Page 9 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“They took the bastard’s daughter?” he spat the question, each word coated in a violent promise.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“And you allowed this to happen?”
As a matter of fact, I did.
“They took her from the balcony,” I explained through gritted teeth.
Not a lie. I was banking on the fact that he didn’t remember she had escaped that way once before, couldn’t fathom a woman climbing onto a rooftop, and therefore would not have seen the need to guard for people comingoutof that door.
“Impossible.”
“She is easy to coerce when her family is threatened.” It was another truth, one that soured in my mouth to give him.
But it didn’t matter. He would never get his hands on her again.
We passed through the doors of the tower, shaking the snow from our hair and boots. I greeted the chief guard stationed at the entrance to the dungeons, who was, conveniently, Kirill, freshly back from his leave. He offered a grim nod, unlocking the iron door before allowing us through.
I led my father to one of the farthest cells from the door. The space was mostly unused, since Socairan justice tended to be swift and decisive. We were more likely to divest someone of their limbs or life than have them languishing away in a dungeon where we had to tap into our food stores for them.
Still, there were a handful of people awaiting judgment, and, of course, the occupant of the cell we were headed to now. Pulling a brass key from my pocket, I unlocked the door to reveal myspy.
The man hung limply from the manacles, sporting evidence of torture I couldn’t bring myself to regret. His life had already been forfeit. The wounds… Well, I had to make it look like I had been questioning him.
“Your work?” my father asked.
The scent of blood and other bodily fluids wafted over to us, mitigated only by the frigid temperatures. I nodded.
He stared at each of the prisoner’s injuries as if they were some sort of puzzle to be solved. As if deciphering exactly what methods I had used to inflict such pain.
“It isn’t like you to lose control,” he said dispassionately.
Or was there a hint of suspicion in his tone?
My heartbeat slowed down to a loud, rhythmic thump, the world around me coming into the sharp kind of clarity that usually accompanied battle. Of course, that’s what conversations with my father had felt like for years now.
“This was an insult to our entire clan, and to me,” I growled.
He tilted his head, looking from the man to me, and I let him see every ounce of the rage that had consumed me just as surelyas the fires I set to the villages that had done nothing to deserve it. The rage my father instilled in me with every unreasonable order, flames that were fueled by the constant futility of dealing with men like the one in that cell.
I might not hate him for the reasons I led my father to believe, but I hated him all the same.
“Did you at least obtain useful information first?” my father asked.
I tried not to be offended by the supposition.
“Relevant, yes, though I wouldn’t call it precisely useful,” I replied evenly. “They took her to the tunnels. There will be no catching up with her now.”
“And you plan to let this stand?”
This was the precarious part, balancing barefoot on a razor’s edge.
I met his gaze solidly. “Of course not, but timing will be everything.”
I held my breath, hoping we had played this right. We needed him lucid, but not lucid enough to ask for details he wouldn’t remember. If his mind accepted this explanation now, it would be simple enough to tell him I was working on things on the chance he questioned it later.
He didn’t like to look weak or call attention to his lacking memory, so it was in his best interest to trust me. Even when I was lying. Even if part of him suspected that, like he did right now…