The Sea Change

by Patricia Bray

  It was said that a lizard could survive anything, except having its head chopped off. He wondered if the prince could say the same.

  His assistants were masked, but in this room Nizam wanted the prisoners to see his face. They must learn to read his expressions, to know when he was displeased.

  He moved to the front of the frame, watching Lucius’s eyes widen as he recognized Nerissa’s chief torturer.

  “I did not kill them. I knew nothing of this,” Lucius said. His voice was steady, though his pallor indicated his fear.

  “So you say now. We will see what you say when we are better acquainted.”

  Nizam gave a hand signal, so subtle that most prisoners never knew to look for it, and his assistant drew back his arm and lashed the prince across his back.

  The prince hissed, as much from the shock as from the pain. At Nizam’s nod his assistant continued, the whip leaving dark marks on the prince’s newly healed skin. He did not expect the prince to reveal anything under the lash, but such a whipping was customary. The prince would expect it.

  He would not expect what Nizam had planned for him next.

  Chapter 3

  Josan jerked as the whip cut into his flesh again, but his bindings held him securely in place. Pain flared for a moment, as sharp as a knife cut, then faded into the dull agony that consumed him.

  He could feel blood running down his legs—see it puddling on the floor beneath his feet. He was sickened by its stench and the sharper tang of his own fear.

  It unnerved him that he could not see his tormentors, but the punishment frame prevented him from turning his head. He did not even know if Nizam was still present, though surely he must be.

  “I am innocent,” he began, then hissed as the whip struck again. “Please, there is no need for this. I will tell you whatever you want to know.”

  No one answered him. He had begun by trying to reason with Nizam and swiftly been reduced to begging. But neither Nizam nor his assistants acknowledged Josan with so much as a single word. There was only the whip, and a pain that was beyond anything he had imagined.

  He had tried to count each blow but lost track after three dozen. The total might have been fifty. It might have been more.

  Did they mean to kill him? Simply to whip him until he bled to death? He trembled as he wondered how much he could endure before he fell insensate.

  There was no point in pride. There was no point in pretending to be anything other than the coward he knew himself to be.

  He screamed as the whip cut into him again. Then, sobbing, he found enough voice left to beg. “Please, have mercy.”

  There was no answer.

  “Please,” he cried again, reduced to a single word, as the measured cadence continued. Four more blows struck, patterning him from his shoulders down to his thighs.

  He braced himself for the next blow, but it did not land.

  He waited as a minute passed. And then another. Josan did not move, did not say a word, unwilling to do anything that might jeopardize this reprieve. The only sounds to be heard were his harsh pants as he struggled to regain his breath.

  He flinched as he felt something stroke the back of his neck. A gloved hand, or perhaps the handle of a whip.

  Josan shivered as Nizam came into view. He strained to read his expression, but Nizam’s face was blank. He was as calm as if he were regarding a statue, rather than a man.

  Josan tensed himself for a blow as Nizam raised his right hand, but Nizam simply stroked Josan’s face, which was damp with sweat and tears.

  “I had nothing to do with Nerissa’s death,” Josan said. “She was my protector—I had no reason to wish her ill. You must see this.”

  “I see that you are still keeping secrets from me,” Nizam said, fixing him with a pitiless stare.

  Josan felt naked, exposed under that gaze, and his eyes dropped, without conscious decision. Hastily he wrenched his gaze back up, but it was too late.

  “Your body betrays you,” Nizam said.

  “Ask me anything. Whatever you wish, I will answer.”

  Nizam had yet to ask any questions of his own. He had let Josan babble, proclaiming his innocence, recalling to mind each deed or conversation that would prove he had not violated Nerissa’s trust. Josan had told him everything he could think of.

  But he had not mentioned his true name. Nor had he mentioned the spell that had placed the soul of a dying monk into the body of a prince. Did Nizam somehow sense these secrets? Or was Nizam simply a brute who received his pleasure from the torments of others? Did he care about the answers he received or was he more interested in seeing Josan bleed, savoring the sound of his screams?

