2. Chapter Two

I entered the holding cell at a leisurely pace, casually examining my fingernails.

A man was currently shackled to the wall in said cell, struggling against his chains and spouting off a colorful slew of profanities, but I paid him no mind. Instead, I turned my attention to the man in uniform who had been threatening the captive’s life just before I walked in. Deep within the catacombs of Sophrosyne, the stone felt damp and dark—downright dreary compared to the brilliant light of the city.

“Report,” I barked at Hans Deering, my second-in-command.

“The fucker refuses to give us any answers. Claims his information was good the first time around. Can’t be bought, won’t name a price for the truth.”

My eyes flickered briefly towards the man in chains: Alistair Corvus—an old informant of mine.

“Now, now, Corvus,” I purred, meeting the prisoner’s beady, frantic eyes.

I slowly withdrew one of my daggers from the holster at my hip, and gently ran one fingertip across the edge of the blade.

“Everything has a price. It’s just a matter of if you’ll pay willingly, or if we take it by force.”

“You won’t do shit, Aetherwhore,” the prisoner seethed. “I already know that your precious Elders won’t allow you to kill me, and even if I did have the intel you wanted, I would take it to my grave.”

“Despite popular belief, that can be arranged, Alistair,” I shot back.

“Errr. Captain, he’s Pyrhhan,” one of my lieutenants hedged.

“And?”

“And so we need to defer to the House of Embers on sentencing. Per the Elders.”

I knew that, of course. This entire conversation was for show, crafted with the intention of making Corvus sweat.

“If that’s the case, why have we not handed this fine gentleman off to the Pyrhhan Guard?”

“We tried to arrange an exchange of the prisoner, and their response was that without documented evidence of his involvement in the kidnappings, he is to walk free. No transfer necessary. Lord de Laurent’s direct orders.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. That part was news to me.

“Well then,” I mused. “If the illustrious Lord of Embers wills it, I suppose our hands are tied. We’ll have to let him walk free.”

“Kier—I mean, Captain—you can’t be serious,” Hans sputtered. I shot him a warning glare as he temporarily broke character, forgetting his assigned role as the honor-bound guardsman that Alistair Corvus expected him to be. “We know he was involved, we just don’t have the—”

“We have our orders, Deering,” I replied sharply, unlocking the prisoner’s shackles. The warning in my tone was only partially for show. Sometimes this asshole forgot that I knew my way around a godsdamned interrogation scene, even if it was rare for them to call me in for one these days. I had trained my men well.

Corvus’ entire body sagged in relief as I released him, and he rubbed at his chafed wrists as I gave him about three seconds of respite. Within a single breath, I let my Shadows gather, and with a flick of my wrist, bound the man against the stone wall again. He cried out in panic.

“Hey! The fuck is this? They said—”

Tendrils of stygian smoke began to tighten around his wrists and ankles, keeping him in place far better than the steel ever could.

“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head, Alistair,” I replied, a wicked smile spreading across my face as I took pleasure in his discomfort. “We’ll release you. Eventually.”

My commander would nail my balls to the wall for this little song and dance once he caught wind of it all, but so be it. I trusted my men, and if they said that Alistair Corvus was tied to the disappearance of a young boy, snatched from the safety of our city? The bastard was guilty. The Lord of Embers could get fucked.

Documented evidence… Seriously? Did he expect the culprit to scribble out his dastardly plans in a secret diary or something? There had been no witnesses, save one. This prick.

“Lieutenant Fairchilde,” I called out to my third, who was standing guard outside. “Send a note off to Fen, let her know we’re in need of a cleric. Preferably one of her more… discerning acolytes.”

Right on cue, Jeremiah let out an irritated groan. He was a far better actor than Hans.

“I tire of these games, Captain. Can we not just send for the Overseer and be done with it?”

At the mention of the notorious Elder, our captive began to writhe in panic, just as I’d hoped. I glanced back at him and chuckled softly. He was right to be afraid.

The Overseer was said to be one of the oldest of the remaining gods—and that he could wrest any thought he wished straight out of your head and replace it with one of his own. If we were to request his presence, this investigation would be over within the next thirty seconds… but where was the fun in that?

I cocked my head to the side, watching Alistair struggle.

“You seem more afraid of the Overseer than you are of us. A smidge short-sighted, don’t you think?” I asked, spinning the dagger between my fingertips for creative emphasis.

“He’s an Aetherborne, Vistarii. Of course I’m more afraid of that bastard. He is a god. You’re just a… a bootlicker. A sadist and a filthy godsdamned Conduit.”

“I am technically only one of those things,” I argued with a casual shrug. “And what you fail to understand here, Corvus, is that the Overseer would be a mercy.”

I waltzed up to the man with measured steps, close enough now that he could strangle me, if only the poor bastard wasn’t bound in place by my arcana.

“Sure, your own mind may incriminate you enough that you rot in the prisons of Pyrhhas for the rest of your days… but it really is a humane method of information retrieval, all things considered. He would just pluck the details we need right out of your ugly head, and leave your mind, body and spirit intact. I won’t be quite so kind.”

Malice glittered in Alistair’s eyes as a bead of sweat slipped down his grimy temples. There were dark circles forming under his eyes. My men had most assuredly done a number on this man long before I’d arrived, and yet he still hadn’t cracked.

“And unfortunately for you, the Overseer is, funnily enough, overseas at present. So let’s try again, shall we?”

As I tightened my left hand, the aetheric bindings on his wrists began to dig into the man’s flesh—I could feel it in the resistance of the arcane energy. With my right hand, I slid the dagger so softly against his grizzled throat that it could’ve been a caress, had it not drawn the slightest trickle of blood.

“Who actually took the child?”

The coward before me said nothing.

“Come on now, Alistair,” I crooned. “Give me what I want, and we can make this quick.”

“What do you care, Vistarii? What do any of you even care?! The brat isn’t even Pyrhhan, and he’s sure as shit not from Sophrosyne. Just some over-privileged snotrag from Vindyrst,” Alistair snapped.

Be that as it may, the Elder Guard had a commitment to the safety and well-being of anyone behind our walls. It didn’t matter where they came from—Sophrosyne was a melting pot, filled to the brim with students and visitors from across the realm. I raised a brow as the asshole continued to try to appeal to my sense of reason.

“I mean, do you even realize what atrocities that little shit’s father has committed against his people in the mountains? Of course not. All the while, the courts and Houses are doing fuck all about it with their thumbs up their arses, playin’ politics!”

It was then that I realized that even though my men had confirmed Alistair Corvus’ status as a Pyrhhan citizen, there was the slightest hint of Vindyrst in his accent.

So this was personal. That was going to be a problem. It was difficult to alter the minds of men who thought their actions were justified, no matter how heinous their ideas of retribution were. Difficult, but not impossible. Glancing down at the blade in my hand, I liked my chances.

“So you thought that the child needed to pay for the sins of his father?” I challenged through grit teeth. I knew where this conversation was going, and had already lost my patience for it.

“The way I see it, we’re just culling the problem before it becomes another one.”

Yeah. There it was.

“Wrong answer, my friend. Wrong fucking answer. Because the way I see it, the ‘problem’ in question? The one you’re trying to ‘cull’? That’s just a child. He’s only eleven. An eleven year old kid.” I spat. “And for that?”

I shoved the dagger into his thigh and pressed one hand over his mouth to mute the agonized screams. One of Fen’s clerics would be on their way soon enough.

“For that, Corvus… I will break you.”