He watched Sura wrap her half of the snakeskin around her tanned bare arm. “If it dries like that,” he told her, “you won’t be able to get it off without breaking it.”
“Then I’ll keep the pieces.” She held out her arm and shone a smile that made his ribs ache. “What do you think?”
He gazed at her, covered in mud and sweat and snakeskin, and couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful. “I’m getting married in three days.”
She looked away and swallowed. “I know. Do you have time to train me?”
“I’ll make time.” Before he could say anything stupid, he stood and collected their packs. “You need to rest and recover. Day after tomorrow I’ll show you some exercises to practice until I come back.”
“You’re not coming back.”
“I will, once I’m in my second phase and I’ve had some training.”
“I’ll be gone. I have to save my mother.” She took her pack from him. “Maybe I’ll find my father, fight with his soldiers against the Descendants.” A smile twisted her lips. “It’ll be fun to burn them.”
“Careful. Your hatred will devour you.”
“And what would you know of hate?” Her eyes teased him, but there was a hardness behind them. “You’ve lived in peaceful, happy Kalindos your whole life.”
“I was born in Ilios.” He fought to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I was conceived in Ilios.”
“Oh.” She put a hand to her throat. “Your mother—”
“She was captured in the invasion of Kalindos. Daria, too. Your father rescued them a year later, but she’d been a slave all that time. My father—whoever he is, there were several men who—” He stopped, sparing her the details. “Ilion noblemen.” He ran his palm over his hair, grimy with three days’ worth of dust and sweat. “Adrek told me that they wear their hair longer. It’s a sign of their class, whatever that means.”
“That’s why you cut yours.” Sura’s dark eyes drooped at the corners. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
He attempted a shrug, but his shoulders were too tight. “At least we were rescued. Not everyone was so lucky.”
“A friend of mine in Asermos is also…like you. And I know what it’s like having a mother who was misused.”
“Misused?” He tried not to scoff. “Your father might not be the world’s greatest family man, but he’s a hero.”
She frowned. “He’s killed a lot of Ilions, for whatever good that’s done.”
“If my father was one of those Ilions, it’s done a lot of good.” He kept his voice as smooth as ice. “I hope it was slow and painful, and his body was left out in the open, all alone. I hope that before he died, he felt the ravens eating his eyes and the vultures shredding his balls.” He glanced away. “Sorry.”
“I’ve heard my mother say worse.” Her brows pinched, and she squinted up at him. “Where’s your mother now?”
He swallowed hard. “They killed her.”
Sura gasped. “But you said she returned from Ilios.”
“She did. Adrek said she was never the same, though.” He stepped away from Sura, to avoid the pity in her eyes. “One morning, when I was five, she threw herself off the porch, down onto the forest floor.” He wiped his hand against the side of his shirt. “I don’t think she knew I was watching.”
Sura’s hand went to her mouth. “Dravek…” She took a step toward him. “It wasn’t your fault. Please don’t be sorry to be alive.”
He wondered why she would say that, how she could understand him so well when they’d known each other only a few days.
“I’d rather never have lived,” he said, “if it would’ve spared my mother. But now that I’m here, I’m in no hurry to leave this world.” He stared into her eyes, a moment too long, then turned for home. “Especially now.”
13
Asermos
A shriek shattered Rhia’s dream into a thousand pieces. She sat straight up into total darkness.
“Mali, what’s happening?”
A grunt came from the next cell. “Why are you waking me?”
“I thought I heard someone scream.”
It came again, longer and louder, from a room upstairs. A man, whose throat sounded like it would rip from the effort.
“Oh, that.” Mali sniffed. “Torture.”
“What are they doing to him?”
“Shh. Be quiet and I’ll try to figure it out.”
A sharp crack came, making Rhia jump, followed by another shriek.
“Sounds like a whip,” Mali said, as though naming an ingredient in a stew she’d just sampled. “Go back to sleep.”
“Are you crazy?” The last three days with Mali had answered that question for Rhia. “I can’t sleep. We have to do something.”
“One day I will. I’ll wrap those whips around their necks, then hang them with weights on their feet, until the barbs chew through their throats.”
“The whips have barbs?”
“To make us bleed. Well, not me, hardly at all, or a Wolverine. You’d likely pass out after one lash. Badgers usually last about ten, until the whip breaks through to muscle. Cougars, though—” she clucked her tongue “—not as tough as they pretend.”
Rhia held back her horrified response, knowing it would have no audience with Mali. The room upstairs fell silent.
“Must have been a Cougar,” Mali commented.
The silence was broken again, by a hacking, choking sound.
“Ah,” Mali said, “they’ve switched him to the tub.”
“Don’t they have laws against torturing civilians?”
“Technically we’re not civilians, we’re ‘suspected violents,’ and the torture is to gather evidence for our trials. But no one’s had a trial in years. At least not publicly.”
Rhia shrank back on her bed, tight to the wall. She had to escape. Now.
