Eolh barely had a chance to pull his raven dagger out of the second cyran soldier, before something heavy collided with the back of his neck.

His head snapped to the side, as hundreds of pounds of cyran muscle and scale brought him low. He landed on the hard-packed gravel road, knocking the air from his lungs. A rain of boots followed, crashing against his ribs and the back of his head.

How had he missed all those soldiers? He had been so quick…

It was Laykis’s metal hand that saved him. And Ryke’s goggles.

The soldiers had seen him kill two of their kind in broad daylight. They should have shot him on the spot. Or, at the very least, strung him up and dragged him to a firing range.

But a shout went up. An officer, with glittering scales running lines above and below her eyes.

“Old tech!” the Officer shouted, “He’s got old tech!”

The rain of blows stopped.

All the soldiers pulled back, suddenly wary of what this half-broken corvani might do to them. Afraid of the power he might have.

Old Tech. For all they knew, it could be anything. It could do anything.

But Eolh was already fading, and the clouds and the bamboo roofs of buildings overhead were spinning. Every gasp was agony, and every exhale made the world a little darker.

“Don’t kill him,” the Officer said, “The General will want to know about him.”

“Sir!” a soldier protested. “He killed Murdollus! He killed them both!”

There was a scuffle. Eolh could only see their boots, slick with mud, crunching in the gravel next to his face. He could see the light of the suns going dim.

“I said, don’t kill him! You have no idea what that shit is. Grab him and take him down.”

There was only the silent crunching of gravel. Metal clinking. Eolh could feel a presence standing over him, and then someone grabbed his arms and pulled them behind his back. He squawked with the pain, and someone told him to shut up.

Metal bit into his wrists. It was not the first time Eolh had been in chains.

Hells, this wasn’t even the first time he’d been locked up by cyran soldiers. But it was certainly the first time he’d been locked up for murder.

Why in the name of the gods did I try to help?

They obeyed the officer’s orders - they did not kill him. But they did not go softly either. They ripped the goggles off his head. They kicked him as they tore off his clothes. Somebody tried to wrench the metal hand from his arm, wrenching his arm further out of place. The lance of pain was so sudden, Eolh was dizzy with nausea. And when they hauled him to his feet, he vomited over himself.

He did not pass out, but he could not remember the walk, either. The world was blurry.

He remembered being taken to a large, stone house. And talking to an older cyran with graying, glittering scales on her head, and a huge, muscular neck. Vorpei. There were soldiers standing behind him, telling him what to do.

“Answer her!”

“I’m a merchant,” he said. “I’m a merchant.”

That was all he said, over and over. All he clung to. He wouldn’t say anything else. This was his fault, and he wouldn’t drag any of the others with him. Not Poire. Not Laykis. Not even that damned Kirine.

General Vorpei, Consul Vorpei, whatever her name was. She seemed to know that Eolh was somehow connected to them.

“Bring me his hand,” she said.

One of the cyrans, a scrawny dullscale who seemed to know his way around tech, figured out how to unhook it from his wrist plate. He brought the hand up to Vorpei, his head bowed low.

Vorpei held up Laykis’s open hand in the light, testing its weight. Moving the fingers. “The human’s an-droid. Is it the same one?”

“Hard to say,” the scrawny dullscale said, “The an-droid was whole. New tech, layered over the old. I suppose it’s possible.”

“I think it’s true,” Vorpei said. “He belongs to the human. Throw him with the other solitaries, in case the human comes back. I don’t want to piss off another so-called god.”

“Do you think he will come back, General?” Another cyran said. He was old, too, just like the General. The crest fins on his head were ragged from years of tearing. And when he spoke, all the medals on his uniform jingled like too many coins.

“The human? No. Nothing ever comes back from the templelands.”

“A shame about Slow Corps, then.” The overly-decorated cyran said.

“Yes,” Vorpei agreed solemnly. “A shame. Well, I’ve been wrong before. Keep this one alive, just in case…”

***

The cell door screamed shut. Eolh’s thoughts clung to the heavy clang of metal, and the turning of a fat, wrought-iron key.

“Lucky piece of shit,” a voice said. A cyran voice, judging by the watery tones of his voice.

Eolh groaned. He tried to move.

Everything hurt. His back, most of all, where someone had kneeled on his spine. His arms were bruised all the way up to the shoulder, and his ribs - gods damn it hurts.

“Can’t believe she’s letting him live,” the voice said. He was talking to another guard. They were standing in the narrow hallway of the prison, just outside his cell. One of Eolh’s eyes was swollen shut, and he could only make out their boots.

“I mean, we’ve searched him. We’ve taken everything off of him. Why can’t we just kill him?”

“Forget it. General said he might be valuable.”

“How? What does she see in him?”

“How should I know. Maybe she wants to make a deal with the avians.”

“The birds? Are you kidding me?”

There was the scuffling of footsteps as the two of them walked away, down the hallway. Eolh counted their footsteps, trying to get an understanding of how deep he was. How large this prison was.

“Look, I’m not about to question her orders. She said he’s got to live. So I’m not touching him.”

There was a heavy, creaking sound. Another door? And when it shut, the voices were gone.

Eolh was alone.

He struggled to lift his head.

There was a small window, the size of a large book, on the back wall of his cell. Half of the window was cut off by the stone wall that separated his cell from the next, which meant that once this prison cell had been twice as large. A red shaft of evening light poured through the metal bars.

