The Last Dragon of the East

Chapter 39

39

I scoff. “You mean to drench me into submission?”

My question goes ignored as the emperor returns his attention to his feast. I am evidently not worthy enough to warrant a reply. While he eats to his heart’s content, the guards busy themselves above me, securing a large bucket of water to a hook suspended several feet above my head.

They force me to lie flat upon the uncomfortable wooden table, hard ridges designed onto its surface to bite into the meat of my back. My wrists and ankles are secured on either side of me, an iron bar clasped over my throat to keep my neck rigid. I can hear the foreboding clink of ice against the wood as the guard scrapes free some hardened wax that was covering a minuscule hole in the bottom of the bucket.

Water drips sporadically, hitting me square on the forehead. I flinch. It is cold enough as it is here on the mountaintop, but I refuse to be bested by a few drops of moisture. Has the emperor lost his mind? Is this truly how he wishes to break me? It’s uncomfortable, to be sure, but a genuine surprise, considering all the other methods he could have chosen to torture me.

Drip. Drip, drip, drip.

The droplets hit me, their timing impossible to calculate. Some fall hard, while others are a light tap on the forehead. The skin there begins to swell from the cold. After a couple of hours, my head aches. A terrible pressure builds behind my eyes as water trickles down my temples, slithers past the backs of my ears, and kisses the nape of my neck before soaking into the collar of my robe, where it then begins to freeze from the frigid mountain air.

I am so tightly restrained that I can only stare at the sky. My discomfort grows, slowly but palpably, with every passing second. Because there is no rhythm to the water drops, long stretches of nothing are followed by an onslaught of fast drips. I try not to dwell on it, but before long, it’s impossible not to anticipate each drop. It’s maddening.

Drip, drip, drip…

My neck strains. Any attempt to blink away the moisture gathering on my eyelids is futile. The water either gets stuck in the wells of my eyes or freezes to my lashes. I squirm against the table, try to move my head to avoid the next droplet, but the clamp on my neck prevents me from doing so.

Drip.

The more I struggle, the more I feel as though I am drowning. Whatever confidence I had before fizzles out with the water. Panic strangles the breath from my lungs. By the end of the day, I’m a blubbering mess. I want it to stop. When will this blasted bucket finally drain?

“Sai!” Jyn calls to me, her voice barely reaching my ears. “You have to focus!”

“I… I’m trying—”

Drip, drip.

The emperor chuckles and smacks his lips as he tears into the endless assortment of food presented for his enjoyment. “Effective, is it not? A little technique my war generals came up with to interrogate their prisoners. Bones mend and skin heals, but it is different to break one’s mind.”

I hear some shuffling. The emperor is suddenly at my side, bending to hiss in my ear, “I wonder how you will fare overnight. Have a good sleep, boy, if you can manage it.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I spit.

He leaves as quickly as he came. I’m suddenly alone again, still hopelessly trapped and at the mercy of the water. The pain comes in cycles. My body goes numb, only for parts of it to scream seconds later. My muscles cramp, my joints ache, my throat chafes against its restraint. I try to concentrate on my breathing, in and out and in again, but the nature of the drops makes it impossible to focus for long.

So simple, and yet so torturous.

“Sai,” Jyn says, starting to cry. “Sai, I’m so sorry. I’ll get us out of this.”

Drip.

My teeth chatter with every new drop that assaults my forehead. A sob escapes my throat, too, choked and desperate. It’s so cold and sharp that it feels like someone is stabbing me with the tip of a dagger. “I… I can’t breathe—”

“Sai—”

“I want to go home .”

The confession rips itself from my hollow chest. It’s a plea from my battered soul. I long to return to the teahouse, where safety and comfort come easily. I wish to see my poor mother again; I’m worried about her health and miss her kind hugs. I have been away for so long…. Is she all right? Does she wonder what became of me?

I was a fool to underestimate the emperor. No matter how hard I try to clear my mind, every new drop yanks me back to reality. My fear is insidious; a long, dark hand piercing through the front of my skull and latching onto my brain. It claws and it seeps into the deepest crevices of my mind, reminding me that there’s no escape. There’s no escape until Jyn gives the emperor what he wants.

Harvested like a common crop: her scales peeled away for medicine, her teeth pulled out to be forged into weapons, her eyes gouged from their sockets for sheer sport.

I reach out to her over our connection, seeking out her warmth like a moth to her dwindling flame. She’s in no better state than I, her sorrow cold and heavy. Watching me suffer is just as torturous for her as being strapped to this table.

“Tell the emperor I’ll give him what he wants,” Jyn says to the guards nearest her, her voice breaking.

“No!” I yell.

“Sai—”

“I will not lose you,” I snap. “Never again.”

“He will destroy your mind.”

“My Fated One, the love of my many lifetimes, for you, I will endure.” Even as I speak, my body shakes uncontrollably. The ugly, heavy coil of anxiety boils in the pit of my stomach, causing me to retch. “You must find a way to escape. Give that monster nothing.”

“Sai…”

I can no longer hear her words. The air, the table, my body… It’s as though I stop existing altogether. I can only feel each drop, worse than an arrow through the skull. The more I try to ignore the water, the more sensitive I become to it.

On and on it goes, until the sun sets and the moon rises to take its place.

At some point, the guards come to change the bucket of water, replacing it with a full one that is somehow colder than the first. I find no reprieve in the few minutes it takes them to refill their torture device, because I know what is sure to come.