The flames crackled.
The ash fell.
And I understood, suddenly, what he was doing.
He was testing me.
Watching to see how I reacted.
Whether I flinched.
Whether I looked away.
Whether the Dragon who had ordered the pyre could stand in its heat and meet the Lion's eyes without shame, fear, or disgust.
Bored with his posturing, I stared at him. “You said we had much to discuss. What is it?”
The line in his jaw twitched, showing me his displeasure. "Why did you decide to burn these traitors?"
The question landed hard.
No one said these were traitors, and I knew Kazimir had not made an educated guess. Misha had clearly discovered it all and told him everything, but did Misha know about my Tiger.
Now I get why they call Misha, the Mosquito behind his back. He is absolutely annoying. Fucking buzzing little blood-sucking insect.
If I ever had an opportunity to get rid of the goddamn Mosquito I would seize it fast.
But more important. . .what else does Kazimir know?
I buried the unease beneath the mask I'd worn my entire life. “I burned them because fire is honest.”
Kazimir's eyebrows rose slightly. "Honest?"
"It doesn't pretend. Plus, fire requires proximity. You can drop a bomb from the sky and never see the faces of the people you kill. You can pull a trigger from across a room and pretend it wasn't personal. But fire." I bobbed my head. "Fire makes you stay. Makes you watch. Makes you smell it. Makes you feel the heat of what you’ve done."
“Hmmm.” Kazimir assessed me. "If these weremytraitors. . ."
He stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell his cologne beneath the smoke. "I would have hung them by their necks, slit their bellies open, stabbed out their eyes, and let their intestines hang out for all to see."
His smile shifted to ice cold and terrible. "Their families would have been forced to watch. To see what happens when one betrays the Brotherhood. To understand that there is no mercy, no forgiveness, no escape. And then their families would die too. Women. Kids. It would not matter."
I tensed.
“Then I’d put the bodies where my streets breathe. Outside the butcher shops. Outside the schools. A message that forces even the innocent to repeat it for you. Fear isn’t an emotion in the Brotherhood—it’s an infrastructure.”
The words painted pictures I didn't want to see. I thought of the traitors in the fire—the men and women who had sold information to my father, who had endangered everyone I loved—and tried to imagine them strung up like that.
Gutted.
Blinded.
Left to rot while their children screamed and then were killed.
My stomach turned.
"This is how the Brotherhood handles traitors. This is what I would have done." Kazimir took another hit from his cigar.
The smoke swirled between us.
