This was the cell for the most important prisoners. It had held pretenders to the Sun Throne, it had even held a few who beforehand had given themselves the title of Kraljiki or Kraljica. Karl had once been imprisoned here, and Sergei himself-they had both managed to escape: Karl through Mahri’s magic, and Sergei with Karl and Varina’s help. Sergei remembered the cell all too welclass="underline" a frigid stone floor covered with filthy straw, a single bed with a thin blanket, a small wooden table for meals, an opening in the outer wall leading to a narrow balcony from where the prisoner could look out over the city (and from which more than one prisoner had decided to end his incarceration by falling into the courtyard far below.)
Nico was standing on that balcony now, staring outward. Sergei didn’t know if the young man hadn’t heard him enter, or if he didn’t care. His hair was mussed and greasy, standing up erratically between the straps of the silencer laced around his head. His hands and feet were bound with iron chains and manacles so he could only manage a rattling shuffle.
Sergei stepped inside the cell. Leaning on his cane, he spoke loudly, as if declaiming from a stage. “A single dew drop lingers on black iron, reflecting a free sky, waiting to be breathed up by the fierce sun and fall yet again, exhaled by cloud.
So a soul, eternal, will also never vanish but only cloak itself anew and return.”
Nico had turned at Sergei’s recitation. He stared at Sergei now, with those eyes that were still compelling and powerful. “The poem ‘Rebirth’ by Levo ca’Niomi,” he said to Nico. “You’ve heard of him, yes? I think I have that one right-I once spent far too many turns of the glass memorizing his poetry while sitting in the Capitaine’s office here. We have the original manuscripts of ca’Niomi’s poetry here, did you know that? He had a very nice hand, rather ornate. He spent decades here after his thankfully short reign as Kraljiki; this very cell is where he composed all the verses for which he’s so famous. So you see, a life spent imprisoned need not be an entirely wasted one.”
Nico stared through the straps of the silencer. Saliva dripped from the leather-wrapped piece protruding into his mouth, shining among the strands of his beard and darkening the front of his plain tunic. Sergei could hear his breath rattling around the device.
“If you promise me that you’ll not use the Ilmodo-not that I think you can with your hands bound that way-and if you promise to make no attempt to escape, I will remove the silencer. I will expect you to swear to Cenzi that you’ll do neither. Nod your head if you agree.”
Nico nodded, slowly, and Sergei set down the leather roll on the bed, then came over to the young man. “Turn around,” he said, “and crouch down a little so I can get to the buckles…” Carefully, he unbuckled the straps and lifted the device from Nico’s head, the man gagging as the metal piece was removed from his mouth. Sergei stepped back, the silencer dangling from his hand, the buckles jingling.
“Stay where you are,” he told Nico. He walked slowly outside the open cell door and, groaning, bent over to pick up the garda’s water flask. He brought it inside, handing it to Nico. “Go on…”
He watched the young man drink, gulping down the water. Nico handed the flask back to Sergei, who set it on the table. “Are you going to torture me now?” Nico asked. His beautiful voice was harshened and torn by having worn the silencer for so long. He cleared his throat, and Sergei heard the breath rattling in his lungs-prisoners often became sick here, and many died from the wet lung disease. He wondered if Nico would be one.
“Is that what you think I am, your torturer?” he asked Nico. “Does the thought frighten you? Do you wonder what it will feel like, whether you’ll be able to stand the pain, whether you’ll scream and scream until your throat is raw, when you hear your bones snap, when you see the blood flowing, when you’re forced to watch parts of your body flayed and torn and crushed? Do you wonder if you’ll beg for it to end, that you’ll promise me anything if I would just stop?” He could not entirely keep the eagerness from his voice; he knew Nico heard it.
Nico gulped audibly, his throat moving under the thin scraggly beard. Sergei saw his eyes glance over to the leather roll on his bed. “I know about you, Silvernose,” Nico said. “Everyone does.”
“Do they? What is it they say, I wonder? No, don’t answer. I’ve a question for you instead-how does it feel to know that you’re going to be remembered as someone even more reviled than me? How does it feel to know that, because of your pride and arrogance and misplaced faith, the woman who was carrying your child is dead?”
Sergei saw tears form in Nico’s eyes, saw them grow and fall down his cheeks untouched. “You can’t hurt me more than that,” Nico said, his voice breaking with emotion. “You can’t cause me more pain than I’ve already caused myself.”
“Brave words,” Sergei answered, “even if they’re not true.”
Deliberately, he went over to the roll of leather, leaning his cane against the bed. He bent down as if he were about to open the ties that held it closed, then straightened again. “I met an interesting young woman on the way back to Nessantico,” he said.
Nico scowled. “I’m not interested in your filthy debauchery, ca’Rudka.”
Sergei almost laughed. “There was no ‘debauchery,’ I’m afraid. Not that I wouldn’t have been interested, mind you, especially since I wonder if she might not have shared my, umm, preferences. But there was conversation. Strangely, I saw a mirror of myself in her, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Even worse than the genuine one.” He touched his nose for emphasis. “But I wondered… Can she change herself? Can she avoid becoming what I’ve become, or is that a hopeless task? Are we what Cenzi makes us, or can we change what we’re given? It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?”
He bent down again to the leather roll. He pulled on the ties, unknotting them. He paused, fingertips on the old, soft leather, looking back over his shoulder at Nico, who was staring in dread fascination: as they all did, all of them whom he was about to torture.
They all looked. They could not fail to look.
“It’s a question we might discuss, you and I,” Sergei said. “I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.”
With that, he flicked open the leather roll. Inside, cushioned, was a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and a bottle of wine. He heard Nico’s gasp of relief and disbelief. “Varina ca’Pallo sent these,” Sergei told him. “You have her to thank for your life.”
“My life?” Sergei heard the breath of hope in his voice, and he nodded.
“She pleaded for you with the Kraljica. As you might have expected, you were to be given first to the Archigos so he could take your hands and your tongue, and then tortured and executed by the Garde Kralji-all in public so the citizens could hear your screams and see the blood. But your life has been spared-by a Numetodo. By a woman you profess to hate. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Why?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Sergei answered. “Had it been my choice, you would already be dead and your body, hands, and tongue would be hanging from the Pontica a’Kralji as a lesson to others. But Varina…” He shrugged. “She loved you, Nico. Both she and Karl would have taken you for their own son, if they’d had the chance. In another life, you might have been Numetodo yourself.”
Nico shook his head in denial, but the movement of his head was slow and faint.
Nico Morel
“In another life, you might have been Numetodo yourself.”
No. That would never have been. Cenzi wouldn’t have allowed it. He wanted to rage and deny the accusation, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel Cenzi at all; he hadn’t felt Him since he’d watched Liana fall. Cenzi had forsaken him. Nico had spent his time praying as best he could in the midst of his black despair. Save me if that is Your Will. I am in Your Hands. Save me if there is still more that I need to do for You here, or take me to Your Bosom. I am Your servant, I am Your Hand and Your Voice. I am nothing without You… He had once felt so full of Cenzi that it seemed impossible not to be one with Him. Now, he was empty and alone.