Page 29 of These Divided Shores
Lu made a frail cry, high in her throat. “Yes. I surrender to you.”
Ben staggered. But she looked up at him, blood pulsing down her arm, and the plea in the divot between her brows came from a place of single-minded need for respite.
Iron clanged and squealed as their cell door unlocked. Ben made himself face Ibarra.
The lieutenant grinned and pointed at the floor. “When we come, both of you will kneel to show respect for the Eminence King.”
Ben staggered. In the hall, Jakes watched Elazar, who made the curvedVof the Church with his hands against his chest.
When Jakes looked at him, Ben lowered himself to his knees so it was almost to Jakes that Ben was supplicating. Jakes parted his lips but didn’t speak.
The cot shrieked. Ben didn’t have time to help her before Lu slid off the thin mattress and buckled to the floor next to him. The fading Lazonade made her arms droop before her.
“Good,” Ibarra said, and patted her hair. “What sins have you committed, child?”
Nausea clamped Ben’s throat. Lu trembled, her bloodied arm rubbing against him.
“Defiance,” Ben spoke. This was all he could do for her. He knew what Ibarra and Elazar wanted to hear. “Pride. We—” He dug his fingers into the stained, worn fabric of his breeches to hold himself steady. “We give ourselves over to the will of the Pious God.”
Ben had spoken similar lies most of his life, but a long strand of fatigue hung off this one. He’d promised himself he was done, that he wasfree.
A pause, and Ibarra’s hand swooped down to break against Lu’s cheek. She crashed into Ben, who scrambled to catch her.
“Stop!” Ben shouted. “We gave in! You will have what you want—nowstop!”
Ibarra pointed a harsh finger as Lu shrank into Ben’s chest. No—he pointed with two metal rods that looked like plant tongs. “If you think you can trick us,” Ibarra said. “If you try to escape again. Remember—you may run, but you will always end up here, cowering at my feet.”
Ben lunged as if to grab Ibarra, to punch him,something—but Elazar was in the cell now. When had he moved? Ben yanked Lu closer, letting free an unexpected shout of alarm. The torture and games had loosened his instinct to shout when his father was near, no resolve left to keep himself strong.
“You have done well, Lieutenant,” Elazar said. He paused, considering. “I will reassess your demotion. For now, you may resume your post overseeing my defensors on Grace Loray.”
Ibarra let out a relieved sigh and bowed at the waist. “My king.”
Face against Ben’s chest, Lu shuddered.
Elazar knelt to put one hand on Lu’s bowed head. With the other, he cupped Ben’s face.
More than five years ago, Ben had had a nightmare about Rodrigu and Paxben’s burning. He had sought out his father in his study the next morning.
“I knew them, Father. They weren’t evil. Burning them was wrong—”
Elazar had curled his fingers around a marble paperweight emblazoned with the Church’s curvedV.The rings on his fingers—one a thick ruby set in gold, the other the seal of Argrid in cobalt and sapphire—caught fire on the righteousness in his eyes.
The first blow had rendered Ben speechless, making him too numb to fight back.
“Do not question the Pious God, Benat,”Elazar had said. Another strike, the paperweight cracking on Ben’s jaw.“You are incapable of seeing the evil that was in Rodrigu.”Another, another; Ben fell to the floor, crying “Father, Father, stop—”“But you will not question me when I say that it was there. You will not question me,ever.”
“Stop,” came a gruff voice now. “Don’t— Take me—don’t hurt him—”
Gunnar held himself up by a white-knuckled grip on his cell bars, twitching in the prison’s disorientation.
Though Gunnar couldn’t physically put himself between Ben and Elazar, the idea made Ben’s chest go cold, hot, cold again, changing on every inhale with dizzying, centering gratitude.
Elazar looked at Gunnar, and Ben twitched forward with a panicked gasp. By the flicker at the edge of Elazar’s lips, the motion was not unnoticed.
“Let their surrender inspire you,” Elazar said to Gunnar. “You know how your people made Eye of the Sun permanent. Tell us, so these servants of the Pious God can fulfillHis mighty work. They may be able to remove the Devil’s touch from you, barbarian.”
“He isn’t a barbarian,” Ben snapped.