  If he offered up his secrets, would they be believed? Or would Nizam punish him for a truth that was so strange it seemed a lie?

  The agony of his flesh made it impossible to think clearly. Reveal himself as the victim of sorcery and he would be condemned to death as an abomination. Keep silent, and risk the same fate.

  The question was not if he would die, but rather which choice would earn him a swifter death.

  “You held out longer than I thought,” Nizam said. “Two dozen lashes before you began begging.”

  He supposed it was a compliment, of sorts. He had screamed almost from the first.

  “But even a prince would have been whipped as a boy,” Nizam said.

  Josan shook his head. Perhaps Lucius had endured canings from his tutors, but the monks did not beat the boys in their care. Discipline was enforced through fasts or time spent alone in contemplation of one’s mistakes. While he had worn his own flesh, no one had ever raised a hand against him. It was only after he was joined to Prince Lucius’s body that he had learned what violence was.

  “Pride is the obstacle that must be overcome. Only when a man is stripped of his pride will he reveal the full truth.” Nizam’s tone was as even as if they were two acquaintances in polite debate. He had yet to show any signs of emotion.

  “I have no pride,” Josan said.

  “We will see.”

  Josan could hear Nizam’s assistants moving behind him, and he trembled, wondering if they were about to resume the lash.

  “Akil has never fucked a prince before,” Nizam said.

  Josan drew in a sharp breath.

  “I’ll bet you were pretty when you were a boy,” said a voice from behind him.

  “There is no need for this,” he said. He searched Nizam’s face, but there was no trace of sympathy—no recognition that Prince Lucius was anything more than an object to be broken. “Just tell me what you want me to say.”

  He would confess to murdering Nerissa with his own two hands, if that was what they wanted.

  “Of course a prince is bound to be tight,” Akil said. “But we’ll loosen you up.”

  He felt something press at his most private entrance, and his mind rebelled. Desperately he tried to flee, to banish himself into oblivion, but he could not do it. Only Prince Lucius’s spirit had the power to dispossess him, and Prince Lucius had vanished months before.

  Josan closed his eyes, unable to bear Nizam’s gaze. He held his breath as a blunt object was brutally shoved inside him, tearing the delicate flesh. Tears rolled down his face—tears of shame mixed with those of pain. Akil rocked the object back and forth, opening him up for what was to come.

  His eyes flew open as he felt Nizam’s hand cup his balls, a thumb stroking his prick. It was a parody of intimacy that revolted rather than aroused.

  He could not have been more humiliated if he were indeed the sheltered Prince Lucius, who had never known the touch of another man.

  The hand around his balls tightened suddenly.

  “What would you do to keep these?” Nizam asked. “What if I were to cut them off?”

  Josan could not reply. His gorge rose. This, this was not happening. At any moment he would awaken, and discover this was a nightmare.

  But the pain was all too real.

  The object was removed.
Two hands held his hips, and he felt something nudge against his backside.

  He looked directly at Nizam. “I killed her. It is my fault, all of it. Tell Zuberi that I confessed.”

  Nizam shook his head. “You are still lying to me,” he said. With a final pat he released Josan’s prick.

  At the same time, Akil begin to force himself inside Josan. It felt as if he were being fucked by a horse. The wounds on his back burned as Akil pressed against him.

  Josan whimpered, his breath coming in short pants. His head swam, and for a moment he hoped that he was about to faint. But there was no such respite, as Akil began to pound into him, over and over again, long past the endurance of an ordinary man.

  Josan must have had lovers in the past, though they were lost in the fog that hung over his years with the Learned Brethren. He supposed it was because they had not been important enough to be remembered, not the way that his studies had been. The monks understood that men needed the physical release of sex, and thus relations between them were allowed. As long as such relations were transitory, and the monk’s primary focus remained his duty to the order.

