“You’re not that, either.” Aster leaned his head on Nikos’ arm. “You’re Nikos. You’re nice, and funny, and clever. You don’t want to hurt people. You’re not made for it. But they’ll try to make you do it anyway, and that’s what’s wrong with it all. We’re not an army, Nikos, we’re people. We should be allowed tobepeople.”
Nikos just held him, unable to speak.
“My parents,” Aster said. “That man said they’re dead.”
Nikos nodded.
“When I go, I don’t want you to be the one to bury me,” Aster said. “Promise me, Nikos. I don’t want you to see it.”
“You won’t die,” Nikos said. “Evander Akti is going to be Strategos, soon. When he’s in charge—if you can hold out that long…” But no one ever held out that long. “I can do something. I’ll ask for a pardon. I’ll make it right, Aster. You’re going to be all right.”
Aster smiled wryly and looked down. “Oh, Nikos. That’s the worst lie you’ve ever told me.”
Nikos looked around the room. Haris was just outside. If he tried to take Aster out that way, he’d need to kill Haris. He wasn’t sure he could. He’d spent most of his early life practicing drills against dummies that were supposed to stand in for human beings, but he didn’t think he could pretend that a body was just a sack on a plank of wood. Perhaps that was why he knew all the details of Haris’ art but was not allowed to hold his instruments.
“I’ll find someone who can pardon you,” Nikos said. He fetched his supplies—water, bandages, rags to clean sweat-streaked skin—and he laid Aster gently on the floor.
“You know I’m guilty,” Aster said, as Nikos started splinting his bent fingers. “I’ll face the firing squad if they don’t kill me here.”
“Maybe I can get you out of Arktos.” Nikos tried to go back into the quiet, calm place where his dominance issued forth, but it felt shallow and strained. “People must have done it before.”
“Not even one,” Aster said. “That’s what they tell us.” He watched Nikos work with a hazy, vague expression. “So this is what they use you for. I’m sorry.”
Nikos looked down at him in alarm. Aster’s family was dead, he was facing execution as a traitor, and he was apologizing to a man working in the interrogation rooms?
The worst part was, Nikos knew why he said it. His dominance had always been used to urge confessions out of broken people. It was a tool—Nikoswas a tool, an expert on pain, too broken himself to see it.
“I’ll get you out,” he said. He touched Aster’s temple, the one place that didn’t seem bloody or bruised.
“Get yourself out.” Aster reached up as though to grab his hand. “Go to Katoikos, or Staria. Cross the mountains. See what they look like. You’d like it there, I bet. I bet they’re nicer. I bet you won’t even miss it here.”
I’ll miss you,Nikos wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, he got Aster as comfortable as possible before slipping out of the door. He told Haris he needed a break for water—interrogators always got as much water as they wanted—and staggered into the bright sunlight to find someone to help.
He didn’t know who to trust. His friends were gone, no longer willing to speak to an interrogator’s apprentice. He barely remembered his parents. His instructors in the barracks had been kind, but they’d also signed his apprenticeship to the interrogators.
Evander Akti. Haris said he had a soft heart. Maybe it would be soft enough for Aster. Nikos stumbled through Axon until he found him standing by the dueling tents, as beautiful and stern as his father, surrounded by young men a little older than Nikos.He turned to meet Nikos’ gaze as he approached, narrowing his eyes.
“Soldier.” He even spoke like his father. Nikos needed to get him alone, but he didn’t know how. He opened his mouth to ask, but then Evander’s expression shifted to disgust when he saw Nikos’ work uniform. “Interrogator.”
“I’m apprenticed,” Nikos said.
One of the men with Evander, who Nikos recognized as Acacius Stavros, looked Nikos up and down. “If you have news, you know the proper channels. An interrogator never speaks to the Strategos directly.”
“I’m not Strategos yet,” Evander said.
“You can’t break precedent,” Stavros said. “The rules exist for a reason.”
“They don’t have to.” It took a few seconds for Nikos to realize the voice that spoke was his. “Sir. I…” Evander couldn’t help. He was too close to his father—to these young men, who clearly believed in the laws of Arktos more than Nikos ever could. He’d have to do it alone. “When you’re Strategos. Consider...”
Evander crossed his arms. “Consider what, interrogator?”
“Whether you need us anymore,” Nikos said. “Sir.”
One of Evander’s friends spoke up. “What’s your name?”
Nikos took a step back. Evander was looking at him oddly, his mouth pressed together, brows lowered. Haris would have said that he was on the verge of breaking—one more push would be enough. But he couldn’t manage it, not with Evander flanked by proper soldiers.
He fled before one of them could order him to stay. He’d already spent too long on a pointless search. Haris would be back to work soon, and he was, as the other interrogators put it, not a soft touch. He had a tendency to hurry along an execution if he was irritated, especially at the end of the day—no. Hedidn’thurry it along.He killed them. Haris liked killing. He didn’t treat it clinically like some of the others did. He always pushed people too hard, made their hearts burst, their bodies fail, the pain tipping over into just too much. It was pleasurable for Haris, like putting a submissive on their knees, even if Haris wasn’t a dominant. It had tangled up in his sense of desire and come out as something bloody and terrible, signed off by the Strategos.
