Incentive.
The word echoes unpleasantly in my skull.
I don’t hear the moving bolts first. I hear the boots. They’re heavy and deliberate. Three sets. The cell door opens.
The guards enter without speaking. Two Glowranth and one human, all wearing Crown colours. The human keeps his eyes carefully averted from mine. The Glowranth don’t bother pretending.
They haul me off the cot before I can react.
My feet hit the floor awkwardly, balance thrown off by the bound arm, and I nearly collapse before they drag me upright.
“Easy,” one of them mutters in a voice that suggests the word has no real meaning here.
They don’t take me out of the cell. Instead, they shove me against the wall.
The first blow lands before I even realise they’ve started. A fist slams into my ribs hard enough that my vision explodes with sparks. I fold instinctively, gasping as pain rips through my chest.
Another hit follows immediately—this time across my shoulder. The broken arm lights up like someone has set fire to the inside of it. I scream before I can stop it. The sound tears out of my throat, raw and humiliating.
The guards don’t react. They don’t ask any questions. They don’t say a word.
They simply continue.
A knee drives into my stomach, folding me over. A backhand cracks across my jaw, followed by a boot slamming into my thigh when I try to stay upright.
Each hit is calculated enough to hurt but not enough to kill. Bruises bloom under my skin in rapid succession, the impact of each blow rippling through already battered muscle and bone.
And still?—
No questions.
Not one.
That’s when it sinks in: This isn’t interrogation. This is theatre.
They don’t need answers from me. They need noise.
Pain.
A message.
The Queen wasn’t lying.
They’re waiting for Varek.
I slide down the wall eventually, unable to keep my legs under me anymore. The guards let me fall. One of them grabs the collar of my shirt and yanks me upright just long enough for another punch to land square in my ribs.
The crack of impact reverberates through my chest. I gasp for air that won’t come, and my broken arm jerks against the binding. White agony flashes through my skull.
Still, no questions come. They’re not even pretending.
One of them drags me across the floor by the back of my shirt and dumps me against the cot frame. The metal edge slams into my spine.
I curl instinctively around the broken arm, breath hitching as waves of nausea roll through me. My body wants to shut down again. I don’t let it because if I lose consciousness too often, they’ll escalate. They’ll have to.
They need this to continue long enough for word to spread… I suppose in case Varek doesn’t feel my pain like they hope. For rumours to move through the city. For someone to carry the story to the rebellion and for the commander of the Riftborn to hear what’s happening to the human he apparently cares about.
My stomach twists. I press my forehead against the cold stone floor and breathe through clenched teeth.
