A naked woman sat in the chair, her forehead, neck, and chest secured to its back by leather straps. She hung slack in her bonds, as if she had passed out from whatever made her scream. Her head was shaven, recently from the pile of white braids left on the floor. Rivulets of blood ran down her cheeks and pooled in the hollow of her exposed neck, before spilling again down her chest.
But worst of all was the top of her head. From her skull, a half dozen copper needles stuck out. As Mikaen watched, Vythaas crossed around his table to the back of her chair. The Shrive leaned over his captive, lifted his hands, and sank another copper sliver, as long as Mikaen’s outstretched fingers, through a hole freshly drilled through scalp and bone.
Mikaen pictured that needle sinking deep into the woman’s brain.
What is that bastard doing?
Even the king looked aghast, turning wide eyes on Wryth. “What is the meaning of this?”
Wryth lifted a hand, asking for patience. “Prioress Ghyle has proven far more stubborn than we anticipated.”
* * *
MIKAEN PACED THE room as Wryth and Vythaas finished some final preparations with the trussed-up mistress of the Cloistery. They measured the copper needles in her skull, shifted each incrementally, whispering together.
Mikaen kept his arms folded over his chest, trying to hold in his horror, to mask any sign of shock or fright in front of his father and the liege general. He smelled the blood, even the pool of piss under the chair that torture had wracked out of the woman. His tongue tasted the bitter alchymicals burning in the flames of the hearth.
He kept his gaze away from the chair. He knew Anskar vy Donn, the head of the detachment of Vyrllian Guards, had returned from the swamps, both furious and empty-handed. As best Mikaen could understand, his brother, Kanthe, had absconded with the girl who had miraculously survived the bat’s poison.
Brother, what mischief have you entangled yourself in?
It was a question that needed answering. Anskar suspected there was more afoot, plots within schemes. So, he had returned with the school’s prioress in hand, believing she knew more than she would admit to him. To get answers, he brought her before the king.
Mikaen swallowed and looked at the bloody woman.
And my father gave her to the Iflelen.
Wryth seemed to note all their distress. “As stubborn as Prioress Ghyle has been, I fear this is the only way to make her talk. And with our mooring docks smoking and rumors of ships massing along the coasts of the Klashe, we dare not dally with ordinary methods of inquiry.”
“But what is this that you’re doing?” Toranth gasped out, motioning across the breadth of the room.
“It’s a technique honed by Vythaas but derived from centuries of study.” Wryth turned to his fellow Shrive. “Are you ready? Can you demonstrate?”
Vythaas gave a small bow of his head and crossed back to the table. He picked up a coppery box, which had the same needles poking out of it, though each ended in a puff of feathery filaments so fine they appeared more like soft down. He thumbed a small lever on one side and a low hum rose from the box.
The noise spread around the room and grew sharper, trapped between the chamber’s iron walls. In another breath, its edges grew as sharp as the finest blade, yet toothed like a saw. It scratched at his ears, stabbed into his skull. Even Haddan winced, and Mikaen had once watched the man sew a sword slice across his own thigh without a flinch, even laughing while he set needle to flesh.
The tiny tufted filaments began to glow faintly, with the very air seeming to shiver around those tips. And still the keening rose higher.
A pained gasp drew Mikaen’s attention to the woman. The prioress’s eyes were stretched open but appeared blind, her mouth twisted in a rictus of agony. The needles sprouting from her scalp now shone with the same glow as the filaments from the box. Their lengths looked to be shivering in her skull.
Vythaas studied her reaction until the woman’s expression went slack, succumbing to whatever magick was employed here. Still, her brow remained beaded with sweat, like juice squeezed out of the flesh of a plum. Somewhere inside, she clearly labored against this assault.
Vythaas nodded to Wryth.
The Shrive turned to King Toranth, speaking louder to be heard past the screaming of the copper box. “Sire, you may now ask any questions you wish. She will not be able to refuse.” He waved to the prioress. “Her will is suppressed, leaving no space for lies.”
“But how…？” Toranth asked, his gaze sickly but also fascinated.
Wryth sighed, clearly seeking a way to explain to those who were not steeped in Shriven knowledge. He finally settled upon an explanation. “You are familiar with bridle-song, are you not? How some have the talent to lull the simplest of beasts and sway them to do their bidding. What we do here is much like that, using sound, heat, and vibration through the air to strip others of their will and force them to bow to ours.”
Haddan’s voice roughened with amazement. “So, with this method, you’re able to imitate or mock bridle-song?”
Mikaen felt none of the general’s appreciation. It’s not a mock of bridle-song, but a foul mockery of it.
“Indeed.” Wryth turned to the king and waved toward the prioress. “Ask what you wish to know.”
The king stepped forward, wincing at the noise as he drew nearer to the chair. “Prioress Ghyle, what role did you play in the disappearance of my son Kanthe?”
Those dull eyes found the strength to shift and settle on Toranth. Her cracked lips parted. “I … told him. A … A great danger comes. Moonfall … it will end all.”
Mikaen noted the king’s shoulders rise. He knew how much store his father placed in portents of the future. Toranth kept as many soothers and bone-tossers in his palacio as he did pleasure serfs.
“Who speaks of such doom?” Toranth asked.
“Al … chymist Frell. He calibrated … stars. And another, too…”
“Who?”
“A girl … Nyx … heard in warnings from the cries of M?r bats.”
Haddan scoffed loudly.
The king waved him silent.
Wryth shrugged. “True or not, the prioress believes it. She cannot lie.”
Haddan still was having none of it. If the general couldn’t strike it with a sword, he didn’t believe it existed. “Prioress Ghyle was born in the Southern Klashe, which means she has deep family roots there. Mayhap this is some plot seeded into her by our enemy, to sow discord. Spreading rumors of doom in a time of war will weaken convictions when we’ll need them at their strongest. Look what it’s already done to your son, sire.”
Toranth scowled. “What does any of this have to do with Kanthe?”
The question was directed at Haddan, but the prioress heard and could not stop from answering. Her brow ran with sweat as she clearly fought this bridling. “He … seeks to help … his sister.”
Mikaen stiffened, unfolding his arms. “Sister?”
“The girl who speaks for the M?r … she … is Marayn’s … Marayn’s lost daughter.”
Mikaen did not understand, but his father clearly did. He stumbled away from the woman’s words.
“No…” the king moaned. “It cannot be.”