This is a nightmare. It has to be, but the pressure against my windpipe is real. I thrash against my chains. “I swear on Neju’s sword, I woke up here after seeing Zivah this morning, and I don’t know how. I know it makes no sense, but I’m telling the truth.” It becomes harder and harder to speak. My vision starts to blur around the edges. But then Arxa releases his grip. I crumple over, coughing.

“Look at me, Dineas.”

I’m aware of the torch being moved closer to my face. The heat feels sinister against my skin, but I meet his eyes.

“Tell me again what you just said.”

I cough. “I left this morning to go to the rosemarked compound for my treatment. I took a potion, as I always do, and then I woke up here.”

“You didn’t go to the rosemarked compound this morning. You were in the training fields with the rest of Neju’s Guard.”

I shake my head. “That can’t be. We had the morning off today.” Arguing with him will just bring another blow, but I’m so confused I no longer care.

Arxa continues to stare at me, his face hard with suspicion. I try not to think about him shoving the torch into my eye.

“How often have you been seeing Zivah?” he says.

I hesitate. Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought her up, not to this monster with Arxa’s face. “Twice a month for my treatments, as you commanded. More often recently.”

“More often? Why?”

“She said she’d had a batch of bad herbs recently.”

“When did the visits pick up?”

“Only this past week, maybe a little longer. It’s nothing, sir, I didn’t mean—”

Arxa silences me with a glance. “Since Kiran came to power…” he says under his breath. He storms out of the cell, only to return a few moments later. He holds up some clay shards for me to see.

“We found these vials among your things,” he says. “Did Zivah give them to you?”

I can see that they are the remains of shattered vials. “I don’t remember anything like it,” I say. And I steel myself for another blow.

But Arxa simply curls his hands over the shards. “If you are lying to me,” he says, “you’ll soon learn what a grave mistake that was.”

He signals to the interrogator, and they both leave.

Chapter Forty-seven

Mehtap runs to our cell door when Arxa enters the building, but he shakes his head. “Not now.”

As she steps uncertainly back, Arxa looks at me, and I know that something has gone horribly wrong. Over the past months, it’s been easy to think of him as a generous patron, the father of my friend, but not at this moment. He regards me with the flint-hard gaze of an Amparan general, and I once again remember what a dangerous man he is.