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Electricity burned through my brain. I recognized it, the feeling intimately familiar. It already happened once. I was not allowed to freeze because of fear. Fear was no excuse. Fear was what would kill me.

I tried slapping away at his hands, but darkness was everywhere, pulling me down into nothing. I could smell burning flesh, hear myself screaming until the electricity dampened my hearing to nothing.

There was emptiness. No circle of animalia, no voice. There was simply black void.

When I woke, I was in the same small room. Kacha had brought in a chair for himself, and I couldn’t see his face because the only light was at his back. He was a massive shadow, a nightmare and⁠—

There is no fear. Fear is your body forcing you to action. But you are your mother’s weapon, there is nothing that can force you away from your task.

Yorîmu’s voice burst through the panic that wanted to eat at my control. So I pushed the emotion down. Fear did not serve me.

I tried to rise, but chains around my wrists and elbows kept me on the floor. Elephant chains were so heavy they were meant to keep the elephants in place even during a sandstorm. They were not used by the goblins.

That meant we were back in imperial territory, somewhere they kept elephant chains. One of Bemishu’s old waystations? No. If he had the option, Kacha would not have settled for a waystation. We were at the house of one of the imperial lords.

Ox could break these chains. They were meant to hold mortals, and he had given me the power of an immortal.

I reached for his magic, opening myself to it. I would give up everything I was to be free.

The ocean was gone. The animalia magic was gone.

I tried for ice, but that was gone as well. The forest magic did not respond to my call and I could no longer hear the elder trees even when I strained.

“My men said that you had ice magic. Is that what your mother did to breed you?” Kacha’s voice turned into a sneer. “Did she open her legs and let some northern monster spill its seed inside her? Did your father watch?”

I tried to push forward, struggling against the chains, but the weight was too much. When I tried, it popped my wrists, yanking at the skin and bone.

Frustrated, I tried screaming but only managed a hoarse whimper.

“I am not sure what that viper Tallu or the old man told you. I’m sure they were more than happy to fill your ears with my vicious exploits. As though serving the Imperium is an insult. As though my life’s work is valued less because I knew the true cost of our work.” Kacha’s fingernails drummed against something glass. It rang clear as a bell. “My life’s work has been patience. My life’s work has been creating opportunities. So understand this, Airón. I will be very patient now.”

He put the glass container down. The light streamed through it from the back and I saw a scorpion clawing against the edge of a small jar. It tried to climb but couldn’t. It snapped its tail forward, but the poison only hit the glass. I could see the liquid flowing down.

I could hear its legs clicking against the glass. Fear was what tore me away from my task. It tried to control me. But I controlled myself. I was my mother’s son. Even fear could not tear me away from my task.

“How did you survive?” I asked, my voice the whisper of wind over sand. “I saw your body.”

“Do you know how many doubles Emperor Millu had?” Kacha answered his own question. “Even I do not, and I watched that man more closely than any of the women he bedded.”

“You watched your own men get slaughtered. You did nothing. You hid, like a coward,” I said.

“Oh, I think we both understand who is hiding,” Kacha said. “I am patient, but that patience is not infinite. I have taken your magic. So let us start with this for today.”

Standing from his chair, he walked toward me and I pulled again, but the chains around me were too heavy. I could not lift them. I tried swinging out with my legs, but they would not move.

I tried not to worry about that. I tried to convince myself they were just asleep, that the only reason I could not feel them was because I had been unconscious for so long.

Kacha stopped in front of me. He raised his foot and I knew what he was going to do. I tried to curl my arms close to my body, but they wouldn’t move and my body couldn’t move any closer to them. He brought his foot down hard and I heard my bone crack. He did the same with my other arm, laughing when I made no sound.

“A monster like Tallu deserves a monster like you,” he said, his chest still rumbling with laughter.

I glared at him, his face a shadow. Pain was eating away at my brain, screaming through my veins, choking my throat as tightly as any assassin. I could not speak around it.

Kacha turned and closed the door behind him, leaving me in darkness with only the click of the scorpion’s legs against its glass cage.

“Brother,” I whispered, turning to animal speak when I had forced my attention away from the pain, letting it be no more than a heat on my skin.

My voice was hoarse, barely any sound, but I could still feel that something was wrong. I couldn’t use my animal speak. It wouldn’t come. There was no understanding between us. “Brother scorpion, we are creatures in the same situation. Can we not help each other?”