Chapter 31 #2
He lifted his chin, and his jaw muscles pulsed. “You were meant to be distracted.”
The attack on the aqueducts. Usti thought to hold her attention elsewhere, but he’d acted too early. It was true that she and her warriors had been distracted for a while following that act of violence. Kai’s focus had remained on the internal issues inside the mountain, not out.
Obviously, that didn’t last as long as Usti or this man had needed.
Kai rose and circled him again. She’d gotten through using his pride once, but she doubted he’d fall for that again.
“The rulers of several nations owe my mothers and father a life debt,” she said on her second rotation. Across the room, Shadi nodded confirmation to the man’s raised eyes. “An assassination attempt at the games in Perean many years ago.”
Kai didn’t know the details behind this event but had heard enough over the years to use it now.
“What would these nations think of your new king once they learn he has initiated a war with one of his allies?” She knelt to face him again. “They won’t trust him. Any past or future negotiations will fail. He will be left to the sharks.”
“Dimitrios Vidalatos doesn’t rule Perean,” he spat. “He never will.”
“Who would dare try to rule a country over its blood-born king?”
When he didn’t answer, Tse pulled his sword, letting the slice ring slow and true.
The act drew the man’s attention, and he shivered. “You don’t understand our ways. Dimitrios isn’t king yet.”
Misae, who made it her job to know such things as the matriarch over commerce and trade, inserted herself here. “The High Chancellor rules in the place of a king when there is a break in the line of succession. You speak of Leonidas Primakos.”
Raphail’s eyes lowered, and Kai had her answer.
“Primakos sent you.” She smiled. “This seems desperate for such a powerful country. Why risk the safety and stability of Perean for our mines? My warriors would crush your men if set loose on your soil. And again, I ask, what allies would be there to save you?”
Again, his silence led her to an answer. “Perean isn’t as powerful as we once believed, is it? What is it like to watch your homeland fall to cowardly men?”
Shadi appeared at Kai’s side and used the tip of her sword to lift the man’s chin. “Do you not know this man you answer to is dead?”
The commander’s eyes flared, and he sank further back on his heels. “No, he—”
“News reaches us slowly here, but it comes eventually. The entirety of the Perean council was assassinated. You answer to no one anymore.”
His jaw bobbed, spittle stretching between his cracked lips. “Someone would have sent word—”
“Who?” Kai asked. “Who else knew you were sailing here?”
His chin fell, and he shoved fingers through his hair. “You’re lying. You’re trying to get me to talk.”
“You’re loyal to a crumbling kingdom,” Kai said, then lowered her voice. “I know a little something about loyalty myself. I wouldn’t sell my people out for a single gemstone, let alone an endless supply of them. But you and I are very different people, aren’t we?”
“I love my country.”
“No, you don’t,” she said.
Doli pulled her sword, and Raphail flinched at the slicing sound.
From the dim shadows, Fala slipped from the room without a word.
Kai couldn’t stop to question it. “Prove it,” she said to the prisoner. “Tell me what you know. Otherwise, we sail for Perean and get answers the hard way. I want to know why you’re here and who of my people you’ve been communicating with.”
His mouth formed a tight line.
Damn the gods—he wasn’t going to talk.
Kai paced around him again. What more could she say? Loyalty like his was a hard thing to break.
Fala reappeared, and instead of returning to Atsadi, she strode directly toward Kai and the prisoner. She held a bowl and pestle, and was crushing and stirring its contents.
Kai straightened, and so did everyone else in the room. What was she up to?
“Cut him,” Fala said to Kai. “Opening a vein would be best.”
Only Kai’s training saved her from reacting—she wouldn’t show weakness in front of the prisoner, let alone surprise. This had to appear planned. Besides, she trusted her wife more than anyone else in this room.
Kai opened a long slice of skin across the man’s inner wrist. Not deep enough to make him bleed out—they still needed him alive.
Fala knelt with the bowl, and the contents inside glowed like the bioluminescent fungi found on the walls in any given tunnel. She wore her kind, thoughtful, calm expression. The same one she shared with all her patients.
“Have you seen the blue fungi on the walls here?” she asked the man. “It’s lovely, isn’t it? When combined with ashbloom moss… I don’t think I can explain exactly how this will feel. I’ll just have to show you.”
Kai held Raphail’s arm still, and when he fought back, Tse put the man in a chokehold from behind. Raphail’s eyes widened as he struggled to breathe.
Fala maintained that air of comfort as if the man were perfectly safe. But his blood dripped onto the stone floor, and his face began to flush red.
Kai knew exactly what was about to happen.
Bowls and pestles had been discarded all over the tunnels, and Fala must have noticed the ashbloom moss in her meditation room. The fungi she could have borrowed from any number of walls between.
“We call it scorchbane,” Fala said, then spread a layer across his cut.
Raphail’s scream rang through the room and bounced from the walls. The burn from scorchbane on bare skin was bad enough, but this was meant to enter his bloodstream. He would feel this pain for hours, and it wouldn’t take much. The more she applied, the worse it would be.
Kai had to respect Raphail’s determination, though.
He lasted ten minutes, and by then, he could barely speak through his tears.
Men like him were trained to withstand physical torture: broken bones, beatings, and maybe the loss of a limb.
To feel your insides burn as if your entire body was on fire with no natural end in sight was something else entirely.
He’d survive, but he didn’t know that.
Information spilled from his lips for no other reason than to stop the addition of more scorchbane.
Rumors, he’d claimed. Primakos hadn’t trusted anyone with his secrets, though people talked a great deal.
Things about low coffers and smugglers. Nothing concrete, and nothing to explain why he was sent.
One thing surprised her, however, though she didn’t know how it fit into all of this.
The king of Soterra had been in constant communication with the High Chancellor for months.
Her mother had often referred to Titos Demakis as an ungrateful and selfish man, and her father spat every time he was mentioned.
Even Doli despised him, and she rarely disliked anyone.
Beyond that, Raphail had been only following orders. There’d been no choice in the matter. He was loyal to his country.
Once he finished, Kai crouched and gripped his chin. “You have a contact here in the mountain. I want a name. Who helped you?”
“It was a group of men…I don’t know.” He slumped forward, his head hanging. “They want to change things.”
“Who?”
Raphail met her eyes. “Atsadi Rising Moon.”