The interrogation room was a level above the manor's dungeon. It was small, made smaller still by a partition wall they had inset with one of Ilina's mirrors. The reflective glass allowed them to watch the room without being watched in turn; a useful espionage tool, they'd found over the years.
Telei sprawled in the only chair in the cramped space. He was short but broad, with olive-brown skin puckered with scars. He grinned at Tavlen as he entered (a child eager to show off his new toy) and the old talon-scratch over his lips snagged in the smile.
Tavlen didn't smile back. How Telei could insist on wearing such wildly coloured wools when he was trained in stealth and camouflage was beyond the army's comprehension. Today's shirt consisted of orange and green triangles; he was a miscoloured checkerboard cleaved and repieced with pockets.
Fent, in a more sensible red cotton and black trousers, hovered behind Telei; his notebook at the ready. "You smell much nicer, Unyielding," Fent whispered.
Tavlen shook out his damp hair and rounded them both to lean against the wall by the mirror. Fent had coerced him to wash off the cages (an activity unbecoming a court dragon).
That was the problem with interrogating someone else's informant. Any thread of intel Nim could glean from his stay was a thread to a rope he could slip around their necks.
Beyond the glass, Nim and Jeha were separated by a small table. Tavlen settled himself in to study their progress.
The vulture sat on a precarious stool that had one leg shorter than the others. He rocked his middle-aged booze-belly back and forth, an annoying tap of wood on wood. The fidgeting wasn't anxious, just... aggravated in the way of a bureaucrat whose time was being wasted.
Wasting time wasn't an interrogation strategy Tavlen was familiar with. If it counted as a strategy at all.
The questions Jeha focused on were irritatingly irrelevant: childhood, lifestyle, finance. Like Nim had arrived for a job interview and his bandaged, two-fingered hand on the table between them had been an unfortunate lapse in hospitality on their end.
The young dragon-skin asked his useless questions in an even-keeled, slowly-enunciated tone and took careful notes. For all his Court timbre, he had the hunched, skeletal look of a kid who'd barely eaten in his growing years. Long fingers, sharp chin, no facial hair; skin too close to his bones and hoodless eyes that refused to look across the table.
Tavlen silently slid the vent above the mirror closed, muffling the interrogation beyond. "How old did you say this kid was?" he asked.
Telei shrugged. "His papers said early twenties."
Fent snorted (in this interim of banality, the Worm had dedicated himself to reorganising the bookmarks in his notes). "He looks half that."
"You have to see his eyes," Lyra's voice came softly from the alcove's entrance at their back. "You look inside him and he's more coffin than kid."
Fent and Telei startled at her silent entrance, which amused Tavlen. He'd left the door open for her in the first place; cases with magic intrigued Lyra like little else.
"Golden Dragon," Telei whispered her title with a note of awe. "It's an honour."
Lyra studied the interrogation through the grey-tinted glass in answer, her expression guarded by her cloak.
The dragoness was seen by few and spoke to even fewer. She found explaining herself to people outside her circle taxing; and rarely found the expense of expanding her circle worthwhile.
Unfortunately, as Tavlen's army grew, her absence made her somewhat of a legend. Most only saw her in full drake-skin when she was called to battle, which lent a note of wonder to the space she vacated to avoid notice in the first place.
Telei was a bit of a legend himself (their top assassin before he'd turned to recruiting), but even he scrambled from his chair. "Take my seat," he offered, a little more causally this time.
Lyra shut the alcove door and slid into the shadows behind Tavlen instead. Telei was the newest of Tavlen's cabinet, and therefore the least trusted by Lyra's standard (his flamboyant clothes didn't help). Talven shifted his shoulder so she could see.
Fent sat in Telei's chair. "Don't mind if I do." He passed his ink vial to Telei. "Hold this, fuzz."
'Fuzz' was Fent's favourite term for fur-skins. Elk-skins had more hair than fur, but, well, semantics.
Telei sighed but dutifully held the inkwell out at the right height. "Only if you write good things about my kid, hm?"
