Balendin licked his lips, a quick, furtive motion. He glanced over at Valyn, as if for support, but Valyn just smiled. He had no idea what was going on, no idea what game Long Fist was playing, but he was free for the first time in weeks, free when he’d expected to be tortured or killed, while Balendin remained bound, stinking of fear and desperation. Valyn allowed himself a moment to bask in the feeling.

“Why don’t you say a little more,” he suggested, “about how you tried to kill my brother?”

Long Fist nodded. “Yes. Say more.”

Balendin shook his head warily. “What do you want to know?”

The chieftain spread his hands, almost an invitation. “Who sent you to kill the Emperor?”

The leach shook his head again. “That would be telling.”

“You can tell now,” Long Fist replied casually, “or when I hold your still-beating heart in my fist.”

“Go on,” Valyn said. “You already turned on your empire and your order. One more betrayal shouldn’t be a huge weight on your conscience.”

“It’s not a matter of conscience,” Balendin said, responding to Valyn, but keeping his eyes warily on Long Fist. “It’s a matter of practicality. While I’ve got secrets, I stay alive.”

“You may not find living such a blessing,” Long Fist mused, “when the life lived is one of pain. You know something of my people, yes? Have you learned that we can cut out the heart without slicing the veins that feed it? Twice yearly, we hold a march in Kwihna’s honor; the tributes carry their own hearts in their hands. I can offer you pain without death’s escape.” He gestured to Huutsuu with a single finger. “Show him.”

The woman stepped forward, smiling, the knife she had used to free Valyn still ready in her hand.

“Begin with his small finger,” the shaman said.

Balendin backed up a step, but the taabe and ksaabe behind seized him by the shoulders and elbows, holding him in place as Huutsuu took his hand firmly in her fist, then set the blade to the knuckle. Valyn had slaughtered chickens and pigs on the Eyrie—all part of the training in anatomy—and he remembered how easily the tendons parted when he found the gap between the bone. Huutsuu didn’t bother hunting for that gap. It took the Urghul woman a few moments to pry Balendin’s little finger loose from his desperately clenched fist, and then she went to work, hacking through the flesh as the leach cursed and writhed, then sawing away at the bone itself for what seemed like an age before the blade, as if of its own accord, finally sliced through the tendon.

Balendin slumped against his captors while she held up the finger, inspecting it in the sunlight as though it were some sort of dubious vegetable.

“I’ll kill you,” he panted. “I’ll fucking kill you.”