Eolh tried to push himself up to sitting, but another lance of pain jolted through his body, spreading out like lightning across his chest, his torso. What he saw gave him little courage.

The cell was empty, except for a small, wooden bucket and an alarmingly red stain on the floor.

Not even a bed to sleep on.

Might as well sleep right here, then.

They brought water while he slept. He didn’t hear the guards the first time.

The second time, he was awoken by something prodding at his head. A long, thin club, used for beating prisoners. A cyran soldier, dark green scales, was standing outside the bars with a bowl in one hand, and the club in another.

“I’m awake,” Eolh said. Or rather, he tried to say it. All that came out was a dry, cracking rasp.

“Thought you was dead,” the guard replied. And then, he dropped the bowl heavily on the ground just outside of Eolh’s cage, letting it slop slightly out of the bowl. And walked away.

His cell faced the hallway. That is, his cell faced the wall of the hallway. Just a naked, stone wall, and a naked stone floor. He couldn’t even tell how many cells there were here, or how far down the hall his cell was.

Well, Eolh thought, I’ve stayed in worse inns.

And the window’s not a bad touch.

At least they were giving him water and food. Or, whatever was in that bowl. He picked it up, sniffed at it, and almost gagged.

Not that desperate.

Not yet.

How long would they keep him in here? How long would they let him live, if he refused to give them any information at all? Eolh tried to run through his options, but just the act of thinking made him feel dizzy with sickness. He was probably concussed, and the rest of his body...

Who put these bandages on me?

“Gods,” he said, sarcastically, “That was nice of them.”

His voice felt like gravel in the back of his throat. He spoke the words aloud, not just to hear himself talk. He wanted to see if there was anyone else around. If anyone else would respond to him - even a guard.

But all he could hear was the patter of rain.

It reminded him, in a soft way, of Gaiam. The jungles there were always dripping with rain.

When he tried to move to the corner of the room, he felt something pop inside chest. A new pain stabbed, just to the left of his heart, making him gasp. Turning the whole world white.

Gods, help me.

Too exhausted to do anything else, Eolh pulled himself into the corner of the room, laid his head on his hand, and tried to go back to sleep. It was impossible to get comfortable, but at least this way the pain in his chest didn’t grow any worse.

It might’ve been the second night, or the third. He couldn’t be certain, because he slept so much. Eolh was slipping in and out of darkness, letting the sound of the rain soothe his wounds, when he heard the thump of heavy footsteps down the hall. Muffled by the heavy door.

A voice, undoubtedly drunk, said, “Take a walk.”

“You can’t go in there.”

“A week’s pay. Take it. And take a walk.”

There was a pause.

And then, one of the voices said, “Nothing on the head.”

A heavy door creaked open. Two pairs of footsteps scraped down the prison hallway.

One belonged to a soldier, huge and muscular. Only three buttons were done up on his uniform, and they were all in the wrong places. He smelled so strongly of cheap beer, Eolh thought he might get tipsy just from breathing this soldier’s air. There was another cyran behind him, wiry and pale. He had whiskers on his chin and his cheeks, and they were quivering with a kind of excitement.

Their eyes were bloodshot from drinking.

The large one said, “You get his arms.”

“He’s not going to do much with only one hand,” the wiry one said, a hungry, frightened look on his face.

“Evening, gentlemen,” Eolh said.

“Shut up.”

“Forgive me,” Eolh tried again, “But you seem to have found the wrong room. This one is taken.”

“I said shut up.”

Eolh’s stomach flipped. He knew where this was headed. Even if he did have a weapon, he didn’t think he had the strength to swing it. Nothing about this would end well for him, no matter what he did. He couldn’t fight. He couldn’t stop them. And from the sounds of it, nobody else would either.

He tried to keep his tone callous and confident, as if he had been waiting for these two to show up. But the fear he felt in his stomach was real. Only one other chance.

“They didn’t get all my tech, you know. Leave now, and I promise neither of you will get hurt.”

The wiry one seemed to believe him, until the big one scoffed.

“Liar.”

Eolh gasped as he let his head fall back against the wall. It was worth a try. He was sweating now.

And all he could do was hope they wouldn’t kill him. Hope, or pray.

Was this the right time to ask the gods’ favor?

Fool. Even if they were real, you know they’re not listening now.

The big one opened the cell with a key. The wiry one darted in, and kicked Eolh onto the ground, before tugging at his good arm, and pulling it tight behind his back.

“This look familiar?” the big one said. He was holding up a knife - Eolh’s raven dagger. The hilt was forged into an ornate pattern of twin, black wings.

“No,” Eolh said.

The wiry cyran twisted his arm. Eolh squawked - his body didn’t give him a choice.

“Yes you do,” the big one said, almost singing. “You know exactly what this is, you savage.”

He flicked the blade slowly in front of Eolh.

“Pull him down.”

“He said not the face.” The wiry one protested.

“And I said: Pull. Him. Down.”

And when the Big One dragged the knife across Eolh’s cheek, drunkenly sliding it all the way down his neck and over his chest, Eolh’s world went white with pain.

It was extraordinary.

But this time, he refused to scream. He refused to do anything to their satisfaction.

Kanya, Eolh thought. Give me strength.