Now, on the scaffold, the memory of that mewling was clearer than the roar of the mob. The King, a somber figure in velvet and judgement, had posed the question during his trial: "Sir Frederick, did your intelligence simply outpace your morality, or did you never possess one to begin with?"
He had given no answer then. He had none. But here, at the end, he had his conclusions.
The executioner, a hooded void, guided him roughly to the bascule. The worn wood pressed against his stomach as he was folded forward. The rough-hewn lunette embraced his neck. Through the slot, he could see the woven basket, already stained dark with the histories of other men. The smell of old blood and fresh sawdust filled his nostrils.
The King raised his hand. The crowd's cacophony died into a cavernous, thirsty silence.
"Sir Frederick Newton," the King's voice boomed, "you are condemned for homicide, for witchcraft, and for crimes against the natural order so profound they lack name. Have you any last words?"
Frederick's voice, when it came, was surprisingly strong, amplified by the hollow frame of the guillotine. "You speak of the natural order. But is not the mind that seeks to understand it the most natural thing of all? Humanity cannot ascend without sacrifice. Knowledge is purchased with coin minted from suffering sometimes the suffering of the knower, often of others. I saw the price. I counted it. And I paid. Do not judge me for my actions. Judge your own fear of the ledger."
He paused, the cold of the wood seeping into his skin. Yelena's final, wise question echoed, not as a comfort, but as the final, devastating proof of his failure. "Does everything require an answer, or is the act of questioning not enough?"
He had chosen the answer. And in doing so, he had destroyed the question, and the questioner he loved.
A strange, final clarity gripped him. He spoke again, his voice dropping, speaking almost to himself, yet every syllable carried in the silent square.
"You… you all once said that I killed Death." A dry, rattling laugh escaped him. "But Death remained. It took her. It takes you all, one by one. You were wrong. I did not kill it then." He took a last, deep breath, filling his lungs with the cold, final air. "But now… now I go to meet it. And I carry with me the only thing it ever feared: a man who is not afraid to know. So hear me now. Today, I truly kill Death. And see… it has risen from its own grave to claim me for the crime."
Before the King's hand could finish its fall, before the crowd could process his final, cryptic paradox, Frederick Newton, the man who had measured the soul's shadow, closed his eyes. He did not see the blade flash in its descent. He did not hear the terrible, wet thunk that silenced the square. He was already far away, in a quiet lab, watching the stylus of his Resonator trace the first, beautiful, mysterious peak on a sheet of smoked glass, the beginning of a question he would spend his life, and his soul, trying to answer.