“I’m surprised they haven’t come for you yet,” Mali said. “When they do, just remember one thing.” Her voice came closer to the bars and lost its sarcastic edge. “The key to torture is to take away a person’s hope. To beat it, you have to believe that you’ll escape, that we’ll win, that one day we’ll have a victory parade by the waterfront with the Descendant scum pulling our carts on their hands and knees. Well, their knees and the stumps of their wrists.”
Mali was so full of hate, Rhia feared the Ilions had already won.
The ceiling thudded with a heavy impact.
Mali gave a low whistle. “That didn’t sound good.”
A door slammed, then Rhia heard booted footsteps rattling down the stairs to their cells.
The outer door swung open with a clang. Rhia squinted against the light of a torch. Two men stalked toward her.
“Let’s go,” the heftier one said. “Now.”
She shrank back harder against the wall, wishing she could cram herself into the tiny cracks where the rats lived. One of the guards unlocked her door, then the other lurched in and grabbed her arm.
“Don’t make me carry you,” he growled. Rhia stumbled, then recovered her footing so he didn’t drag her.
“Remember what I told you.” Mali stood and clutched the bars as they passed. “Picture the parade!”
Rhia’s feet felt cold as they carried her up the stone stairs. At the top, a door opened, revealing a tall, nervous-looking officer near her own age.
“Bring her over to him,” he told the guards.
They led Rhia forward. She blinked against the bright lantern light, momentarily blinded. But her nose smelled the blood.
A naked man lay faceup on a red-stained stone slab the height of a dining table.
“Tell us, will he die?” the officer barked as he paced.
She stared at him, confused. What kind of interrogation was this?
“You’re some kind of Crow witch.” He flapped his hand at the unconscious man. “You see these things.”
Her shoulders ached from her restraints. “Let me get closer, and I’ll tell you.”
/> He hesitated, then nodded at the guards. They released her, and she stepped up to the table to examine the prisoner. His long dark hair was soaking wet, and his torso was covered in lengthy shallow cuts, as though he’d been carved with a dozen tiny knives.
She touched his bruised, wet face, then drew in a quick breath. It was Endrus the Cougar, one of her old friends from Kalindos. She’d heard he’d joined the Asermon resistance. Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought of the mischievous man she’d danced with at many a Kalindon feast. As far as she knew, he was still first phase, though they were the same age. He wasn’t as strong as other Cougars in their late thirties. She gritted her teeth at the unfairness.
“Do you know him?” the officer asked.
Rhia shook her head. “I’m just upset because he looks so wretched.” She closed her eyes and listened to the inner realm where Crow flew. No wings flapped to indicate the Spirit’s approach. “But he’ll live if he gets care immediately.”
The three men let out harsh sighs. “Thank the gods,” the officer said. “It would’ve been us tied to that pole tomorrow if he’d died. Take him back to his cell and call the healer.”
“But, sir,” one of the guards said, “how do we know she’s not lying?”
“If he dies, we’ll know, won’t we? Now hurry up.”
The guards hoisted Endrus into their arms and carried him out an exit on the opposite side of the room from where they’d entered. The men’s prison must be on the other side, she figured. She looked around for more clues to the building’s layout, but there were no windows. The outer wall was made of bricks—probably more than one layer, to keep in the sound. Not that they bothered with such insulation on the floor. They no doubt wanted the prisoners to hear each other scream.
“My name is Captain Addano.” The officer pulled out a chair beside a desk. “Sit.” When she didn’t move, he patted the back of the chair. “I won’t hurt you. I need your help.”
“Why would I help you?”
“To serve your countrymen. To save lives.” He gestured to a pole and chains on the other side of the room. “To avoid being thrashed into a quivering, vaguely woman-shaped block of meat.”
She shivered, then cursed her own muscles for betraying her fear. Slowly she crossed the room and sat in the chair beside the desk. It smelled better over here, anyway.
Addano sat on the other end of the desk. “We might as well rest before our next interview.” He opened the top drawer. “Would you care for some wine?”
She grimaced at the thought. The Ilions had brought their grapes north with them—in fact, it was one of the main motives for their invasion. The south-facing slopes near Asermos were well-suited for the vintages that had been hit the hardest by pests and droughts back in Ilios. Her heart twisted at the thought of her family’s farm used to grow the symbol of the occupation.
“Suit yourself.” Addano poured himself a glass, then gulped it down as easily as water. She noticed that his dark hair was shorter than most Ilion officers, curling just below his ears instead of down to his shoulders. His tanned face and rough hands were etched with lines and spattered with freckles, as if he’d spent many years in the sun. Not a nobleman, she guessed.
“Ah, that’s better.” He set down the empty wineglass and smacked his lips. “It’ll just be a minute.”
She didn’t want to ask what would happen in a minute. He’d said something about an interview. Why would he need her to—
Rhia’s nape turned cold. Surely he didn’t mean… “You want me to sit here and watch you torture my people? You want me to help?”
“Not help torture them. Help us not kill them. My boys are talented, but sometimes they get carried away.” Addano looked down and noticed a spot of blood on the yellow part of his tunic. He sighed. “Not again. I should stand farther back, or wear a smock.”
He crossed to a bucket and dipped a cloth inside. The water rattled with what sounded like ice. Rhia licked her lips.
