“The bitch of it is,” Ekhard Matol explained, spitting onto the damp floor to emphasize his irritation, “that the Csestriim don’t respond to torture the way we do.”

Though Tan claimed that Matol was the commander of the Dead Heart, he wore no uniform or mark of rank, dressing in the standard wool and leather, the garments moth-eaten and battered. He was short and thick, with fists like hammers, a nose like a chisel, and a badly pockmarked face. Physically he looked nothing like Trant—he must have been at least ten years older, for one thing—but the same air of unwholesome dampness clung to him, the same feral intensity burned in his eyes. And, like Trant and Tan, like all the Ishien Kaden had encountered, scars webbed his flesh.

Tan had led the way wordlessly through winding corridors, past two banded doors, past a trio of guards, then into the cramped antechamber beyond, a small room furnished with a low wooden table and a single chair, in which Matol sat. Kaden hadn’t expected an apology for his earlier treatment, but the man didn’t so much as acknowledge it. Kaden might have been a menial or slave, an insignificant underling who had been called upon to perform a task. That Matol spoke to him at all seemed an indulgence.

“What have you done to her?” Kaden asked, trying to keep his voice level, the question objective.

“The usual,” Matol replied with a shrug, gesturing to the door behind him, presumably the entrance to Triste’s cell. “Slivers of glass under the fingernails. Thumbscrews. First-round stuff. We’ve left her alone for quite a while now, to give her a chance to heal up, to get her nice and complacent before we start again.”

Kaden’s stomach twisted inside him, but he kept his expression even, his face calm.

“I don’t want her hurt any further,” he said, trying to project something like his father’s imperial authority.

Matol furrowed his brow, got slowly to his feet, then walked around the small table, pausing when his face was inches from Kaden’s own. He smiled, the expression sharp as a blade, then whispered, “Maybe Rampuri didn’t tell you. Maybe he forgot how we do things in the years he’s been away, so let me fill you in. . . .” He took a deep breath, then screamed, “WE ARE NOT YOUR FUCKING SUBJECTS!”

Kaden was accustomed to monastic disapproval, to the slow shaking of heads, and even to the brutal penance that often followed. This sudden explosion, however, was something else altogether, and he rocked back on his heels as though he’d been struck.

“Maybe not,” he replied finally, trying to steady himself. It wouldn’t do to show he could be cowed by a fit of shouting. “But we are on the same side in a very old fight.”