The next moment the material was stretched taut over her face and gripped behind her head. At once she struggled to breathe, sucking hard to force the stagnant air of the dungeon through the material. The silk smelled familiar, a scent of cinnamon and amber to it, and something else, something sour. . . Then the water started pouring on her face. Instantly, the material moulded to her skin; she inhaled hard but her lungs found only water now. And again, and her chest contracted in shock, realizing she couldn’t breathe at all. She tried to hold her breath – though she had none to spare in her lungs – and then panic took over, the muscles in her body straining to extract something through the wall of water. But there was nothing to be had. Her back arched, her feet kicked against their bonds, shifting the bench legs with a fearful scrape of wood on stone. The back of her skull cracked against the end of the plank. ‘Hold her steady,’ she heard that strange voice utter, its pitch of neither man nor woman. Stars burst in the darkness of her vision, her chest heaved in vain, the muscles between her ribs burned in desperation.

And suddenly the silk was relaxed and slipped from her face. She could move her neck, and she gasped down lungfuls of air.

‘Interesting,’ Katāros murmured. ‘I’ve never seen this done to a woman. You have surprising strength. The will to live is powerful.’

‘You’re a devil,’ she spat, her throat and lungs still burning.

‘A devil! Ha! On the contrary, my lady. My kind are beautiful. We are the select. We surround the emperor in his palace as the angels surround the very throne of God. We are not devils. We are perfection, untainted by the foulness of the flesh with which lesser men sully themselves. We are the perfect instruments of the emperor’s will. Like the angels.’ Lilla’s eyes were rolled back in her head. But she sensed him bend down beside her, could smell his overbearing perfume filling her nostrils. ‘We are the ideal,’ he whispered. ‘Do you know why? Because we have no will of our own. We desire nothing. I exist only to serve. Like an angel.’ His soft whisper hardened. ‘And like an angel, I have no pity. . .’

The silk tightened over her face. Lilla’s limbs locked rigid, her mind filled with the horror of her helplessness, knowing this would not stop until she was broken. And that she refused to break.

Water poured over her face again, smothering her nose and mouth, and she steeled herself to suffer.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE