Chapter 36 Lukas
LUKAS
THE ROSE PALACE, ATTAR
Lukas is strapped to an iron chair in a dark room deep in the dungeons of the Rose Palace. It is clearly, from its furnishing and the circumstances, a torture chamber.
Before him stands Gelen the Green, flanked by two enforcers.
In contrast to his lackeys, Gelen is a small man, but Lukas knows well, a vicious one.
Around his neck he wears the heavy twelve pointed star on a gold chain that marks him as the High Word of Zai.
Lukas doesn’t know why Atticul would have replaced Doroth Zain with Gelen the Green — who must now be styled as Gelen Zain — but whatever the reason, it seems Gelen has not given up his old role as Head Enforcer.
He has too much of a taste for torture to do that.
Although he has not hurt Lukas yet, Lukas is sure pain is coming. He can feel the heat of a brazier behind him.
“Perhaps,” says Gelen, “before I begin, I ought to bring in your Plumian woman and cut her throat?”
“For what purpose?” Lukas says back. Trying to sound like he does not care for Trysta one bit.
“So you understand why it is important that you answer my questions.”
Lukas gives Gelen a nasty smile. “You haven’t asked me any fucking questions.”
Gelen hits Lukas in the face with a closed fist, pain explodes across his cheek. His head snaps back into the iron support behind it. He feels something break, tastes blood in his mouth. “Where,” Gelen says while Lukas’s mind is still swimming, “is Damon Darekul?”
That makes things easy. Trysta would never want Lukas to betray Damon.
“He’s fucking dead.” Lukas spits blood out of his mouth. There is a strange buzzing in his ears, like insects are trapped in his head.
“You didn’t kill Selim alone.” Gelen says, moving so close to Lukas that Lukas can smell roasted meat on his breath.
Lukas’s belly growls. He has barely eaten since he was locked up in the dungeons.
He couldn’t. His belly has been in tight knots since he found himself in another Empire gaol.
His mind whirling with foul recollections of his imprisonment in Lunatum.
“Emperor Atticul saw you commit your depraved acts in the shrine. He knows you were working with your bastard brothers. Including the One Man Army. So where is he?”
“How the fuck should I know where dead men go? You're the High Word. You tell me.”
“Perhaps,” Gelen says, wrapping his hand around Lukas’s left wrist where it is strapped down to the chair’s arm, “I should take your other hand as losing one has clearly not taught you anything about obeying the law.”
Lukas swallows hard. He does not think he could bear that.
If Gelen means that threat. He misses his hook, taken from him when he was brought to these dungeons.
He hates having a bare wrist stump. What form of creature would he be if he lost his other hand?
How vulnerable would he be then to whatever his captors chose to do to him?
But he says, “I haven’t seen Damon since he fought with me in the corridors of the Rose Palace.”
Gelen’s mouth twists. “And what of your other bastard brothers? When did you last see Tobi Darekul?”
“Tobi? I’ve not seen Tobi since he was a youth of seven summers.” Lukas smiles. That, at least, is nothing but the truth.
Gelen makes a grunting noise. He nods to one of his enforcers, who walks around behind Lukas to the brazier.
There is a noise of metal rattling against metal.
When the enforcer returns to where Lukas can see him, he holds an iron rod the end of which is shaped like a mark of Zai. It glows bright, cherry red.
But before the iron can touch Lukas’s flesh, the door to the torture chamber opens.
In the doorway stands Atticul, a wide smile on his sharp face, “Ah,” he says, “there you are, traitor brother. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
” He looks at Gelen, who is staring back at Atticul with an expression of dismay, no doubt annoyed his sadistic pleasures have been interrupted.
“Unfasten the bastard’s bindings,” Atticul says.
“I have some things I wish to discuss with Azuria’s greatest traitor. ” He holds something up.
Lukas stares at what Atticul has in his hand.
“And return this to him,” Atticul says, holding out Lukas’s hook.