Feigned indifference toward the dragoness was a much safer approach, in Tavlen's opinion.
Lyra pressed deeper into the shadows and gently cleared her throat. "Is he magic born?" she asked quietly.
Telei froze, inkwell half-corked. He paused as if to give her a moment to rescind the question.
"The kid," she clarified. "Was he born with this magic or does he channel a higher form?"
Fent took his ink vial back from the elk-skin and popped the cork open himself. "Lyra likes to read philosophically," he explained. "She differentiates between the magic pure-bloods are born with—like our good Unyielding—and the magic that—"
"That transcends human life." Telei straightened off the wall. "Like fate. I do read, Worm. Vow magic, blood magic, cinder magic."
"And truth magic," Lyra said, that taxed tone under her voice. "So I am asking if your recruit was born with his magic or if he's cultivated one of the higher forms."
Telei ran his hand over the goatee he grew to hide the scar over his lip. "I've never considered the higher forms something to be cultivated," he said diplomatically. "Only given. Until now, I've thought Jeha has some sort of compulsion magic. He makes lying hurt, which adds a certain relief to telling the truth."
"Isn't that the essence of truth magic?" Lyra asked. "A pain beyond human causing?"
"Right, kids." Fent shoved his ink back at Telei before he could answer. "Save the philosophy for teatime. Our great channeller of magic just set down his pencil."
Tavlen opened the vent to the room beyond, reducing any further conversion in the alcove to whispers.
Jeha's grey hair (dyed in Court fashion) was in three plaits down his scalp. He tugged at one of the tuffs at the back of his neck as he studied the notes.
"Your cooperation, sir, has been appreciated. Just one more topic before we begin."
"Begin?" Nim's chair rocked forward. "I've been here a half an hour."
"We're almost done, sir." Jeha shuffled his papers. "I am only unclear on one thing. In my world, only snakes can be nobles. But that is not the case in the South."
"No," Nim said impatiently. "We were allowed to keep our noble titles when the Midland Courts claimed our coast. And we work hard to maintain them."
"And there is a noble line of vulture-skins. Called... the Hood?"
"That is correct."
"You were a part of this Hood."
"I was." Nim pulled at one of the braids in his beard.
"But you married a sparrow-skin by the name of... Roselle? And were kicked out."
"Correct again."
"And do you like your wife, sir?"
Nim threw his hands up in exasperation. "What sort of interrogation is this?"
Telei pressed his finger to the glass. "First dodge," he whispered. "So it begins."
"Hm." Jeha marked something in his notes. "Any kids?" he asked.
"No."
"Other women?"
"What? No."
"I see." Jeha's head tilted to the side and he stilled. Like he was listening to a buzz in the air only he could hear. "You see men, then."
"No!" Nim startled. "Sea's seven snakes, kid. Who do you think you are?"
Jeha pointed to Nim's good hand with his charcoal pencil. "The ring on the top knuckle of your left pinky." His slow speech sounded tired. "The insignia is of a club the Coven runs. They cater to men and women both... with men and women both."
Nim's good hand curled around the thick gold ring.
Fent squinted through the glass. "I've been to one of those clubs," he whispered, indignant. "I never got a ring."
"Shame," Telei whispered back. "Must not have wanted you back."
Tavlen gave them a look to silence them.
Nim was red in the face. "If you knew from the start, why ask?"
Jeha's thin shoulders lifted in a shrug, but he met the vulture's eye dead-on for the first time. "To see if you'd tell the truth, sir."
Nim blustered a laugh, less irritated this time. More nervous. "Look, kid, in my line of work—"
"You deal in truth. Supposedly." he tapped the butt of his pencil on the table. "Now, let's address the Kana."
"This won't work." Nim leaned back on his stool. "I was Stalwar's Coven contact before you were born. Intimidation is futile."
"I doubt they sent me for intimidation." Jeha reshuffled the papers for a blank sheet. "The Kana, if you please. Begin anywhere you wish."
Nim paused as if to see if the kid was serious. Jeha waited it out.
