Page 53 of Turncloak

“Restrain him,” Levan said, his voice sounding very far away.

As Segal shackled the trembling boy with the same wall manacles Silver had been bound in, Levan tried not to think of her screams as the hot poker met her flesh. The rancid smell of it, the frantic pattering of her unconscious heart as he’d carried her to her chamber.

He tried not to think of his own branding. The way he’d pleaded and begged, promised to do anything they wanted without hesitation, no need for the brand, please, I promise, I will never betray—

Then the agony. The forking, shredding, all-consuming heat, his vision bleached white. An owl hooting in the distance, in another world, perhaps. The shame of the wet patch in his trousers.

Crossing the office to the fireplace—stepping over Rasso’s sleeping body—he lifted the branding poker from the brass rack and held the round stamp over the flames until it glowed orange and then white. He tossed a colored powder from a small ashtray into the flames, and they turned a dark and angry crimson. Behind him came the ripping sound of torn fabric. Segal had shredded the boy’s tunic.

“Ver fidan, nis morten,” he uttered, his own brand pulsing with self-loathing. “Ver fidan, nis morten. Ver fidan, nis morten. Medei perpetua.”

Medei perpetua. Not the first time he had uttered those words, but the first time he had used them for ill.

Would it work?

Until now, his magic had bucked and pinwheeled and disobeyed. Now he was asking something so dark of it that he almost prayed it would not respond, but he wouldn’t know until the metal met flesh, until he issued an order and waited to see how the boy responded.

His father had wanted to do this to Alucia—it was one of the conditions of their marriage. Lyrian would not allow anyone to marry into the family without being wholly certain of her loyalties. Levan had, of course, refused this, refused to allow her to endure such pain, such humiliation, just to be with him. They’d been planning to wed in secret, but her treachery had been exposed a week too soon. And as it turned out, his father’s distrust had been founded all along.

The poker was hot enough now, had been for several moments.

As Levan turned to the boy’s shackled form, the sight of the bare torso almost broke him. He was so pale, so bony, with purple stretch marks up his belly from growing too tall too fast. His nipples were tiny, and his breathing was so panicked and raw that his diaphragm rose and fell in tremulous gasps. Tears fell freely from his brown eyes, and his bottom lip quivered uncontrollably.

The black walls of his father’s office were closing in on Levan.

Before the poker could lose too much heat, he crossed the room, round stamp outstretched.

The boy whimpered, tried to pull his body away, to make himself small, but there was nowhere to go.

All at once, Levan was a boy again, flat on his back on the floor of the shack, the pieces of a discarded board game scattered like debris from a great explosion, Perant pinning down his arms with two well-placed knees, Vogolan looming over him with the very same hot poker. Levan had never known fear like the fear he’d felt in the few moments before heat met skin. It still woke him in the night all these years later.

Relar Zamorin, an apothecary’s apprentice, an innocent grandson, would be traumatized for the rest of his life.

Shining brown eyes pleaded with him.

Levan lowered the poker to his side, struggling immensely to control his breathing.

“You will inform for us without the brand.”

He uttered the words with the full force of his compelling—though it was impossible to know, yet, whether said compelling would work. Whether his connection with magic was forever broken.

The boy’s eyes flew wide, hardly daring to hope. A cautious, semi-rabid expression, like a blackfox anticipating a trap but wanting the morsel inside it too badly to resist.

“Yes. Y-yes, sir, of course.”

“You will relay every ingredient the Whitewings ask you for, every request no matter how seemingly small and insignificant. And if they demand information on our operation, you will lie. Say you haven’t been able to penetrate our inner circle.”

“Yes.” A gasp, a sob. “Yes, thank you, thank you.”

Segal stepped forward, outraged. “This is a mistake. This is weakness.”

“Actually,” said Levan, forcing a cool confidence into his tone, “I believe mercy is a kind of strength, but perhaps we could leave the philosophical debates until later. Unshackle him.”

“Your father would never—”

“My father is dead. You yourself are without magic, without pain or pleasure. A ghost of a mage, an afterimage. I take orders and opinions from neither of you.”

Segal made a sharp hissing sound. “Your fool’s instincts almost cost us everything with Alucia Martou, and you have learned nothing since. Saffron Killoran is proof of that.”