Now that instinct in me flares like a fire. I don’t know what it is about him—an unnatural grace in his movements, an emptiness in his eyes—but something else lies beneath the weakened exterior of his figure, some undercurrent of power. It makes him seem less like a soldier and more like a weapon. I have the unsettling suspicion that, if he wanted to, if he didn’t look so lifeless, he could kill every guard around him.
Lifeless.
And then I realize, all of a sudden, that the only reason he’s a captive at all is because he wants to be. Because he wants to die.
4
It’s clear that no one else in the arena suspects this. Only I sit and watch him, my heart suddenly in my throat, as I recognize the lack of fire in his eyes. They reflect the way I feel in the early mornings, when I remember that Corian isn’t here anymore. They are the eyes of someone who just wants to waste away the minutes until he no longer has to be here.
The prisoner stands, swaying, as the Firstblade now approaches him. “You have been brought before us to answer for your actions,” Aramin says, his voice ringing out across the arena. Beside him, a young translator struggles to keep up, her tongue tripping over the Federation’s clipped language. “Because you chose to fight for an enemy of our nation, because of the atrocities you have committed, the Senate has sentenced you to be judged before the Strikers of Mara. If you choose to help us by answering our questions about the Federation, we will let you live. But if you continue to stay silent, you will be executed here in this arena. Do you understand?”
As the translator repeats in Karenese what the Firstblade said, the young man gazes out at the arena. I observe him closely. He may not speak Maran, but even he must know from their voices that they are calling for his execution today. Still, he looks relieved, so serene in the face of death that he seems almost bored.
Adena frowns and leans over to Jeran and me. “Does he not understand what the translator’s saying?” she asks.
“I think the translator made a few mistakes,” Jeran says above everyone’s shouts. “The Firstblade’s words were ‘We will let you live.’ The translator repeated it as ‘We will make you live.’”
“So? What does that mean, other than that our tutors are terrible at teaching languages?”
Jeran gives her a wounded look. “I used to be a language tutor,” he protests, and she pats him twice on his cheek. “I’m serious! Actions translate poorly between Maran and Karenese. It might be making the prisoner react differently.”
“That isn’t a big enough difference to make the guy stay quiet. Why doesn’t he just talk and save himself some torture?”
“Because he wants to die,” I sign.
Both of them look at me. “What makes you say that?” Adena signs after a pause. “You think he’s actually faithful enough to the Federation to throw away his life?”
I don’t want to explain that his expression is how I’ve felt for the past few weeks. Instead, I nod down at the scene. “I’ve witnessed this before. He has the same look the Baseans who were executed in my village had,” I explain. “He has already accepted his fate. If they told him that they’d make him live if he talks, and he has no interest in living, then of course he’ll stay quiet.”
Adena whistles. Under her casual question is an undertone of bitterness. “Who knew the Federation treated anyone well enough to earn that kind of loyalty?”
“Perhaps he doesn’t believe we’ll execute him today?” Jeran suggests. “That all this is a prank to try to keep him alive to extract more from him later.”
Adena snorts. “Well. He’s about to learn that Strikers aren’t great with jokes.”
The Firstblade shakes his head in disgust at the prisoner’s silence. “Why did you cross the warfront into our territory? Were you fleeing the Federation, or have you been sent here on a mission?”
The prisoner doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes swivel to the audience, and for a beat, his gaze locks on mine.
I don’t flinch, but his look makes every muscle in me tense. There is a strange kind of desperation there, a pit of hopelessness that must have been hollowed into him long ago. Has life been so traumatic for him that he thinks of death as a release?
My gaze wanders to the sharp cut of his clavicle, where part of his brand peeks out from under his prison suit. There is something familiar about it that tickles the edges of my mind, but vanishes the instant I try to concentrate on it.
Aramin sighs and takes a step back. One of the guards approaches the prisoner from behind, lifts a bucket of icy water, and pours it over his head.
He lets out a sharp gasp and falls to his knees. Before he can get to his feet, a second guard kicks him viciously in the stomach.
The cheers around us grow deafening. Jeran doesn’t join in, but Adena stands up, craning her neck to see over the Strikers in the stands right in front of us, shouting herself hoarse. In Adena’s voice, I hear the raw anger that remains from her brother’s death. So neither Jeran nor I intervene as she calls for death in the arena.
The Firstblade now strides over to where the prisoner sways limply against the arms holding him up. He asks him a question in a voice too low for anyone else to hear. The prisoner doesn’t even try to meet his gaze. He continues to stare listlessly out at the chanting arena.
The guard swings a bladed whip down on the prisoner’s back with all the force he can muster. His eyes widen as he lets out a wrenching gasp. Still, he doesn’t try to avoid the whip’s strikes. Around us, the audience boos in disappointment at his lethargic reactions.
Adena scowls and throws her hands up. “This isn’t worth the wait. Let’s leave early. We can make it back to the mess hall before everyone else.”
Jeran gives her a disapproving glance. “Adena. Please be a little respectful.”
“Of who? Him?” Adena shoots back.
“Of the process. We may see a man die today.”
I’ve witnessed plenty of executions. There have been dozens of other Federation prisoners who have died in this same spot. But somehow, when I watch this prisoner, I find myself looking away. If Corian were here, he’d say there is no satisfaction in punishing someone so unresponsive. They are never going to get him to talk at this rate, not if he has no interest in living.
The snap of the whip echoes throughout the arena every time it hits true, and with each lash, he takes longer to get up. His hands clench and unclench. His boots shift against the ground as if in a fighter’s stance. But he doesn’t do anything else. He waits until they hit him again, and he goes down in another shower of blood and dust.
Something isn’t right.
The thought swells in me until I can’t ignore it. Something isn’t right about this execution—or this young man. There’s a difference in his gaze, his stance, the way he bears his punishment without a sound. Who was he in the Federation? Why the brand? No man can endure this kind of torture for this long. How can he bear it? Everything about this moment feels like a mistake, and the sharpness of this instinct rises in me like a tide.
“We should be reaching the end now,” Jeran says quietly beside me. “I’m shocked he’s still alive.”