"Right," Nim said. "They're a lion pride of noble standing, with their title being one of the oldest on the coast. Twenty-three of their lions live in the city, but they have another fifty-odd members in the country."
Jeha wrote down the numbers and, on the other side of the glass, Fent refreshed his ink.
"Nothing new," the Worm muttered.
"Are these lions well liked?" Jeha asked.
"Respected, for sure." As he spoke, Nim's tone shifted; relaxing, unravelling even. Like he found comfort in speaking. "They run the tavern up the hill from the Southern bay—just outside the red aisle."
Jeha paused. "They deal in prostitution, then?"
"No, no. They're pacifists. Refuse to deal in bodies. Deal in drugs, mainly. Wine from their country vineyards. Medical treatment."
Jeha nodded. "Tell me about the drugs."
"Needles to stop your scent and the like. I smell one on you even now."
Tavlen knew some of his army appreciated the anonymity of Southern scent mufflers (most joined his ranks for obscurity in the first place). But, personally, he hated the stuff. They made the world feel bleached of colour.
Jeha nodded. "Good people, then."
"Good people?" Nim's laugh was cruel. "They trained the Wing Ripper, which upped taxes in our province threefold! If that's what the Coven considers good, I can see where this Court relationship went wrong."
There was a beat of silence while Jeha took notes.
"That's the most we've gotten from him yet," Fent whispered.
"And a controversial Coven view too," said Lyra from behind Tavlen. "It's like he barely notices he's talking."
Jeha cocked his head at his notes. "I thought you said the Kana were pacifists."
"They claim to be," Nim said. "But I've seen Eleos throw a knife through a wall without a flinch. And you don't just happen upon those skills."
Tavlen tensed at the name. Finally, a lead.
But Jeha didn't even check the notes Telei had given him, just continued in his same, unperturbed tone. "Eleos is the Wing Ripper?"
Nim scoffed. "No, that's Siman. Eleos is his brother." The laughter on Nim's face drained at the last word. His features twisted like he'd be sick. "Yeah, the brother," he could barely choke out the words.
"And we've hit the first lie," Telei said, smug.
Nim's neck contorted like he'd swallowed a snake.
Jeha set aside his pencil and waited.
Nim's hand twisted in his beard.
"It's easier if you keep talking," Jeha suggested softly.
Nim straightened his beard and cleared his throat. "Siman is the Wing Ripper," he repeated, back-pedalling a question. "Named for how he killed Stalwar these five years ago."
Jeha picked up his pencil again. "Why did he kill a province overseer?"
"Do killers need a reason to kill?" Nim snapped.
Jeha's head cocked to the side; the interrogation halting with a missed beat. "Usually, yes," he replied, his tone more clipped than before.
Lyra leaned toward Tavlen. "He's killed someone, then. Jeha, I mean."
"How do you know?" Tavlen whispered back.
"You hear the truth in his voice when he speaks," she answered. "Not factual, experiential."
Telei shook his head. "The Coven cleared his recruitment papers. No death count included."
"And the Coven is the keeper of all truth?" Tavlen said, a little louder than he'd meant to.
Jeha and Nim were too focused on each other to notice.
"Did Stalwar do anything against this Siman?" Jeha probed.
The vulture dabbed at the sweat on his neck. "There was talk." His voice was breathy and strained. "Romna—the sister—had a run-in with Stalwar seven years ago. The Kana are beautiful people, see. And Romna, she... she was something else. Siman didn't like Stalwar's thinking about it."
"Rape." Jeha's tone soured. "A year is still a long time to consider murder."
"Romna committed suicide," Nim said dismissively. "A blow to the whole coast. Siman especially." But his face was twisting again.
Jeha's hands stilled. "Suicide?" he echoed, the question tightening like the twist of a screw.
Nim shuddered and lowered his head to his hand. "So I heard," he said sickly.
"Sir, it really does hurt less if you just tell me what you know."
The hand supporting Nim's head fisted. He hit his temple once. "Suicide is easily feigned." His words slid through grit teeth; like a locked jaw could keep the secrets inside.
