*
The capital prison was outside the palace walls, situated a little lower on the mountain, on the other side of the city, in a natural sinkhole that was expanded and fortified and spiraled with seemingly endless descending staircases. It was small—the prison of the eastern empire was rumored to be as large as an underground city—but its size suited the Valorian emperor well. Most criminals were shipped to a labor camp in the mines of the frozen north. Those that were left behind were the very worst, and soon executed.
Oil lamps were lit, and the captain led Kestrel down the first black, airless stairwell. The trailing fabric of her dress hissed behind her. It was hard not to imagine that she was a prisoner being led to her cell. Kestrel’s heartbeat tricked her; it fumbled at the thought of being caught at some crime, of being locked up in the dark.
They passed a cell. Fingers curled like white worms through the bars of the cell’s small window. A voice rasped something in a language Kestrel didn’t recognize. It had a lisping quality she couldn’t place until she realized that this must be the sound of someone who had no teeth. She shrank back.
“Keep away from the bars,” said the captain. “This way,” he added, as if there were any way but down.
When the staircase finally ran out of steps, it threw Kestrel off balance to stand on unstaggered ground. The corridor smelled like wet rock and sewage.
The captain opened a cell and ushered Kestrel inside. For a moment she hesitated, instantly and wildly sure that he meant to trap her here. Her hand went to the dagger at her hip.
The captain chuckled. The sound triggered a metallic rattle in the corner of the cell, and the captain lifted his lamp to illuminate a sitting man who strained at chains embedded in the wall. His bare heels scrubbed the uneven floor as he tried to push back, away from the captain.
“Don’t worry,” the captain said to Kestrel. “He’s harmless. Here.” He passed her the lamp, then dragged on a loose end of chain to draw the prisoner tight against the wall. The man shuddered and wept. He began to pray to all hundred of the Herrani gods.
She didn’t recognize him. A relief. Then came a clammy shame. What did it matter if she knew him or not? The prisoner was going to suffer. She could see his suffering written in the captain’s lamplit eyes.
Kestrel would not stay. She could not watch. She turned toward the door.
“That’s against the emperor’s rules,” the captain told her. “He said that you have to be here for the whole of it. He said that if you became uncooperative, I should cut off this man’s fingers instead of his skin.”
The prisoner’s prayer halted. Shakily, it started up again.
Kestrel felt like that thin, keening voice. Like the sound of a gear cranked tight and then let go. “I don’t belong here,” she said.
“You’re my future empress,” said the captain. “You do. Or did you think that ruling meant only dresses and dances?” He checked that the chain was taut. The man hung from his bonds. “The lamp, my lady.” The captain beckoned her closer.
The prisoner lifted his head. Lamplight flared on his eyes, and even though Kestrel knew that this broken man wasn’t Arin—the prisoner was too old, his features too delicate—her heart seized. They were ordinary eyes for a Herrani. But gray and clear, just like Arin’s. And it suddenly seemed that Arin was the one stumbling over the name of the god of mercy, that he was begging her for something she had no idea how to give.
“The lamp,” the captain said again. “Are you going to be difficult so soon, Lady Kestrel?”
She came forward. She saw, then, the outline of a bucket near the prisoner, filled to the brim with feces and urine, and that the man’s right hand was a padded mitten of gauze.
The captain stripped it off. The prisoner choked on his prayer.
The skin on three fingers was missing.
Kestrel caught a glimpse of pink muscle and creamy, glistening bands of tendon. Her stomach heaved. The captain pulled a small table from a dark corner of the cell and flattened the man’s hand across it, palm up.
“What is your name?” the captain asked him. When there was no answer, the Valorian drew his dagger and cut into the prisoner’s fourth finger. Blood fountained up.
“Stop,” Kestrel begged. “Stop this.”
The prisoner thrashed, but was pinioned by the wrist. The captain raised his dagger again.
Kestrel caught his arm. Her fingers dug in, and the captain’s face seemed to open—almost greedily, with a shine that said that he had awaited her failure. That’s what this was. Kestrel had been failing the emperor’s test even without knowing its criteria. Every hesitation was a black mark against her. Each ounce of her pity was being tallied by the captain, hoarded to be tipped out later before the emperor, spilled before him to say, Look what a pathetic girl she is. How weak of will. She has no stomach to rule.
She didn’t. Not if this was what ruling an empire meant.
She wasn’t sure what she would have done next if the prisoner hadn’t gone still. He was staring at Kestrel. His eyes were wide, streaming. Stunned. He recognized her. She didn’t know him. The urgency of his expression, however, was that of someone who has found a familiar key to a box he is desperate to unlock.
“My name is Thrynne,” he whispered to her in Herrani. “Tell him that I—”
The captain shook off Kestrel’s slackened grip and rounded on the prisoner. “You’ll tell me yourself.” The captain spoke Herrani with heavily accented fluency. “It’s good that you’re ready to talk. Now, Thrynne. What were you saying? Tell me what?”
The prisoner’s mouth worked soundlessly. Blood welled across the table. The captain’s blade gleamed.
Kestrel was calm now. It was the way the prisoner was looking at her—as if she were a stroke of good fortune. She couldn’t betray that, even if she didn’t understand it. She would make herself capable. She would handle whatever his expression was asking her to handle.
“I don’t remember,” Thrynne said.
“Tell me or I’ll strip you bare.”
“Captain,” said Kestrel. “He’s confused. Give him a moment—”
“You are confused if you think to interfere with my interrogation. You’re here to listen. Thrynne, I asked you a question. Stop looking at her. She isn’t important. I am.”
Thrynne’s gaze jumped between them. He made a guttural sound, urgent and rough, with the slight whine of tamped-down pain. He focused on Kestrel. “Please,” he said hoarsely, “he needs to know.”
The captain peeled off a piece of skin and flicked it into the bucket.
Thrynne screamed. The scream broken by sucked breaths, it rang through Kestrel’s head.
She reached for the captain. She tried to snag the hand that held his blade. He shoved her back easily, without even looking, and she fell.
“Don’t refuse me, Thrynne,” said the captain. “‘No’ doesn’t exist anymore. Only ‘yes.’ Do you understand?”
The scream was bitten off. “Yes.”
Kestrel got to her feet. “Captain—”
“Quiet. You’re only making this worse.” To Thrynne he said, “What were you doing eavesdropping outside the doors of a private meeting between the emperor and the Senate leader?”
“Nothing! Cleaning. I clean.”
“That sounds like a ‘no’ to me.”
“No! I mean, yes, yes, I was sweeping the floor. I clean. I’m a servant.”