“It does,” I said, slowly. “But it doesn’t need to be. None of this is new information for us. Well, Galen. But we’ve known the rest. We knew he wanted us, knew Tristan was sent to hunt us on his behalf. He could have tricked us with some other reason to go with him. Or just simply demanded it. There’s no reason to tell us this. Why else would he leave the guards outside?”
“Exactly. Lyr, trust me. Please,” Tristan begged. “We don’t have much time.”
“Where’s the room?” Rhyan asked, his mouth tight.
“It’s off this hallway, behind the Throne Room,” he said nervously. “I’ve never seen it before. It’s not open to the public, or even most nobles. Some kind of interrogation room.”
My eyes met Rhyan’s, and I thought of all the maps we’d studied all month.
“Is it to the west?” I asked.
Tristan’s mouth fell open. “Yes.”
“We’ve seen it,” I told Rhyan. “It has a long corridor leading into some open space that wasn’t identified. The one with no windows and only one door. It isn’t marked on the public maps. But on the Imperator’s, it is.”
Rhyan’s eyes widened. “Shit. You’re right, Lyr.”
“And the Throne Room? I asked. “Will it still be full with all the Arkasvim?”
“All but our new Emperor,” Tristan said.
“The Emperor’s in this interrogation room? Alone? Anyone else in there?” Rhyan asked. “Any other guards?”
“There’s vorakh,” Tristan said. “Mind readers. He called them … called them the chayatim.”
I stilled. “The chayatim? You’ve seen them?” I started forward. “Tristan, tell me everything.”
But he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes had grown distant, afraid. His aura flared. I’d felt his aura a thousand times before when he mentioned vorakh. It was always accompanied by anger, by hatred, something ugly and full of grief.
His aura now, though? It held none of that. It was sadness. Guilt. And fear. A nauseating level of it.
“The vorakh—the chayatim, they’re … they’re the ones I caught and arrested,” he said, his voice breaking. “I never knew. They don’t end up in Lethea. They’re not stripped of their vorakh. Nothing is what they told me, nothing is what they promised.” He wrung his hands, sounding hysterical. “They’re all here. Serving the Emperor. Suffering. Because of me.”
There was a scuffle outside, and a distant shout.
But Rhyan shook his head, focusing on Tristan. “I’m sure you feel real fucking guilty about that, Bamaria’s great vorakh hunter.”
Tristan’s eyes had reddened, and I remembered the way he looked the last time I saw him. It was his first acknowledgement of my pain over Jules, the first time he’d seemed to understand it.
“Rhyan,” I said, and shook my head.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Tristan said, almost in a trance. “I truly did. But my whole fucking life is a lie. I know what I am. What I’ve become. What’s inside my soul.” He shook his head, tears in his eyes. “Turns out I’m the thingI always fucking feared. I’m the monster. And I am sorry. If I can free them all, if they’ll even accept my help, I’ll do it. Please. Do you believe me, Lyr?” Tristan asked suddenly, sounding desperate.
My heart pounded as his words sunk in. I felt his aura, saw the truth in his eyes. The unbridled pain. “I believe you,” I said.
“For the record, I don’t trust you,” Rhyan added.
Tristan looked like he was going to be sick. “I get it. But there’s something else. You’re ... you’re probably going to think I’m farther than Lethea, I feel like I am after what I just saw, but there was someone else in there. Someone I wouldn’t have believed I was seeing if it wasn’t for the other chayatim. I didn’t even recognize her at first.”
Someone else? Her? My heart stopped. “Who? Tristan! Who did you see?”
“Jules,” he said.
“You saw Jules?” My voice shook, my pulse pounding. I could swear I heard my blood flowing in my ears, and everything in my body was heating up. I needed to know everything. Know he was telling the truth beyond a shadow of doubt. “With the Emperor? She’s in there now?”
The stave suddenly wasn’t enough for me. Not for this. I closed the window behind me, and turned around, pulling my arm forward. I slid up one of my leather cuffs. And then, I slammed my arm back. My elbow smashed through the glass. I grabbed the nearest shard before they all fell from the window. It was a thick one. Nice and sharp. Then I sprinted across the room for Tristan, locking his arms behind his back. I pressed the glass to his neck, putting just enough pressure behind it to let him know that I was deadly serious. “You’re going to tell me everything you know right now. Where is she?”
Rhyan’s eyes widened, and if he was shocked at my sudden violent shift in this interrogation, he didn’t say. He just took a step back, giving us some space.