  But it was forbidden for a monk to lie with one not of the order. The penalty for taking an outside lover was castration, and banishment from the order, which was seen as the far harsher of the two. In the years of his exile, there had been opportunities for Josan to stray, but not once had he been tempted.

  He did not know whether his inexperience made this easier or harder to endure. Perhaps if he had pleasant memories to contrast this with, it would not have felt so much like a violation.

  Or perhaps it would have felt even worse.

  Nizam’s eyes glittered darkly, missing no detail of Josan’s humiliation. This rape was more than a rape of his body. It was a rape of his soul. Nizam would not be content until he had utterly degraded Josan. In this moment he hated Nizam, more than he had ever hated any other. If it had been within his power, he would have held his tongue, to deny Nizam his victory.

  Yet it was not within his power. As much as he hated Nizam, he feared the pain even more.

  “Pretty, pretty princeling,” Akil said. “You take my prick as well as any low city whore.”

  Josan ignored the taunting words, his attention focused on Nizam. He knew where the true power lay in this room. And as he watched, he saw Nizam’s focus move to those who stood behind Josan. Nizam nodded slightly, apparently giving permission for what was to come next.

  “He’ll take more than that before we’re done with him,” an unseen man said. “You’ve stretched him long enough. Now let him feel a real man.”

  Akil thrust a few more times before pulling out. Josan felt liquid running down his thighs, a mixture of blood, semen, and filth.

  His gorge rose. Nizam stepped back, just as Josan spit bile in his direction.

  “Be done with this,” Josan said. “Whatever you want, I will do. I will say anything.”

  “I want the truth,” Nizam said.

  “I have told you the truth.”

  “I do not believe you.”

  Josan despaired as he realized that it did not matter what he said. He could not reason with his captor. Truth, lies, it was all the same to Nizam. He was as impervious to logic as he was to Josan’s suffering.

  This was not about truth. It was about breaking him, until there was nothing left of the man he had once been.

  Akil’s companion took his place, and the rape began again. Josan endured, his mind narrowing its focus until the room faded from his consciousness. There was room for nothing but the sensation of pain, and the small, stubborn part of himself that refused to die.

  The shock of cold water roused him to wakefulness. His body ached from head to toe, and he stared at the blood-soaked floor with a distant fascination. That was his blood, he realized, his life’s essence that spread in an ever-widening pool toward Nizam’s boots.

  It was impossible for a man to lose that much blood and live. His light-headedness was the precursor of the death that he longed for.

  “What do you know of Empress Nerissa’s murder?” Nizam asked. He stood so close that his breath wafted across Josan’s cheeks.

  “Nothing,” Josan whispered. “I know nothing.”

  “And what are you hiding from me?”

  “How much I hate you.”

  He tensed, expecting a blow, but at this Nizam smiled.

  “I knew you would be my favorite,” he said. “And you know why?”

  Josan refused to respond.

  “Because you can heal yourself,” he said. “So we can do this again, and again, until I am satisfied.”

  “No!” It was not possible. No man could survive this. Josan’s terror rose, even as the darkness of unconsciousness beckoned. He prayed that he might never awake—even as he feared that Nizam was telling the truth.

  “I am confident that Lucius had no knowledge of the plan to murder the empress. Nor was he in contact with others who might have plotted this on his behalf,” Nizam concluded.

  Proconsul Zuberi scowled, the fingers of his left hand tapping impatiently against his desk. His expression had grown increasingly grim as Nizam related the results of his investigations and his repeated interrogations of his royal prisoner.

  Brother Nikos was surprised to be included in this meeting. In the past he and the proconsul had often been at odds, and Nerissa had relied upon their differing perspectives to inform her own opinion. But since Nerissa’s death, Zuberi no longer held himself aloof, and indeed seemed to welcome Nikos’s counsel.

