Dedication
For Sam “Secret Agent Man” Morgan
Chapter One
The really annoying thing about being tortured was that Detan had volunteered for the experience. He hung from the ceiling of a nasty little room in the yellowhouse, ropes digging into the tender flesh of his wrists. Slowly, he spun, toes brushing the grit of the floor, body twisting as he struggled to grip the rope and haul himself up to relieve the pain. No use. He’d been there too long, and each time he managed to lift himself the muscles of his arms and shoulders trembled until he fell again. The ropes bit all the deeper for the extra weight jerked upon them.
Aella laughed. He tried to glare at her, but with the sack pulled over his head he probably just scowled at a blank wall.
“Sadist,” he said.
“Need I remind you this was your idea? Though I’m beginning to think it was a poor one. We’re to test your control, Honding. If you keep lipping off, remaining calm, then greater measures will need to be taken.”
The butt of Misol’s spear scraped pointedly against the hard stone. He swallowed.
“I can’t help it if you can’t get a rise out of me, Aella. I suppose your flavor of fear just isn’t my type.”
His body screamed at him to shut his mouth, to button up to stop the pain from coming. But he’d asked for this. Needed it, if he were being honest with himself. Needed to know where the fine limits of his control rested, and just how hard they could be nudged.
Aella tsked. Her bare feet pattered against the floor as she paced. She’d taken her slippers off to keep the blood from staining. “A full shift of the moon, and we haven’t been able to push the limits of your temper. A pity, for you, that Pelkaia taught you her calming techniques. If you’d come to me ignorant, then we could have kept our measures mild. I wonder,” she hmmed to herself, “if I shouldn’t have kept Tibal after all.”
He went rigid.
“Oh, he was useless to me, really,” she continued. Her tunic shifted, the slight rustle of fabric telling him she was circling. Like a shark that’d scented blood. He tried to keep his head down, his body loose, while she paced. “No sense in his thin little body. No sense in his head, either, to have followed you around as long as he did. I wonder how much it hurt him, to hear you tell him off? I wonder: just where did it cut? Is he still bleeding inside? Or is he done with you already? Found another capering idiot to keep alive with his spare time?
“Perhaps I should have kept him, just to put him out of his misery. There is still time, I suppose. Misol, how long do you think it would take to reach Hond Steading?”
“Monsoons are in,” Misol replied. “On the Larkspur, maybe two weeks.”
“Oh, but I doubt he took the Larkspur.” Her fingers brushed Detan’s jawline through the bag. He flinched away. “No, he took the flier, didn’t he? I’m sure he had that contraption stashed somewhere, he’s such a sentimental sack of bones. A month, easily, to get to Hond Steading in the monsoons on that thing. I bet he’s not even there yet. I could send a message along, quick as an arrow. Have him scooped up, brought back to make you sing for his pain. Would you like that, Honding? To see your little friend again? To see him bleed?”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” Anger sang through him, thrummed just beneath his skin, choked him with the urge to lash out, to grab at the thin sheet of selium hovering just above the yellowhouse.
She clapped. “Ah, there it is! Aren’t you a soft soul? Your own pain won’t do it, but those of others whips you right up. Pity we don’t have anyone you value close to hand.”
“I think you’re just precious, Aella. Why don’t you string yourself up here? I’m sure my heart will burst from sadness.”
“You see? It’s that attitude that keeps us from testing you as you are. Misol, prepare a message for Thratia’s network. Send word that Tibal’s presence is requested here at the Remnant, with all haste.”
Detan’s stomach sank, cold sweat dripped between his wrenched shoulder blades. He had to get angry. Had to work up a righteous fury. It shouldn’t be hard. He knew Aella was serious, knew she’d do just exactly what she said she’d do to break him. Images of Tibs hanging in his place, dripping sweat and blood and bile onto the hard floor, filled him. He shivered, nausea threatening to rise, unable to shake his shame when what he desperately wanted was a good outburst.
Misol said, “Pardon, Miss Ward, but I’ve an idea that’s a bit closer to hand.”
“Oh? Don’t tell me he’s developed a soft spot for you.”
“Hardly. But there are two women here at the Remnant I’ve been keeping an eye on. Friends of Ripka’s. Without their help, she would have been torn apart in the riot on that last day. I bet Honding would feel just terrible if they were to suffer for his insufficiencies.”
“I’m willing to try it. Go collect these women.”
Misol slipped from the room, letting the door bang shut behind her.
“Those women.” Detan licked his cracked lips. “They have nothing to do with this. My control has grown much in the last few weeks, I hardly think it’s necessary to bring them into things.”
“No, they don’t.” Aella sighed. “And while your control is admirable, it has not been tested under true duress.” She gave his ropes a jangle, and he winced from the hundred tiny lances of pain that raked through his arms. “We must be certain, or would you rather risk blowing the head off some poor innocent because you believe yourself under control?”
“It’s unnecessarily cruel.” His voice drifted into a soft growl.
“That is the point.” She stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. “And isn’t it just heaps of fun?”
Chapter Two
Hond Steading lay like a pearl without the shelter of its shell upon the horizon. The great city, the first city, the heart of all the Scorched continent, was a cracked open thing. Broken and spread across the wide valley between its renowned firemounts, it sprawled and breathed and pumped, citizens filling out its flush lanes, the figures indistinct from a distance but merging together to make a whole as alive and vibrant from above as it must be from up close.
It should have been beautiful. But all Ripka saw, as she squinted over the forerail of the Larkspur, was an indefensible mess. A loose-knit cluster of urban living threaded between the most valuable resource of the Scorched – its firemounts – ripe and ready for Thratia to pluck.
“Looks bad,” Nouli said.
He stood beside her, rubbing his hands together as the city sprawl came into view.
She gave him a sidelong glance. “You think?”
He puffed out his cheeks and chuckled. “Forgive me, but I have to start somewhere. This city you’ve brought me to defend, did you know it was so…” He waved a hand over the disparate pieces below.
“This is the first time I’ve seen it. Detan assured me you’d be able to figure something out.”
“I appreciate the man’s faith, but some things–”
“Prepare to dock!” Coss bellowed from the nav podium.
Activity burst across the deck. Pelkaia’s crew scrambled to their tasks, the ship turning on a knife’s edge to slew toward its destination. Desert air gusted against Ripka’s cheeks, sweeping her hair from her face and neck. She breathed deep of the rock-and-dust scent, caught a hint of the weedy greens that flourished below. After so long on the Remnant, setting down in a proper Scorched city again felt like coming home.