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He’ll break soon.
I can see it in his eyes; wide with terror, the glazed stupor of denial slowly turning into realization. Through my herbal-scented mask, I can smell him; sweat and filth and the coppery stench of his blood.
I’m repulsed.
After Finley, I’ll probably never want to taste another man’s blood again.
I sigh. “I can do this all day, Lucar. Maybe I’ll skip the fingers next and go straight to a limb. Arm or leg. Your choice.”
“Urgh.” He makes a strange sound; primal, guttural, incomprehensible.
It’s the sound of a man who’s realized he’s completely powerless.
And just like that, he folds. His shoulders slump. A tremor courses through him. He buries his face in his hands and lets out a shuddering sob. “Oh,Goddess,” he whimpers.
“Lucar,” I say softly, making it sound as if I’m relenting a little. “Focus, man.”
“Argh, bloody hells, you fucking maniac. She’s… she’s born to an outlander, all right?”
Oh.And so we get ever closer to the truth.
It explains why Finley has dark eyes and dark hair, in contrast to her father and her brothers.
“An outlander? Fromwhere, exactly?”
“Batava.”
Thirty years ago, my father sent his armies across the sea to try and conquer the peninsula lands of Batava. I was just a boy at the time. I would spend countless evenings poring over maps and charts with my father, playing at strategy, moving silver pieces into place.
But once his armies landed, the map reading and games of strategy stopped.
And several years later, the Rahavan forces returned, at a third of their original size, and the land of Batava hadnotbeen conquered, and talk of the failed campaign was forbidden.
“How does a Batavan come to be in Rahava?”
“I brought her back,” he admits quietly, his voice tinged with bitterness. “I was one of the few that returned from the Batavan War. And she was beautiful. Exotic. A prize. I couldn’t help it.”
My anger returns, colder than before. All this talk of war is making me desolate. I’m filled with anger and dread for Finley’s mother. “What did you do to her, Lucar?”
“Sh-she left.” His left eye rolls upwards ever so slightly. Despite the cold, he’s sweating more than ever. “When Finley was a babe. She was yearning for her homeland.”
“What did I say about lying to me, Lucar?” The cold feeling is gone, replaced with incandescent anger. This is Finley’smotherwe’re talking about, and he has the fucking nerve to lie to me about her?
I take his ring finger.
“Urgh…” He tries to yank his hand backwards, but I’m too fast.
There’s a soft crunch as bones and cartilage fold as easily as paper.
The baron lets out a desperate, choked sob. “S-stop!”
“It’ll be some time before you’ll be able to hold a sword again,” I say softly. “My physician can re-set those fingers, but if I have to break any more, you’ll never wield a blade again.”
“Just stop. I’ll tell you,” he grunts, the last of his resolve crumbling. “Th-that woman… Finley’s mother… she’s a monster. I didn’t know… she was unconscious and wounded when I took her from the battlefield. It was only later… when she healed…. we had to put dampening irons on her. If they ever release her, she will—”
I shoot forward and grab Lucar’s neck, slamming him against the floor. Right now, I really,reallywant to kill him. “Where is she now?” I relent ever so slightly so he can talk.
He coughs and rasps. “I… I don’t know. Your father was interested in her; in the fact that she didn’t seem to age. He came and took her away… for research. To the Imperial Labs in Grenevere.”