"And why would they do that?" Jeha asked, gentle again.
Nim swayed with a sea-sick groan. "I don't want to talk about Romna."
"Why not?"
The vulture slammed his fist on the table in a fluster of papers. Telei gave Fent back his ink lest he have to get involved (Jeha didn't look like he could take a hit).
But then Nim crumpled like paper kindling. He wouldn't so much as look the kid in the eye. "Leave the sister alone," he pleaded, his voice thick with too much spit. "It's the Wing Ripper you want."
"Which sister do you mean, sir? Romna?" Jeha straightened his papers. "Or Eleos?"
Nim stilled like prey sensing a crossbow, then a relieved breath tumbled out of him. "You know she's female?"
Tavlen turned to Fent. "What?"
"Female?" Fent spluttered simultaneously. He shoved his ink back to Telei with a slosh (adding purple into the orange and green disaster) and rummaged through is notes. "The papers say male," he insisted.
"Flames, thank every crack in the sky," Nim was saying. "The Kana are stupid to hide her. But it's my job and..."
Jeha was considering his own notes. "You lied at 'brother.' Half-lied."
Nim waved his injured hand; if it hurt (which it should have) the vulture didn't seem to notice. "Our paperwork is not nearly as clean as the Midland Coven. The Culls hit us hard. The pure blood papers of the deceased sold for high prices here."
"Tell me about this Eleos, then."
Nim was happy to oblige; the relief of a released lie almost making him giddy. "She's mean. Ruthless. But as strong as they come. Practically runs the tavern for those lions." He leaned in like they were swapping gossip at the bar. "She's a tigress, see. A still-skin tigress at that. But she's the most Kana Kana I've ever seen. She'd have been Siman's second when he took over the pride. But he, well." He frowned, as if only realising he was still talking. "But Siman broke his vow," he finished weakly, confusedly.
It was rather sickening to see. Like pouring salt on a slug and watching it writhe, wondering if it knew it was dying.
"Why wasn't Eleos interviewed in the aftermath?" Jeha continued indifferently; the last question in Telei's notes.
"Eleos isn't good with dragons and the Kana still want to keep up their noble front. I'll tell you, though. That tigress doesn't care about titles. One day, she'll snap. I have money on this, hear?"
"I hear."
"She'll wake up, decide this peace shit is ridiculous, and hunt you down. Tear the wings straight off your back as her brother before her."
Jeha nodded. "A skinless assassin. I'd like to see that."
"You and your sin-striped dragon both. But I know what your Unyielding wants. I keep my ears open."
Jeha was gathering his notes; interview complete. "I'm sure you do."
Nim's hands were shaking, but the words kept coming. "Tell your lord he won't find his Wing Ripper. Or that Midland girl he's after. We Southerners can barely abide our own snakes, much less the Midland ones. We hold our tongues."
A silence wrapped around the room like a noose. Nim's tremors spread through his body. His eyes swelled with horror, as if hearing himself for the first time. His breath began to pick up in panic.
Or the Midland girl he's after.
The words echoed in Tavlen's chest, the noose of the moment tightening.
Somehow Fent was standing in front of him, his eyes wary. "Easy, Tav. We got what we needed. Let the boy finish his job."
But Tavlen was out the alcove's door, pivoting in the corridor and crashing through the cell's door at Jeha's back before he'd known it himself.
He stalked up to the vulture and wrapped his hand in the sweat-damp tunic under his thick neck. In a twist of linen, Tavlen hauled the man from his stool. "The girl," he said, his words thick with a fury near incoherent. "Where'd you hear that?"
Nim spluttered. "Nowhere; nothing! I heard nothing."
He was still tethered to Jeha's truth magic and his features soured. Tavlen dropped him to the ground and the vulture was sick all over his boots.
Tavlen waited until he'd finished retching, then crouched down and rolled Nim on his side to look him in the eye. "The truth, now," Tavlen said. "Or I'll have the kid ask it."