Addano caught the gesture. “It’s not for drinking.” He dabbed the wet cloth against the bloodstain on his uniform.
“I won’t help you,” she said.
“Yes, you will. It’s either that or face interrogation yourself. I’m sure there’s some useful information in that mind of yours. Such as where to find your brother.”
Her stomach tightened as she looked at the implements of torture on the side table. Would she be able to withstand it? As a Crow, she didn’t fear death, but pain was another matter.
Heavy footsteps clopped up the far staircase. The captain looked up as he dried his hands.
“Ah.” He smiled at Rhia. “You can give me your answer after we serve our next guest.”
The door banged open, and a set of three guards dragged in a tall, hulking older man, whose head already bore a wound above the eye—no doubt delivered to subdue him in his cell. As they shackled him to the pole’s crossbar, Rhia recognized him. It was Medus the Badger, once one of the fiercest men in Asermos. He’d been their chief of police when the Ilions had invaded, and for a time she’d thought him a collaborator. Clearly things had changed.
Medus swayed in his shackles, groggy, as they stripped him naked. She looked away, searching the room for anything she could use as a weapon, though she knew it was pointless.
“I hope you didn’t hit him so hard he can’t remember anything,” Addano said. “It doesn’t take much to knock out the brains of a beast.” He turned and gave Rhia a little bow. “Present company excepted, of course.” He shot her a mirthless grin before scooping a bowlful of ice water and tossing it in Medus’s face.
The Badger woke with a defiant roar, which had no effect on the three Ilions. They conferred at the side table as to the most efficient means of extracting information. Their matter-of-fact tone curdled her blood. She put her face in her hands.
Rhia heard the clank of iron and the hiss of steam. As Addano turned to Medus, she crammed her hands over her ears just as she heard him say,
“Let’s talk about Velekos.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Why did the Ilion military in Asermos care about what happened in Velekos?
“Have you ever been to a neighborhood known as the Acrosia?” the captain asked Medus.
“All the time,” Medus sneered. “Whenever I need your mother to suck my big Badger—auughgh!”
Rhia yelped at the sudden sizzle of burning flesh. She covered her face again so she wouldn’t see Medus writhing and flailing in his shackles. Her mind fought to stay clear through the haze of fear and fury.
Mali had said to act as though escape were inevitable. Rhia had to cling to that hope, and if she ever did get out, she would take what she knew of the Ilions’ suspicions straight to her brother. Lycas hadn’t seemed to know the authorities were watching Damen’s neighborhood. The interrogators’ questions were a glimpse into the mind of the Ilion counterinsurgency, a glimpse that could save his life, and the life of the fledgling resistance. She couldn’t walk away from such an opportunity, no matter how it rent her soul.
Keeping her gaze on the floor, she took her hands from her ears and listened.
14
Kalindos
Sura saw Dravek waiting in the boulder field, under a slate-gray afternoon sky, sitting cross-legged with his head slightly bowed. The closer of the two torches was lit, but not the other. She forbade her feet to run to him, despite the energy that had crackled through her all morning.
Her world had changed in the two days since the Bestowing. The damp forest filled her newly sensitive nose with the scents of decaying plants and living animals. Every bite of food held a thousand tastes, and her reflexes had turned frighteningly fast. Most of all, her skin felt as if a layer had been peeled back. She could feel each shift of her clothes, her blankets, even the air itself. When people approached her from behind, she felt the vibrations in the soles of her feet.
She had become a Snake.
Before her boot scraped the first boulder, Dravek looked up
, no doubt catching her scent on the wind. The breeze blew the torch’s flame in his direction, so that the heat waves in the air made his image blur and shudder.
She made her way across the field and joined him on the flat, dark red boulder. “Hello.” Her voice, so loud in her head, was lost in the wide-open space and gathering breeze. Even the word felt shallow, too weak to express the feelings careening inside her. This would be their first and last day together as Snakes.
He looked up at her without quite meeting her eyes. “Have you recovered yet?”
She nodded. “I did nothing yesterday but sleep and eat. Sometimes I can’t believe I survived.”
“The Spirits take care of us during our Bestowing. No one’s ever died, though we all think we will.”
She sat beside him. “What do you mean?”
He gave her a sharp look. “The living void? The thing that feels like it’s sucking out your soul? It comes to everyone the first two nights.”
“Oh, that.” She picked up a pebble the size of her fingernail and tossed it away. It disappeared into an abyss among the boulders. “How deep do these rocks go?”
“Sura.”
She peered over the edge. “And what if you dropped something valuable? You’d never get it out.”
“Sura.” He waited to speak until she looked at him. “You laughed at the void, didn’t you?”
She shrugged, feigning casualness. “It seemed to help.”
He studied her face until she felt it flush. “You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met,” he said.
“You haven’t met many Asermons.”
“How did you get to be so brave?”
She looked away. If he could hear the speed of her pulse right now, he’d know her courage was failing. “The Ilions crave our fear. It keeps them in power. Every arrest they make, every home they steal—” Or burn. “They do it to make us feel helpless.” She looked at her hands in her lap, twisted together like brawling cats. “One day I decided I wouldn’t be afraid anymore.”
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