“I wouldn’t gloat if I were you,” Reizei says. I don’t miss the warning note in his voice. He’s an agitated snake, ready to strike. “Don’t forget where you are right now.”
“Keeping me here won’t eliminate your problem,” I say, amused. “Savage King might have started as a one-person operation. But it has grown since then. I nurtured it until it sprouted into a network of capable people, passionate about the same goal.”
Reizei’s smirk awakens fear inside me, its cold fingers squeezing my stomach. “Are you sure your little network of whores is capable of surviving without you leading them? Kitajo was an arrogant man, often overestimating his abilities and howfar his influence and power stretched. That’s what got him killed in the end. I thought you’d be wiser than that.”
I inhale a sharp breath and purse my lips. His words are like a sharp blade, sinking deeper into my chest with each passing moment. Rage coils inside my belly like a hungry snake. It’s eager to be unleashed to the world.
Reizei is not wrong about one thing. I’m better than my impulses.
“We will have to see, I guess,” I say, calmly.
Reizei leans back in his chair and weaves his fingers in front of his chest. “Tell me, Vera D’Argent, how vast is that network you’re so proud of? Who leads all the whores in your absence?”
I bark a laugh. “You really expect me to tell you? I thought you’d be wiser than that.”
I hold his cold-as-the-depths-of-winter gaze. The silence stretches between us. Reizei’s the first to break eye contact. He jerks his chin at his men. Two Caligos unsheathe the blades strapped to their belts and step forward.
My heart drops.
“When you do what I do for long enough, you learn many different ways to make people comfortable enough to want to speak their minds,” Reizei says, his voice light as a feather. “With some, it takes less time, with others more. But the thing is—sooner or later it always happens.”
Another step closer to me. I strain against the bindings on my wrists. I can’t help but flinch away from the danger that’s approaching.
“How long will it take for you, Vera D’Argent?” Reizei waves his hand dismissively before I can even answer. “No matter. Because you’re my special guest, I would like to start with my favorite method to make peoplesing.”
“I’m honored,” I say, the words coming out breathless.
Two Caligos are a step away from me. Their blades are polished and poised to slice me open.
“They call it a death by a thousand cuts. Poetic, isn’t it?”
A scream wretches its way out of my throat when the first blade slides over the outside of my forearm. I fist my hands, my breathing labored. I have no time to recover, because the second Caligos presses the blade to the skin right below my collarbone and cuts through my chest diagonally.
“Nine hundred ninety-eight,” Reizei says, cocking his head to the side.
I’m breathing through my clenched teeth, every muscle in my body tense. But I don’t yield. The third cut goes from the middle of my chest, down through the valley between my breasts.
My skin burns, and I can’t hold the scream inside.
“Nine hundred ninety-seven.” I pant the words out, glaring at Reizei.
“As a Caetra, you ought to be more concerned about your appearance and how each cut on your body will look once it’s healed,” he says. His gaze slithers down my body and back up. “No noble or Ezkai will want to pay a premium to feel scarred flesh under their fingertips.”
I sneer at him. “You worry about your business, and I’ll worry about mine.”
Reizei smirks, resting his chin on the back of his fist. His lapdogs don’t need to be ordered to continue. They continue to slice my forearms, and my chest. Each cut is as painful as the last one, each scream just as filled with agony as the next one.
“Nine hundred ninety,” Reizei says. “Ready to sing yet, little bird?”
I lean forward in my chair. “Fuck. You.”
Reizei’s eyes flash. One of the Caligos takes hold of my wrist and pries my fist open. When I realize what he’s about to do, I thrash against the restraints.
Of course, it does me no good.
The pain of the blade slicing through the skin, the flesh, and the bone of my pinky finger is greater than I could have ever imagined. I scream so loud my vocal cords threaten to rip into shreds.
So much blood.