The vulture cowered in a scramble of legs, his bad hand clutched to his chest. "A secretary. A Midland's secretary!" Tears streamed from his cheeks to his beard; he couldn't stop his shaking. "Prepared lodging for her master and jabbered about you. That's it, I swear!"
Something like a roar built in Tavlen's throat. "Reylin," he spat the name and stood. He withdrew one of Ilina's marbles from his pocket and squeezed it between his fingers while he paced.
Nim was still spilling information like a cracked barrel, something like sobs gurgling between his words. "She didn't give her name. But half the coast heard, she was at the Kana's tavern."
Fent stepped into the room, wiping at the ink on his fingers. "These Kana are proving more and more troublesome." Telei followed him in the room; Lyra remained behind the mirror.
Tavlen waved his hand at Jeha. "Get the rest out of him."
Jeha's eyes flicked to his and Tavlen stilled.
Lyra had been right. There was a grey tinge to the kid's dark irises that made looking at him feel like being held too close to a coffin; one's own coffin. It made the heart squeeze with a reckoning Tavlen wasn't ready for.
Jeha blinked. "It'll break him and I don't think what he has left is about Eleos."
Tavlen looked away from those dead-cold eyes. "I don't give a snake's shit what it's about. I want him bled dry!"
Jeha set his papers back on the table.
Tavlen resumed his pacing and his eye caught his own reflection in Ilina's mirror; damp hair, snarled lips, shaking hands. The crazed predator.
Tavlen snaked the marble through his knuckles and kept his eyes on his boots while he paced.
Jeha rounded the table to kneel before Nim. For the skeletal length of him, the kid's movements were fluid and easy. "What really happened to Romna?" he asked softly.
"Don't." Nim was covering his face, slumped against the wall and rocking himself like a child. "Don't, please. Eleos they know is a lost cause. but Romna... they'll ruin me. I'm nothing without Kana trust."
Jeha waited with unflinching patience.
"The- the suicide." Nim whimpered, then shook his head. "She was so sweet. Got my wife a job at the tavern when the Hood kicked us out."
"Was she killed?" Jeha asked.
"No. It was...." He twisted his hand in his beard and cried. Not with grief, but with pain. Like the question was fraying his very soul.
"It was a lie," Jeha finished for him out of pity. "To keep her from Stalwar."
Relief swelled in Nim's chest, and he burrowed his head in his hands. "If you know, why do you ask?" he wept.
"I didn't know." Jeha looked away. "But dragons don't part lightly with their toys. It was a guess." His hands fisted on his legs. "But she'd have feigned her suicide right after the rape. To avoid the... operations given to consorts of other species."
(The kid meant the fertility operations; required to stem the impure mixing of blood).
Nim nodded.
"Then why kill the beast a year later?"
Nim pressed his lips into a thin line, but the words pried out anyway. "There was talk... of a child."
Jeha sighed. "A hybrid." And he stood.
The rest came tearing from the vulture. "They thought they could hide the kid. But the impure blood made itself known and he snapped knowing she'd be killed eventually. The babe was the only thing holding him together. Holding them all together. Eleos too."
He was weeping again, but the sound seemed unattached to his words. Like in being forced to tell the truth, his self had been severed in two. He was left with both a desperate need to speak and a desperate fear of speaking.
He straightened and grabbed Tavlen's bootlaces, his sleeve in his own sick. "It's her you want. If anyone knows where Siman is—it's Eleos. I swear it."
Tavlen shook him off. His anger was retreating; focusing, sharpening like the turn of steel on the whetstone. "Where can I find her?" he demanded.
"The high-tide celebration. Tonight. She'll be there—they all will. The Kana sponsor the event."
"Good." Tavlen looked down at the vulture, whose eyes were searching the floor like he could see the secrets he'd lost scattering like sand. Rocking back and forth, he began to murmur under his breath. When Fent crouched before him, he didn't seem to notice the wyrm's attention.
"Will, uh, will he be alright?" Fent asked, wiping his hands on his trousers.
