39. Raithe #3
He gritted his teeth together. “We use Blood Sight to confirm they won’t reveal the nature of Serpentine to others. It’s why the entrance is separate from the exit. Those are the only ways you can get more entrance coins.”
“Neither were used on me,” I reminded him. Nor Rahzlyn until weeks into training as the Black Rose, from what she shared.
“For those we can freely speak our true names to, there’s no need. At the entrances, our guards utter their true names. Or attempt to. If they can, only coins are required. If they can’t, your natal chart is required to purchase Serpentine coins.”
Andreas must have been the guard’s name when Jere brought me there. I mulled over the rest of Kole’s admission. Natal charts had blood stamps on them. The apostai must have had gifted people to test their validity.
“Who uses Blood Sight for you?” I demanded.
“Seers aren’t the only gifted ones,” Kole answered in a bored tone.
Serpentine likely had their own league of acolytes. “And how do you remove the brand?”
“You can’t. It stays with you forever. You can try cutting it off, but it’ll regrow.”
Dread straightened my spine as I thought of Rahzlyn. “How is such a thing possible?”
“I’m too low in the ranks.” Kole sighed. “Look, what I know for sure is you must be lying. You must have a brand on you somewhere, because talking to you freely like this—about the brand, the Black Rose—shouldn’t be possible.”
Truth, my intuition hummed.
“And yet here we are.” I gestured broadly.
“The only caveat to the brand I know of is if someone knew you, and your true name, before you were branded. Your ability to speak it to them does not change.” He paused. “I’ve never met you before that night in Gemini. And that only applies to names, not… everything else I’ve divulged.”
I angled my head. “What happened after I took the Black Rose?”
“I’ve told you enough already.”
“You’re doing a good job of keeping your sister safe. Keep it up.”
“Fuck you,” Kole spat.
I seized him by the throat, squeezing with enough pressure to make his eyes bulge wide. “Mind your tongue, Kole. Remember who is in charge here.”
He clawed at me, gasping for breath.
I loosened my grip. “Do you know what it feels like to have your head slowly squished into itself? I can give you a taste.”
My hands braced either side of his head before applying precise pressure to his temples. “Okay, okay, okay!” Kole cried out
When I dropped him, he sank to the ground, grabbing his face in pain.
I was at war with myself, itching for more torment while also detesting how easily such violence came to me. It didn’t help that I wanted to rip him to shreds for deceiving and using Rahzlyn. I was a fucking mess, never having been so out of control during an interrogation.
“I went to Markus,” he croaked from the ground. “He pieced together you were a Chosen when we inspected the damage you left behind. He told my sister and I to stake out the Black Rose’s home.”
“And what was your goal?” I seized him by his throat again.
Kole scrambled from the floor. “Markus told me to blow it up if you or anyone returned, and to recapture the Black Rose.”
“Why blow it up?”
“That’s all he instructed. I don’t know why.”
“You don’t know why,” I repeated coldly.
“No one questions Markus.”
“Did you know who was in there?” My hold around his neck tightened. “Did you?”
A choking noise slipped from his mouth. “Yes.”
I released him. Fuck. Either it was a warning to Rahzlyn, or Markus knew that she was Chosen somehow. If the latter, how? “All of you are violent and delusional for believing falsely divined words.”
“It’s nothing to mock,” Kole said. “We’re living it now. Or we were.” He slumped against the wall. “Until you killed the Black Rose.”
“She has a name, you fuck.”
His eyes widened. “Has?” He laughed incredulously.
I ripped the jewel from his lip. His laughter morphed into a howl as I went for the piercing above his eyebrow next. Then his ears. Blood trickled from the places I tore.
“Don’t tell me she lifted her skirts for you too?” Kole wheezed.
“Don’t say another fucking word about her,” I snarled in his face. He was the leech—not her. Never her. “Or it’ll be the last thing you ever fucking do. Understand me?”
Suspicions gleamed in his bleary eyes. “Oh, man. She did, didn’t she? She managed to seduce a guardian. How pathetic—”
I yanked him up by his spiky white hair.
“You know what’s pathetic? You’ve never endured torture before, and it shows.
I’ve barely touched you, yet I’ve managed to get you to divulge so much.
All of you apostate bastards probably rely on the brand to protect you—but thanks to me, you broke like a twig. ”
I threw him against the wall, the resolve in me finally snapping. His shoulder cracked from the contact. Kole crumpled in a heap, landing in a pile of his own shit. Alive, but unconscious. Any further damage on my part, and he would surely die.
I steadied my breaths, forcing my shaking hands to still at my sides. It wasn’t that I could kill him so easily—it was that a part of me, one that demanded I defend Rahzlyn, wanted to.