28
There was something to be said for the consistency of torture. Aya could track the time and place by it, not in any true measurable form, but in a way that kept her anchored to something real.
Two sessions. Three. Five.
The light cell. The dark cell.
That surety had disappeared when they shoved her into the dark and left her there to rot, and it had only worsened then they’d taken her to the throne room.
Now, she never knew where they were leading her. The light cell? The dark? The throne room? Somewhere else?
She’d lost any sense of consistency, that thin coherence she’d been clinging to washed away in confusion whenever they dragged her from the dark.
It sent her heart hammering, gave fear a sharper tang on her tongue. She tasted it now as they led her from the dark cell, down the hall, and in some new direction she did not understand.
List what you can see,mi couera.
Shackles. Cells. Dirt-slicked feet. Grime-covered skin she no longer recognized.
Her father’s advice was no comfort.
Gray. Everything was gray.
The guards led her to a cell at the end of a long hall. This one was larger than the dark cell—or perhaps it just looked that way with the high-set torches that cast the space in flickering firelight.
There was a stone bench set into the wall, and a chamber pot in the corner, and…
Lorna.
The guard shoved Aya into the cell and slammed the door shut behind her. Even battered and bruised, Lorna still managed to look at Aya with that defiant tilt of her chin.
“You look awful,” the Saj remarked.
Aya situated herself on the far side of the cell, her weight heavy against the wall as she tried to calm her raging pulse. Lorna simply watched her, blinking steadily despite the bruise that blackened her eye.
Aya had figured her torture had been confined to that inflicted by affinities. It was odd for Evie to resort to more human methods like physical blows.
Why?What was Evie so desperate to uncover?
“I don’t bite, you know,” Lorna muttered.
Aya dug her fingertips into her thighs. The Vaguer had suggested this, had likened it to preparing an ox for slaughter. What—
Lorna let out a sharp hiss, and Aya blinked away her questions. Pain twisted the woman’s features, her shoulders rising with her wince.
“What is it?” Aya asked.
“I have…issues with my shield. I am more sensitive after Evie’s ministrations.”
So she had inside wounds, too. The realization was eclipsed by a much larger realization, one that made something in her chest twist.
Will’s shield issue—the one he’d sought answers to foryears—wasn’t some random determining of the gods. His mother had it, too.
“But you’re not a Sensainos,” Aya remarked.
“True,” Lorna admitted with a confused quirk of her brow. “But I doubt the issue is confined to those who sense and manipulate emotion and sensation.”
Aya didn’t know anyone other than Will who experienced such an issue.
