Arc 3: Chapter 25: Flicker
Far into the timeless hell of the Bell Ward’s underbelly, a door opened.
They were implements of torture themselves, the dungeon’s doors. Each opened resentfully, with squealing wails that seemed to echo through the halls forever. If I had managed to find a rare period of thoughtless sleep, one without nightmares, the opening of one of those iron-hinged monsters would drag me back into the filthy cell.
More than the sound itself was what it promised. Each time men came, they dragged one of the other prisoners away. I could hear them, their pleas and their sobs. They always returned silent, if they returned at all.
Eventually, I’d be the one taken away. It had happened several times already. I had no way to tell how long I’d been in the dark, and my interviews with the Presider were far enough between as to be useless for determining the passage of time.
He’d used water the first time, boiling and freezing. The second time he’d broken the fingers of my left hand, and only the left.
He’d asked me where the rest of the Table hid, mostly, and who else I’d cooperated with in my role as Headsman. He seemed convinced I worked for some element among the lords — no doubt he still believed I took my orders from Rose.
I gave him nothing, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I broke. I am not immune to pain. No man is.
I heal fast. That in itself cursed me here, because it meant there was more they could do to me, without killing me.
They told me they’d captured Emma, and were torturing her as well. I knew they lied, that it was a tactic to make me talk to spare her if not myself, so I’d kept my silence. Even still, she featured in many of my worst nightmares. I imagined them torturing her, imagined Kross making devil’s bargains she’d be forced to accept.
Every time they took me into the Presider’s office, the threat of worse hung over the questions. Oraise was a patient man, and I knew he hadn’t even started. He’d promised months of this.
Lias never came.