  Of course, Nikos already knew that Lucius was innocent, but that did not mean that there weren’t other damning secrets that Lucius might have revealed during his agonies. But so far, at least, Nizam was convinced that the prince was innocent, much to Zuberi’s apparent frustration. It was clear that the proconsul would prefer an easy answer, and an obvious villain.

  “He may not have planned the murders, but if his followers committed the crimes, then he is still guilty,” Zuberi argued.

  Nizam inclined his head in agreement. “That is for you to judge. I can only tell you the facts. Make of them what you will.”

  “And he has told you everything?” Zuberi asked.

  “About this matter, yes. But he has other secrets, which I have not yet explored.”

  “What are you waiting for?” Zuberi demanded.

  “I need your permission before I destroy him. Once I am done, the prince will be a witless shell, fit for nothing except killing.”

  “Do it.”

  “No,” Nikos interrupted.

  “No?” Zuberi’s voice rose in anger, and Nikos knew that he trod on dangerous ground. One did not lightly cross a future emperor.

  “I would speak with you privately,” Nikos said.

  As Zuberi’s gaze locked with his, Nikos could feel his palms sweat and his heart begin to race. But he kept his face calm, reflecting none of his inner turmoil. After a long moment, Zuberi gestured, and with a half bow Nizam left the room.

  “Why do you care what happens to the prince? Nerissa’s funeral is tomorrow morning. We do not need him sane, nor whole, in order to play his part. A madman screams just as loud as any other.”

  This was not about whether Lucius died on the morrow. As far as Brother Nikos was concerned, it would be better if Lucius were killed and took his secrets to the grave. Lucius knew too many of Nikos’s own secrets for his comfort. In fact, Nikos had spent the past few days preparing his own explanations for anything that Lucius might reveal. Though so far it seemed that his former pupil had kept his silence long after an ordinary man would have confessed all in the hopes of earning an easy death.

  But there was more at stake than Nikos’s own misdeeds. The stability of the empire demanded that they find and punish those who had conspired in Nerissa’s death. And if the search for the conspirators took attention away from whatever secrets Prince Lucius still held, well, then, it was for the good of the empire, after all. And no one would suspec
t him of protecting the prince.

  “You heard Nizam. And Farris, who commanded the guards assigned to watch the prince, also concluded that Lucius could not have planned this,” he pointed out.

  In fact, Farris had called Lucius a half monk, scornfully dismissing a man who spent hours each day absorbed in his studies.

  “Even your own clerk, Ferenc, saw no sign of treachery,” Nikos continued.

  “Why do you defend him?”

  “I care not what happens to the prince. But I do care about finding those who murdered Nerissa and her family. Allowing Lucius to shoulder the blame gains us nothing.”

  More than once it had crossed his mind that Zuberi, as the emperor presumptive, had the most to gain from Nerissa’s death. But Zuberi was not acting as a man pleased to be thrust into prominence, nor was he seizing the reins of imperial authority. He was either innocent or a master at dissembling.

  And if not Zuberi, then who? The treacherous Lady Ysobel had fled home to the Seddonian Federation once her role in the aborted insurrection had been revealed, but was it possible that the bitch’s schemes were still being carried out in her absence? Or was there a new adversary, one who had yet to reveal himself?

  Zuberi frowned. “Even if Lucius did not conspire with the assassins, he is far from innocent. He rebelled against the empress not once but twice, and his example may have inspired others. For this alone he deserves to die.”

  “The next emperor will have to work hard to secure the peace and support of his people,” Nikos pointed out, continuing the pretense that the identity of the next emperor was still to be determined. “If Prince Lucius is executed, and later we arrest another for Nerissa’s murder, it will breed resentment among the old Ikarians.”

  “So what do you advise?”

  “Do nothing in haste. Let Nizam keep Lucius, but tell him not to damage Lucius irrevocably. For our part, we will be wary, and watch who seeks to profit from Nerissa’s death. The traitor will reveal himself; it is just a matter of time.”