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The prisoner glowered up at him and snorted.
Altan raised a hand and slapped the prisoner on the blistered side of his face. Rin winced. By targeting the prisoner’s sore, open wounds, Altan was making him hurt worse and more acutely than any heavy-handed blows could.
“Where is the other offensive?” Altan repeated.
The prisoner spat blood at Altan’s feet.
“Answer me!” Altan shouted.
Rin jumped.
The prisoner raised his head. “Nikara swine,” he sneered.
Altan grabbed the prisoner by a fistful of hair in the back of his head. He slammed his other fist into the prisoner’s already bruised eye. Again. And again. Blood flew across the room, splashed against the dirt floor.
“Stop,” Rin squeaked.
Altan turned around.
“Leave the room or shut up,” he said.
“At this rate he’ll pass out,” she responded, her heart hammering. “And we don’t have time to revive him.”
Altan stared at her for a wild-eyed moment. Then he nodded curtly and turned back to the prisoner.
“Sit up.”
The prisoner muttered something none of them could understand.
Altan kicked him in the ribs. “Sit up!”
The prisoner spat another gob of blood on Altan’s boots. His head lolled to the side. Altan wiped his toe on the ground with deliberate slowness, then knelt down in front of the prisoner. He stuck two fingers under the prisoner’s chin and tilted his face up to his own in a gesture that was almost intimate.
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” he said. “Hey. Wake up.”
He slapped the prisoner’s cheeks until the prisoner’s eyes fluttered back open.
“I have nothing to say to you,” the prisoner sneered.
“You will,” Altan said. His voice dropped in pitch, a sharp contrast from his previous shouts. “Do you know what a Speerly is?”
The prisoner’s eyes furrowed together in confusion. “What?”
“Surely you know,” Altan said softly. His voice became a low, velvety purr. “Surely you’ve heard tales of us. Surely the island hasn’t forgotten. You must have been a child when your people massacred Speer, no? Did you know they did it overnight? Killed every single man, woman, and child.”
Sweat beaded at the prisoner’s temples, dripping down to mingle with fresh rivulets of blood. Altan snapped his fingers before the prisoner’s eyes. “Can you see this? Can you see my fingers? Yes or no.”
“Yes,” the prisoner said hoarsely.
Altan tilted his head. “They say your people were terrified of the Speerlies. That the generals gave orders that not one single Speerly child should survive, because they were so terrified of what we might become. Do you know why?”
The prisoner stared blankly forward.
Altan snapped again. His thumb and index finger burst into flames.
“This is why,” he said.
The prisoner’s eyes bulged with terror.
Altan brought his hand close to the prisoner’s face, so that the edge of the flame licked threateningly at the gas blisters.
“I will burn you piece by piece,” said Altan. His tone was so soft that he could have been speaking to a lover. “I will start with the bottoms of your feet. I will feed you one bit of pain at a time, so you will never lose consciousness. Your wounds will cauterize as soon as they manifest, so you won’t die from blood loss. When your feet are charred, coated entirely in black, I’ll move on to your fingers. I’ll make them drop off one by one. I will line up the charcoal stubs in a string to hang around your neck. When I’ve finished with your extremities, I’ll move on to your testicles. I will singe them so slowly you will go insane from the agony. Then you’ll sing.”
The prisoner’s eyes twitched madly, but still he shook his head.
Altan’s tone softened even further. “It doesn’t have to be like this. Your division let us take you. You don’t owe them anything.” His voice became soothing and hypnotic, almost gentle. “The others wanted to have you put to death, you know. Publicly executed before the civilians. They would have had you torn apart. An eye for an eye.” Altan’s voice was so lovely. He could be so beautiful, so charismatic, when he wanted to be. “But I’m not like the others. I’m reasonable. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want your cooperation.”
The soldier’s throat bobbed. His eyes darted across Altan’s face; he was hopelessly confused, trying to get a read and concluding nothing. Altan wore two masks at the same time, feigned two contrasting entities, and the prisoner did not know which to expect or pander to.
“Tell me, and I can have you released,” Altan said gently. “Tell me, and I’ll let you go.”
The prisoner maintained his silence.
“No?” Altan searched the prisoner’s face. “All right.” His flames doubled in intensity, shooting sparks through the air.
The prisoner shrieked. “Golyn Niis!”
Altan kept the flames held perilously close to the prisoner’s eyes. “Elaborate.”
“We never needed to take Khurdalain,” spat the prisoner. “The goal was always Golyn Niis. All your best divisions came flocking to the coast as soon as this war started. Idiots. We never even wanted this beach town.”
“But the fleet,” said Altan. “Khurdalain has been your point of entry for every offensive. You can’t get to Golyn Niis without going through Khurdalain.”
“There was another fleet,” hissed the prisoner. “There have been many fleets, sailing south of this pathetic city. They found the mountain pass. You poor idiots, did you think you could keep that a secret? They’re cutting straight toward Golyn Niis itself. Your war capital will burn, our Armed Forces are cutting directly across your heartland, and you’re still holed up here in this pathetic excuse for a city.”
Altan drew his hand back.
Rin flinched instinctively, expecting him to lash out again.
But Altan only extinguished his flame and patted the prisoner condescendingly on the head. “Good boy,” he said in a low whisper. “Thank you.”
He nodded to Rin and Chaghan, indicating they were about to leave.
“Wait,” the prisoner said hastily. “You said you’d let me go.”
Altan tilted his face up to the ceiling and sighed. A thin trickle of sweat ran from the bone under his ear down his neck.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll let you go.”
He whipped his hand across the prisoner’s neck. A spray of blood flew outward.
The prisoner bore an astonished expression. He made a last startled, choked noise. Then his eyes drooped closed and his head slumped forward. The smell of cooked meat and burned blood filled the air.
Rin tasted bile in the back of her throat. It was a long while before she remembered how to breathe.
Altan rose to his feet. The veins at his neck protruded in the dim light. He took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, like an opium smoker, like a man who had just filled his lungs with a drug. He turned toward them. His eyes glowed bright red in the darkness. His eyes were nothing human.
“Fine,” he said to his lieutenant. “You were right.”
Chaghan hadn’t moved throughout the entire interrogation.
