The air in the containment cell did not smell of decay, as one might expect from a dungeon. It smelled of ozone, copper, and the sharp, antiseptic sting of frost. It was a sterile kind of hell, designed not just to punish the body, but to dismantle the mind.
Kael hung suspended by iron chains that bit into wrists already rubbed raw, his toes barely grazing the cold stone floor. He had lost track of time. In the dark, minutes stretched into hours, and hours bled into eternities.
The heavy iron door groaned open, admitting a slice of yellow torchlight and two silhouettes. The first was large, a brute of a man named Garrick who served as the hammer. The second was slender, dressed in the pristine, high-collared robes of the Inquisitorium. This was Silas. He was the scalpel.
"Still with us, boy?" Silas asked, his voice smooth like velvet over gravel. He stepped into the room, adjusting his gloves.
Kael didn't answer. He couldn't. His throat felt like it had been filled with broken glass. He merely lifted his head, his left eye swollen shut, the other bloodshot and defiant.
"The Illusion Spirit Arts," Silas whispered, walking a circle around Kael. "A forbidden lineage. A distortion of reality that threatens the stability of the Empire. We know you've seen the scrolls, Kael."
Kael's breathing was shallow, a wet, rattling sound in the silence. Focus, he told himself. It's not real. Pain is a signal. Signals can be dampened. But the Illusion Arts required concentration, and they had methodically stripped him of that luxury.
"Let's begin with the hands," Silas said, nodding to Garrick.
Garrick moved with a terrifying efficiency. He grabbed Kael's right hand, forcing the palm flat against a heavy wooden block that had been wheeled in. Kael tried to pull back, his chains clanking violently, but Garrick's grip was like a vice.
Silas produced a long, iron nail. It was rusted, not by accident, but by design. Tetanus and infection were slow torturers, but they were effective.
"The hands weave the illusion," Silas lectured, placing the tip of the nail against the center of Kael's palm. "They trace the sigils. If we break the loom, perhaps the weaver will speak."
Kael gritted his teeth, a low growl building in his chest.
Thunk.
The hammer came down.
The scream that tore from Kael's throat was primal, a sound that bypassed thought and dignity. The iron pierced skin, muscle, and tendon, grinding against the metacarpal bones before biting deep into the wood beneath. The shock was instantaneous, white-hot and blinding.
"How do you know about the illusion spirit arts ?" Silas asked, leaning in close, his face impassive.
Kael gasped, saliva and blood dripping from his chin. "I... don't... know..."
Silas sighed, a sound of exaggerated disappointment. "Pull it out. Do the other one."
The agony of the nail entering was terrible; the agony of it being wrenched free was worse. It felt as though his hand was being unmade from the inside out. But Kael did not speak. He locked the location of the Spirit Arts deep in the vault of his mind, behind walls of mental fortitude that were rapidly crumbling.
"He is stubborn," Garrick grunted, wiping the blood from the nail onto his apron.
"He is overheating," Silas noted, looking at the sweat pouring down Kael's pale face. "He needs to cool down. Bring the tank."
They unchained him, only to drag him toward a rusted trough in the corner. Kael's legs gave way, his knees striking the stone, but they hauled him up by his armpits. The trough was filled not with water, but with jagged, crushed ice.
"Face first," Silas commanded.
Garrick grabbed Kael by the back of his hair and shoved his head down.
The cold was a physical blow. It hit Kael's face like a sledgehammer. The shock caused him to inhale sharply, drawing freezing water into his nose. Panic flared—the lizard-brain instinct to breathe, to survive—but Garrick's hand was an immovable weight on his skull.
The ice burned. It froze the skin instantly, numbing the surface while creating a deep, aching headache that felt like his skull was splitting in two. His lungs burned for air. Bright spots danced in the darkness behind his eyelids.
Hold on. Hold on.
Just as the blackness threatened to take him completely, they yanked him up.
Kael gasped, dragging in heaving gulps of air, water streaming from his face, his skin mottled blue and red. He shivered violently, his teeth chattering so hard he thought they might crack.
"So tell," Silas repeated, relentless.
"I don't know," Kael stuttered, his voice barely audible.
Silas signaled Garrick again. "The salt. While the wounds are fresh."
They dragged him back to the center of the room. Kael's body was a map of lacerations from previous days—whip marks on his back, cuts on his chest, and now the gaping punctures in his hands. Garrick approached with a coarse burlap sack. He reached in, grabbing a handful of coarse rock salt.
He didn't sprinkle it. He scrubbed it.
He rubbed the crystals into the open hole in Kael's hand. He pressed it into the lashes on his back.
The reaction was chemical. The salt dissolved into the raw meat of Kael's body, firing every nerve ending simultaneously. It was a sensation of being consumed by fire, a corrosive burning that made the earlier puncture wound feel like a mercy. Kael's back arched, his body seizing in a rigid bow of agony. He didn't have the breath left to scream; only a high-pitched, keen whine escaped his lips.
"The Illusion Spirit Arts allow one to deceive the senses," Silas mused, watching the boy writhe. "But there is no deception here, Kael. This is reality. Absolute. Unyielding. Tell us, and it stops."
Kael wept. He couldn't help it. Tears mingled with the blood on his face. But he shook his head.
"Still nothing?" Silas checked his pocket watch. "Bring the generator."
The device was a crude amalgamation of magic and machinery—a heavy box with copper coils that hummed with a menacing, low-frequency buzz. They attached electrodes to Kael's temples and his ankles.
"This," Silas said, placing a hand on the dial, "bypasses the will. It speaks directly to the muscles. To the heart."
He turned the dial.
Current flooded Kael. It wasn't like fire; it was like vibration. Every muscle in his body contracted at once, snapping tight with enough force to threaten tearing themselves from the bone. His jaw clamped shut, and he tasted the copper tang of blood as he bit through his tongue. His vision turned white. There was no thought, no "Spirit Arts," no father, no loyalty. There was only the electricity.
They pulsed it. On. Off. On. Off.
Each time the current stopped, Kael slumped, a puppet with cut strings, smoke rising faintly from where the electrodes touched his skin.
"He's going into shock," Garrick warned, looking at the boy's erratic breathing. "If he dies, we lose the information permanently."
Silas stared at the broken boy. They had been at this for three days. Nails, ice, salt, lightning, beatings that bruised the organs. And yet, the boy's mind remained a fortress.
Silas felt a flicker of frustration, a rare emotion for him. "He knows. I know he knows. But he's willing to die for it."
"What do we do?"
Silas looked at the ruin of Kael's hands. "He is useless to us dead. And he is clearly not going to talk while he still has hope of surviving this. We change tactics. We release him."
Garrick frowned. "Release him?"
"He is broken," Silas sneered. "Release him to his family. Let them see what happens to those who defy the Order. Perhaps the father will be more... reasonable... when he sees his son in pieces. Or perhaps the boy will inadvertently reveal something in his delirium once he thinks he is safe."
Silas pulled the electrodes off, tearing skin with them. "Call Lord Rowan. Tell him his son is ready for collection."