"What have you done to yourself, Helsene?" the Iron Legion said as he stepped forward. He was within striking distance now and I felt Ssserakis batter against the walls I had locked it behind.
I lifted my stone arm. "Made a deal with Aerolis. The terms were steeper than I realised."
"Djinn are not to be trusted."
I grit my teeth. "Neither are you. Let him go."
The Iron Legion glanced at Hardt and waved a hand. The metal bonds holding my friend released a little, enough to let him breathe deeply again, but they kept him bound. "His fate is for the Emperor to decide. The same as yours." The Iron Legion sighed and looked suddenly tired, his expression softening into the grandfatherly smile I remembered of old. "I gave you your freedom, Helsene. You should have taken it. Instead, you made a statement and now Aras Terrelan wants you." Loran shook his head. "He is not a kind man."
"Where is Josef?" I spat the words at him.
"Caged. Though in no danger, unlike you." The Iron Legion looked up as the soldiers drew closer. "Her power is gone. You can restrain her now."
The Terrelans rushed forward and strong hands grabbed hold of me, pulling my arms behind me and securing them with chains. I took some small satisfaction at the murmur of surprise when they realised my left arm was made of stone. They still chained it to my right. I kept my gaze locked on the Iron Legion the entire time, focusing all my hatred and Ssserakis' into the glare. He met my flashing eyes without flinching.
"Once before, I told you I hoped we had no cause to meet again, Helsene. Now I am certain we won't. He will destroy you." A sad sigh escaped his lips. "Goodbye." With that, the Iron Legion turned and walked away through the carnage of my army, his hands buried in the folds of his robes and his back bent under the weight of his unnatural years.
The Terrelan soldiers held me there until the field marshal arrived. Then both I and Hardt were dragged away, bound and unable to do anything to escape the tortures planned for us.
Chapter 24
There is nothing quite like solitary incarceration to give a person time to think. Josef was not truly alone, of course, there were occupants in nearby cells and many of them spent much of their time, at least at the start, howling their indignation or begging for their freedom. Wasted words. The other prisoners could do nothing and did not care. Josef did not care.
It is a terrifying thing to strip a person's benevolence away from them. Even more so for someone like Josef who only ever wanted to help others. To look inside for his compassion and find that he no longer cared should have broken him, except that he no longer cared.
This is one of Josef's memories.
He could feel them. Every single prisoner on this level had a spark to them, a little light in the darkness. Not a real light. There was no light. But they had a Biomantic light. Josef closes his eyes and concentrates, letting his senses mingle with his innate magic. There are thirty-one of them. Ragged souls, malnourished and rotting. Some are injured, others have simply lost their senses and no longer even know where they are. Or what they are. They are broken. But Josef could fix them. A nudge here, a push there, chemistry moved back into alignment, pathways corrected. He could fix them. But why should he? He can't find the effort. He doesn't care.
One of the men still screams. He's two cages over, a big man and still healthy. He kicks at the door to his cell and screams even though his voice is raw from the effort. Josef wants the man to shut up like the rest of them. To sit down and accept his fate. If only he were closer. If only he could reach the man, he could shut him up. He could suck the fight right out of him and leave him quiet. Dead.
Josef turns his senses inward and probes his Biomancy. He has always imagined his Sourcery as a sort of well. When he swallowed a Source, the well filled with magic and he could take from it at will. It would run empty eventually, of course, and if it did rejection would set in, but he was careful never to let that happen. When he regurgitated the Source, the well ran dry, the waters draining away in an instant. But there was no well inside him anymore. It had overflown, the waters engulfing everything around it. It was no longer a well, it was a lake, vast and deep. And always there.
His palms no longer hurt and though the skin on them feels new and raw, there is no evidence that he ever skinned them. His toe no longer hurts. It has not been so long since his attempt at escape, he should not have healed so quickly. He reaches up and traces a hand along the scar at his throat. Yorin had cut his throat and the blade had bit deep. No one should have survived that sort of wound. But he did. He survived and he healed.
Josef wraps his hand around his little finger and braces for the pain. He wrenches it to the side and hears it snap, feels the break as a rising wave of pain and nausea. He screams, adding his own voice to the other man's.
"Shut up!" someone hisses in the darkness.
Josef waits. He can feel his finger realigning, the bone knitting back together. With his Biomantic senses turned inward, he can feel it happening at a rate that should not be possible. And the waters of his lake are barely touched. He counts out the time in his head. Four minutes. Four minutes for a broken bone to heal as though the injury had never been.
He puts the heel of his hand in his mouth and bites down hard. Again, the pain, though less this time. He was expecting it. He was bracing against it. He was numbing it somehow, another use of his Biomancy he hadn't even realised was possible. The blood in his mouth is sticky and metallic and he spits it out. His flesh knits back together in seconds. Before a minute is up the wound is completely closed.
It's the Iron Legion's technique at work, Josef knows for a certainty. His innate Biomancy has been there ever since the Pit. No, even before that. It's been there ever since Loran first experiment on he and Eska. He injected them with Sources and changed them forever. But ever since Josef had started draining the life from his… Victims. They were victims and he would call them such. It sparked to life a brief flicker of guilt that he clung to, knowing it would not last and that when it disappeared, he would be truly lost. Somehow, draining the life from others was strengthening Josef, causing his well to overflow into a lake. Even though he was channelling that energy into Sources, a part of it stayed with him.
What about the Iron Legion though? He had developed the technique. He had been using it for years before now. How long had he been draining the life from people, adding their power to his own? How many people had he murdered? How strong was he really?
Josef saw his reserves as a lake, but then the Iron Legion must have an ocean!
It was hopeless. It had been hopeless from the start. Josef drew his knees up and hugged them to his chest. There was no way out of this prison. The Iron Legion countered him at every turn. His power was too great, too unfathomable. He would not let Josef go. He would not let Josef stop. And with every life taken, Josef cared a little less.
He sobbed, tears rolling down his cheeks. A broken thing like all the other prisoners. There was no hope. There was no respite. He had no fight left. The Iron Legion had won.
Chapter 25
I don't remember much of the journey to Juntorrow. I think I have blocked the details of it, for it was without a doubt one of the worst times of my life. Hardt's arm was set and he was marched along in manacles, kept under constant guard. He had it easy. The Terrelan soldiers blamed me for the deaths of their friends and comrades. Over five hundred dead and as many injured. They were right to blame me, it was my fault. That doesn't mean they were right to take my shoes away, tie me to the back of a horse, and force me to march along at speed or be dragged. The vanguard set a gruelling pace and I was forced to keep it. Each day was a monotonous agony of marching on blistered, bloody feet, dragging myself along beyond the limits of endurance. I was given a few sips of water each morning and when we made camp, barely enough to sustain me, and my throat felt like fire. They fed me once every two days and only on the scraps soldiers left behind. I was insulted, spat upon, tripped, and even punched by some of the more vicious soldiers. The field marshal did nothing to stop his troops.