Blat came up gasping and flailing, but the soldiers bound his hands in short order. Thaddeus Blat spat toward Regnus, missed, and cursed him.

“Slow learner,” Regnus said, and heaved. The man went under and this time Regnus waited until he stopped flailing. “When they stop fighting,” he said to his men, “it means they understand for the first time that they might actually die unless they really concentrate. I think he’ll be a little more polite this time.”

He pulled Blat up, his dark hair plastered to his forehead down to his single brow, and Blat saved his air for breathing for a long moment. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Duke Regnus Gyre, and you’re going to tell me everything you know about my people’s death.”

The man cursed him again.

“Turn him a little,” Regnus said. They did, and he drove his fist into the man’s solar plexus, driving the wind from his lungs. Thaddeus Blat only had time to suck in half a breath before he went under.

Regnus held him below the water until bubbles burst on the surface, then he dragged Thaddeus up, but only for a moment. Then he pushed him back down again. He repeated the process four times. When he pulled Blat up the fifth time, he released his head.

“I’m running out of time, Thaddeus Blat, and I’ve got nothing to lose by killing you. I’ve already killed my wife and all my servants, remember? So if I have to put your face under that water one more time, I’m going to hold it there until you’re dead.”

Real fear was painted across the lieutenant’s face in dripping watercolors. “They don’t tell me anything—no, wait! I swear it. I don’t get my new orders until tonight. But this one goes all the way to the top. To the top of the Kin, you know?”

“The Sa’kagé?”

“Yeah.”

“Not good enough. Sorry.”

They plunged his head back under the water and he thrashed like a demon, but on his knees, with his hands tied, there was nothing he could do. “You set a limit, and then you break it,” Regnus said. “Most people can hold out if they’ve been given a limit. They tell themselves, ‘I can hold out that long.’ Let him up.”

The man spluttered as he came up, spitting out inhaled water and wheezing. “You think of anything else?” Regnus asked, but he didn’t give Thaddeus time to respond.

He dunked the man again. “Sir,” one of the soldiers said, looking a little queasy. “If you don’t mind my asking, how do you know all this?”

Regnus grinned. “I got captured by the Lae’knaught during a border raid when I was young. But we don’t have the time to use everything I learned from them. Up.”