If they did, they would want to make sure that the prophecy never came true.
"Kailin?"
I blinked.
Alar covered my hand with his on the table. "You drifted off. Where did you go?"
"I was thinking about what Nyxath said, about having enemies, and about power attracting those who fear it."
"And?"
"And I think this is just the beginning." I squeezed his hand. "They're going to keep coming until we find out who's behind this. The head of the snake."
34
RAVEL
"Hunt the visible threat, and you may win the battle. Fail to root out the insidious one, and you've already lost the war."
—General Soren Bardaky, address to the Joint Chiefs
The detention level smelled of damp stone and desperation.
I'd spent more hours down here in the past two days than I had in the previous decade. The cells were designed for temporary holding of cadets who'd gotten into fights, and the occasional riders who'd disobeyed orders, or acted with disrespect toward their superiors, or had too much to drink and caused a disturbance.
They weren't meant for interrogating traitors.
We were making do.
The man across the table from me looked to be in his mid-thirties, with close-cropped dark hair and the calloused hands ofsomeone who'd spent years doing manual labor. I'd skimmed his file, but I hadn't read it thoroughly. I would do that later, after I was done extracting every piece of information out of him.
Noven Sarhan was a maintenance worker specializing in ventilation systems who had never caused any trouble and even got nominated for employee of the month not too long ago.
He'd been named by one of the original three attackers within hours of their capture.
When the guards had come for him, he'd been sitting on the couch in the living room of the flat he was sharing with four other workers, waiting, as if he'd known it was only a matter of time before he was arrested, or perhaps he'd just been too high on the drug to offer resistance. They'd found over a pound of the stuff hidden under his wardrobe. He'd glued the bag to its underside, which was quite clever, and required lifting the heavy piece of furniture, which wasn't easy. If the guy hadn't been casting furtive looks toward the bottom of the wardrobe as the guards searched the flat, it wouldn't have occurred to them to look there.
"How old are you?" I asked.
His eyes, which had been fixed on the table, lifted to meet mine. They were pale brown, almost amber, in the harsh light of the lamp I'd placed on the table of the interrogation room. Empty.
"Twenty-nine."
I was surprised. He looked much older, but then Sitorian drugs were not kind to the body.
"When did you become an addict?" I asked.
A flicker of something crossed his face. Regret, maybe.
"Seventeen years ago."
My eyebrows shot all the way up. "You started using at twelve?"
I hadn't expected the damn Sitorians to go for kids, but it made sense. The younger they were, the easier they were to brainwash.
He shrugged.
"How did you get the materials needed to make it?"
