Chapter 4 #2
Insects hummed. Vines swayed in the leafy canopy overhead as chattering monkeys used them to swing between the soaring trees.
Night birds cawed and shrieked. Somewhere in the distance, a large cat yowled, the sound carrying the promise of violence.
The rich scent of loamy soil held a hint of decay, the smell cool despite the humidity that clung to the air.
Sweet undertones of orchids, hibiscus, and other jungle blooms filtered into each breath, mixing effortlessly with the woody scent of resin and tree bark.
The sugary aromas of tropical fruits were underscored by the sharper, fermented tang of overripe and rotting fruit.
It smelled like Harvari.
Carver’s breathing thinned. His eyes darted to the shadows of the jungle, which seemed darker due to the glaring light of the snapping campfires. Woodsmoke filled his lungs, but the memory of other scents—most prominently sweat and blood—filled his mind. The scars across his body tightened.
“Sir? Is everything all right?”
Carver cut a look to the soldier moving toward him. The guard’s eyes were trained on the jungle. Tracking Carver’s intense stare, he realized belatedly.
He straightened. “Everything is fine.”
Confusion crossed the guard’s face, but he nodded. “Very good, General. I’ve just come from the princess’s tent. I’m to tell you that your wife is with Princess Jayveh, but she’ll be escorted to your tent by one of the princess’s guards when she’s ready to leave.”
Disappointment cut that Amryn wouldn’t be waiting in their tent, but he couldn’t begrudge her—or Jayveh—the time they spent together. He knew how worried Amryn was for her friend.
Carver thanked the guard and moved for his tent. Maybe he could use this time alone to meditate, to try and calm some of the restlessness inside him. Even as he had the thought, he knew Amryn’s presence would soothe him just as well. Just being near her quieted the demons that haunted him.
He twisted the ring on his hand. The familiar band felt heavier than it should. A weight he couldn’t ignore, much as he wanted to. Yet he couldn’t take it off.
“That ring seems important to you, General. Would you like me to let you keep it?”
His hand fisted, locking the ring in place on his finger. His heart thudded in his chest, his ears ringing at the memory of that voice.
It was the jungle. Being in it, without the protection of Esperance’s walls, was making him think of things better left in the dark recesses of his memory.
He reached the small tent. Even though it had been dark every night he’d entered it, it felt darker without Amryn tucked into her bedroll, her soft scent filling the space.
Carver sat on his bedroll, relying on the faint, ambient glow of the nearest campfire outside.
The light bled through the canvas enough for him to see that the tent flap—and the insect netting just inside the tent—were secure.
Mosquitos were thick out in the jungle, and unavoidable.
That didn’t mean they couldn’t try to keep the annoying pests away.
He tugged off his shirt, inadvertently scratching some of the bites that already irritated his skin. They itched fiercely, but he tried to ignore the need to scratch them, knowing that would only make them worse.
He peeled off his boots and set them nearby, in case he needed to access them quickly. Same with his knives, though he tucked them on his other side, away from Amryn’s bedroll. He didn’t want her accidentally coming into contact with the blades when she came in.
That done, he sat cross-legged as his grandfather had taught him and lengthened his spine, pulling back his shoulders as he breathed in deeply. He let his eyes fall closed, registering the relief at once. Saints, how long had they been burning?
He kept his breaths long, deep, and even, and gradually his pulse began to slow.
He generally preferred the more active meditations his grandfather had taught him. The ones where he could move through practiced poses, letting his body and his mind relax with the fluid motions. But this stiller version of meditation worked as well.
Attempting to clear his thoughts, he focused solely on the feeling of his lungs expanding and contracting.
Slowly, the tension seeped from his body, leaving in its wake a new awareness of his body.
Small aches and pains that he’d been ignoring.
Stiffness in his muscles. Soreness along some of his deeper scars.
Bone-deep weariness. He acknowledged each discomfort, then willed them to the back of his mind.
He didn’t know how long he sat there. He wasn’t keeping track of time. But he felt his shoulders slump. Felt his thoughts drift.
He blinked his tired eyes. He didn’t want to fall asleep. Not until Amryn was back. But his eyes continued to burn. He just needed to rest them for a moment. He closed his eyes—
And fell into a nightmare.