Jeha stood off to the side again, his notes to his chest and his eyes averted. "People who hoard secrets have a hard time."
Telei scratched the back of his neck. "Yes, but he'll come back to normal?"
Jeha gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Liars reconfigure everything quite quickly. He'll talk himself around. I'd say two days?"
Tavlen nodded. "Your shift ends in a quarter of an hour."
Jeha nodded, long fingers tightening over the edge of the papers. "Yes, Lord Unyielding."
Tavlen waited for some sort of explanation for his adamant nights off, but Jeha offered none. He waved his hand. "Dismissed."
When the kid left, Tavlen turned on Fent. "High tide celebration?"
Fent had his notebook out. "I am already drafting that tournament invite. A pretty excuse for our friendly visit."
"I'm in," Telei announced, leaving no room for rebuttal.
He called for guards to clean up the mess and haul a babbling Nim to his cell. And Fent returned to the alcove to pick up his secretary supplies.
The sick, the sweat, the papers all in garish colours in Ilina's grey glass was suddenly too much for Tavlen. He wanted the sea again, the cages. He pocketed the marble and left for the stairs with a clipped gait.
Both men jogged to catch up to him. It was two flights to the main floor; the stairs a yellow stone and the carpet a spill of red like a beast's lolling tongue.
"We'll need Knif," Tavlen told Fent. The Worm passed his ink to Telei again. "He'll be able to catch her scent in case they try to fool us with someone else."
Fent scratched something in his notes. "I knew their paperwork here was bad but hiding a tigress in a dead lion's papers? Oi, Lyra!" (She had emerged from behind a statue at the first landing). "What's the verdict, hm? Born magic or high magic?"
Lyra shrugged.
Telei wrestled the cork on the ink and tossed it back to Fent. "I think the Golden Dragon might have been right," he said, with a shy smile for the dragoness. "The pain was more self-inflicted than I thought. A two-way magic."
Lyra adjusted the hood of her cloak. "Nim had already brewed his lies, the kid just made him drink its poison."
"Ah, the poison of lies." Fent tucked his book under his arm. "True transcendence!"
Tavlen pushed open the doors to the main floor with a creak of wood. The night air was sticky with the sea and summer.
"Have Chant come and bring his beasts," Tavlen continued over his shoulder. "A small show of power won't hurt."
He wove through the curved arches to the open courtyard at the manor's heart. There, a stooped, gnarled olive tree clawed from the ground like a hand from a grave. At this hour, it smelt of dust and age. Tavlen paused before that tree; for all their months here, he wasn't sure he'd paid it any mind before.
Away from the melting slug of a liar and the stale blood of the interrogation room, Tavlen felt a small eye of emotion peeking open in his chest. A feeling that felt suspiciously like hope.
He looked up to the sky: the cracks almost matched the sky plates. The one time a day the sky looked whole and unblemished—darkness impenetrable. He grinned at it. "Drop the Kana in the chalice of their own lies for a change, hm? Remind them who rules these seas. This sky."
________________________
It's Tuesday. Not Wednesday. I don't know what you're talking about.
If you want to see the journey this posts went on before it made it to you, follow me on instagram at @kariscgalloway. I have three followers and six posts. And I have no idea what the story function is. But I'm doing it. So if you want to watch me flounder... come. I hope you laugh.
In other news, I am moving! Internationally. (Again? You Comfort the Wolves folks ask. Yes, again). Back to Spain! But I will need to take a week off posting to pack and accomplish a tsunami of other adulting things. If I were a better adult, I'd surf the waves and still post for you.
Alas, I am a fledging adult at best. Believe me, you don't want to read any gurgles I'd post in the interim. (Though insta ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ;) )
Anyway—Next post, Tuesday the 3rd. I'll be in the airport. With all my life in two suitcases, my coatpockets and a carry-on. It'll be grand.
Dedicated to BlindMouse21 for their reads and votes! I know this isn't the prettiest of chapters to stamp your name on. But, slugs aside, I really am so grateful you've given my story a shot Hope you have a great week! xx