“My father has resorted to having his defensors beg me? He must be desperate.”
Ben’s own statement caught him by the heart. If Elazar was desperate enough to have Jakes come to him, begging—
“Adeluna?” he rasped. The only time Elazar had allowed him out of this cell had been to give her the healing potion, with Lu’s father watching his every move.
Jakes nodded. “She’s awake.”
Ben exhaled in relief. Jakes, though, stiffened even more.
“I said she’s awake. You have to give in. This act has gone on long enough.”
“It isn’t an act. I saved my cousin. I was trying to help Adeluna as well, to free her from the despot who is my father. That is where my allegiance lies. I will not work for Elazar.”
“You don’t realize what this means,” Jakes hissed. “Your father has two of you now—”
The hall filled with more booted feet, the clank of armor, the steady murmur of prayers. Jakes tugged his hat back on.
Ben processed what Jakes had said. Until now, his imprisonment had been mild. Monxes prayed over him or sang hymns, demanding he repent. Elazar would visit, bemoaning what a disappointment Ben was to him, but he never entered Ben’s cell and lifted his hands only to make the Church’s symbol. Even so, Elazar’s nearness made Ben’s old injuries throb. His jaw ached constantly, his body unable to forget what it felt like to question his father.
What Ben had done on the deck of the Astuto had surpassed mere questioning—he had outright defied Elazar. And all he had received so far was mind-numbing monotony.
Ben had held his breath every day, waiting for this precise moment.
Lu was awake now. She and Ben—one of them would make permanent magic for Elazar.
One of them was expendable.
Three monxes and two defensors stepped around Jakes, filling the hall with more white-feathered hats and billowing navy tunics showing Argrid’s curved V and crossed swords. The defensors held Lu, who staggered when they halted, her black hair shifting to reveal eyes bloodshot with the emotions Ben had to stomp out in his own body: fury, terror, disgust, hatred.
Ben braced himself as defensors unlocked his cell and shoved her in. All the empty cells, and Elazar was putting them together?
“The Eminence King reminds you to repent,” said a defensor with a bandage around his forehead. He was one Gunnar had burned during their first failure of an escape attempt.
Lu caught herself. The door shut behind her, and the swirling fury in her eyes landed on Ben. Did she blame him for her being at Argrid’s mercy, for the horrors his country had committed?
Her brow relaxed. “You’re all right?”
Ben managed a smile. “Yes—are you? What—”
The group in the hall hadn’t retreated. Jakes stared at the floor, his jaw rippling the short stubble along his chin.
Bumps of dread prickled the skin on the back of Ben’s neck. Elazar wasn’t with this group—surely he would dole out his son’s punishment. But when Ben had been younger, before he had learned to hide his defiance, Elazar had given Ben’s monxe tutors permission to treat him as any other pupil. To do whatever it took to banish insolence in favor of purity.
These weeks of monotony had been a ruse to lull Ben into ease.
He staggered back, heart thundering. He had endured beatings as a child—he was stronger now, harder, he could survive this, he could survive—
But the defensors turned their backs to him. And faced Gunnar.
Jakes didn’t look at Ben as the defensors opened Gunnar’s cell. The one with the bandage had a brutal whip coiled at his waist, leather interspersed with shards of glass.
That Elazar had let Gunnar live should have stuck out more. Gunnar had proven he wouldn’t break under torture during his captivity in Argrid. He didn’t matter to Elazar—but defensors watched him and Ben. Monxes heard them talking.
Elazar knew Ben and Gunnar had bonded.
Ben’s heart froze, a biting, icy knot in his chest. He stumbled forward. “Jakes,” he begged, pride be damned. “You can’t do this. You aren’t—”
A torturer. A tool. A weapon. Every word dissolved in his mouth.
“Gunnar isn’t part of this,” Lu tried.
“Repent. Make the potion.” Jakes almost looked sad. “And we’ll stop.”
The monxes started praying—“Let them see reason, Pious God, let them understand”—and it drove into Ben’s mind, dredging up childhood Church services and those moments when praying to an unknown god had brought him peace.
Gunnar watched the defensors enter his cell. Smoke escaped his lips in tight spirals.
The defensors got close, and Gunnar heaved forward, fire licking one’s face.
The defensor only chuckled. “You didn’t think we’d come near you again without Extin, eh?”
Extin made its taker fireproof for a time. Which meant Gunnar couldn’t hurt them.
A lie of surrender curled Ben’s tongue like bark shriveling off kindling. His mouth opened with a primal drive to protect Gunnar, consequences be damned—
Gunnar’s eyes found Ben’s across the hall, blueness hardened with determination and beautiful resolve. He shook his head, once, and Ben’s fire went out.
He couldn’t surrender. He couldn’t work for his father again.
He couldn’t save Gunnar.
“You can stop this too, barbarian,” the defensor said with a sneer. “Tell us how to make Eye of the Sun permanent, and we’ll leave. Well, we’ll leave sooner.”
Ben yanked on the iron bars. Lu’s breath came in quick gasps behind him.
He had known for six years what would happen if he revealed his true loyalties: his father would imprison him until he changed his mind. That had always been the threat, that he would be harmed, and it had been enough to keep him silent.
Had Ben known Elazar would break him through someone else’s torture, he wouldn’t have spent the past six years silent. He would have spent them comatose.
One defensor ripped off Gunnar’s shirt. The other gave the whip a threatening crack on the floor.
“Stop!” Ben cried. “God, don’t do this!”
Jakes turned away as though Ben’s pain hurt him. As though he could feel.
“The Pious God doesn’t hear you,” a monxe spat. “Let this act chase the Devil from your hearts. Defensors, save these wretched souls.”
He waved at them to start.
Gunnar was a warrior. He had undergone whatever Mecht ceremony had given him Eye of the Sun; his rigid bearing said he knew how to endure pain.
But after thirty-seven cracks of the whip, he broke with a whimper.
The defensors left, satisfied by that quaking moan from the strong Mecht warrior. Monxes sopped the blood off the floor and wrapped bandages around Gunnar’s wounds but left him hanging, his hands a dark purple-red from his weight on the manacles.
His hoarse breathing was the only sign he was alive.
Lu’s pulse clawed at her veins. Knees to her chest on the floor, she gulped at the thick air. The metal tongs she had in her sleeve were the only thing solid in a world gone to liquid.
Ben, his back to the bars, didn’t move. She couldn’t bring herself to see his face, the stain of agony that would unravel her.
“Have you . . . have you tried to escape?” Lu whispered in Argridian. She knew Argridian as most on Grace Loray did—the Grace Lorayan dialect had developed from Argridian over centuries. Lu’s parents—her father, particularly—had made sure she was fluent to better serve on her missions during the war.