The first thing I notice is how cool it is, and how everything hurts. When I try to shift my weight, hard metal restrains my arms. Stone presses against my back. I’m chained to a wall.

I push my eyes open, but it’s almost as dark in this room as it was behind my eyelids. I’m in some kind of cell. The prison?

My head feels as if it’s been crushed between two boulders and filled with sand. How did I get here? I wrack my brain. I was in the rosemarked compound with Zivah. She’d given me a potion. After that, nothing.

Time ticks by, though I have no way to measure its passing. I do know I have wounds that need tending. I feel as if I’ve been fighting, but I don’t remember any of it. Did the city fall under attack?

“Is anyone there?” The walls absorb my voice. It’s just me, in the darkness, with the sound of my own labored breathing.

Just as I think I’ve gone mad, I hear footsteps coming down the hall. I pull at my chains, unsure if it’s friend or foe approaching, but the shackles hold tight. The door opens, and my eyes water at the torchlight flooding in. Then I make out Commander Arxa’s features, and I melt in relief.

“General Arxa.” I do my best to stand up straight. “What’s happened…”

I trail off at his expression. The only time I’ve seen him look this cold was when he interrogated the Shidadi prisoner. And now he’s looking at me in the exact same way.

He sets the torch on a wall sconce. “I’m disappointed, Dineas. Disappointed in you for throwing my trust back in my face, and disappointed in myself for giving you that trust. But we’ll right things now. You will tell me how you came here. How you ended up in my army. You’ll tell me who sent you, what you learned, and what information you sent back. Once I’m satisfied, then you can die.”

I understand the words coming out of his mouth, but they make no sense. “General, what’s happening? Why am I…” I trail off in horror as another man enters the cell. I recognize him as one of the prison interrogators, and my skin erupts in cold sweat as he starts setting out strange implements on a table.

“Don’t try my patience,” Arxa says. “You’ve made a fool of me already and caused untold damage.”

Perhaps this is a nightmare, some dream brought on by the potion. “General, I swear I’m not playing games. I have no idea how I got here.”

Arxa grabs me by the throat and slams me against the wall. Pain explodes at the back of my head.