulled at his chest as his eyes moved back to the prosecutor.
But even as he tried to mentally prepare himself, he knew it was pointless. He was a genius. A child prodigy. There was no doubt in his mind that he could lie his way out of anything... except this. How do you explain your fingerprints in blood? How do you convince a room full of people who already hate and despise you that you didn't kill your parents...?
Especially when you have no idea what really happened at all...?