He was in a tent he knew too well. His wrists were chained to the beam above him, his shoulders straining to take his weight. His toes barely touched the ground. Another crank of the pulley and his shoulders would leave their sockets. He knew that from painful experience.
Dread rolled through him. He was back. Somehow, he was back in Harvari, about to be tortured—
No. It was worse than that. He wasn’t back.
He’d never left.
Grief tore through him, a despair so sharp it cut more painfully than any of the blades that had ravaged his skin. He’d never left this jungle. Never gone home. All of that had been a dream. Everything at Esperance had been conjured by his breaking mind. Amryn . . . his wife . . .
He trembled, and the chains rattled above him. Because Amryn wasn't real. She didn’t exist. She never had. She was a figment of his imagination. A desperate wish. A taste of heaven, while he was trapped in hell.
The stench of blood, sweat, and other human waste mingled with a hint of smoke from the small fire. The heavy canvas trapped the heat inside, making the space burn like an oven. Then again, maybe that was just Carver, burning with fever once more. He was fighting yet another infection.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to win this time.
Raza normally took great care with him. After all, Carver was the emperor’s favored general.
The Harvarians had never had a prisoner of his status.
They wanted him to survive as long as possible.
As such, Raza’s tortures were always methodical.
Never rageful. But sometimes he went too far.
Broke one too many bones. Sliced just a little too deeply.
Left the iron against Carver’s flesh just a little too long.
Sweat rolled down his ruined back, the wounds still stinging from his latest whipping.
His shirt had been torn from him weeks ago.
All that remained of his uniform were the tattered pants that hung too loosely on his frame.
The only other thing he wore was the silver ring Raza had allowed him to keep.
It was another form of torture. A taunt.
Because while Raza hadn’t broken him—had only managed to draw screams from him, never answers to his endless questions—the man had still broken something deep inside him.
“Hello, General.”
A shudder ripped through Carver, his blood running cold. That voice. Calm. Almost pleasant. Never cruel.
It would be easier to bear if it was cruel.
Raza stepped in front of him, hands clasped behind his back.
“I trust your rest was comfortable?” He chuckled, shaking his head once.
“Forgive me, I could not resist. A little joke, yes?” He tapped the tip of his blade against Carver’s bare chest. So many lines marred his skin.
Half-healed cuts. Full-on scars. Fresher lacerations that had clotted and now dripped because he’d flinched back from Raza’s blade.
The Harvarian torturer chuckled again. “I sometimes wonder what you dream about. Me? Or something else? Something that brings you comfort, I hope. Even Craethen dogs deserve a moment of peace.” He smiled, flashing his straight, white teeth.
“A moment of peace makes the horror more unbearable, does it not?”
Nausea churned in his hollow gut. If he had anything in his stomach, he would have thrown up, but he was barely given enough food and water to survive. Sometimes, the guards amused themselves by throwing him a rat or a snake, just to see how hungry he truly was.
“I have a surprise for you today,” Raza said, moving somewhere behind him.
Carver tensed. Raza’s surprises were never good, but Carver could guess what was coming.
If he’d been strapped down on the bloodstained table on the other side of the tent, he’d be tortured alone.
But if he was strung up here, facing the vacant manacles that dangled from a beam like the one he was chained to . . .
Raza was going to torture someone in front of him. Again.
Carver’s teeth ground together, his fingers rolling into useless fists. He wanted to strangle Raza until his sickening smile finally faded. Stab him with his own blades until those dark eyes no longer glittered at him. Break his bones with the same hammer he used so meticulously on Carver.
Instead, he would have to watch helplessly, unable to answer Raza’s questions, while another man suffered and begged Carver to speak.
Every man Raza tortured in front of Carver was a captured soldier who wore the ragged remains of the black Craethen military uniform.
Sometimes, they were men Carver knew. Those sessions were the hardest. Seeing them bleed.
Hearing them scream. Watching them die. It destroyed another part of his decimated soul every time.
The tent flap slapped open behind him. He heard the shuffle of boots, the dragging of feet against dirt.
He pinched his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see the face of whatever soldier Raza had brought in this time.