* * *

  “The bullet missed everything important,” said the camp medic. “She’ll be fully capable again within a day or so.”

  “Would traveling make it worse?” asked Kera. “We may need to get moving before then.”

  “I feel fine already, to be honest,” Lycera cut in, from where she lay bandaged atop the bedroll. “But, Iumatar… we may need to get moving back to friendly lines, soon, you mean... right? You can’t seriously think we should keep after this, still. We need to bank our win. Take the lead back to Tanhkmet.”

  “We’ve made good time, so far,” said Kera. “Just like I said, we saved a week, cutting north across the ruins.”

  “The Albians are making even better time, down at the frontline,” said Lycera. “And we’re not actually ahead of schedule ourselves until our man tells us what we want to know. That could set us back more than we’ve leapt ahead, if he turns out to be stubborn. We need to at least begin heading back, while we work him.”

  Kera scowled, then stormed out of the medic’s tent.

  The Albian was sitting blindfolded and bound in the center of their encampment. She gestured to the two patrol officers standing over him, jerking her chin toward the barrack tent.

  Kera followed the two officers as they forced the prisoner past the tentflap and threw him back down onto the dusty earth inside. Kera knelt, and tore off his blindfold.

  “Your name is Bronnr Torstad,” she said. “You recently became the captain of a transport frigate.”

  “Uh— don’t speak Setet very good,” said Bronnr, “Only few words—”

  He gasped in pain, as Kera kicked him hard in the stomach.

  “Don’t play games. You think only Albians can learn about their enemies? We’ve sacked four supply caravans in the last month. You’re Bronnr Torstad, 12th Royal Navy supply corps. A former comrade of yours had a lot to say about your fluency in Setetic. Not to mention the madame of your favorite brothel in Ventium. We know full well that you can understand me perfectly.”

  After some brief initial shock, Bronnr’s expression hardened.

  “Fine, then,” he said. “Yes, I speak Setetic. But that won’t matter… and you should know why it won’t, if you really have learned anything about your enemy.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I just want to know where my friends are,” said Kera. “This doesn’t have to be hard. You were the first mate aboard frigates carrying prisoners-of-war. Where were you taking the prisoners?”

  “If you know of us,” said Bronnr, “You should know… whatever it is you want me to tell you? I’ll die before I talk. I’m a soldier of Albion. I won’t betray my duty.”

  Before she’d met Bronnr for the first time, Kera had wondered if he might remind her of Roskvir. If he would somehow evoke some strange sympathy from her in the same sort of way, in spite of the atrocities his people had committed against her own.

  As it turned out, Bronnr didn’t even come close.

  He was just one more obstacle, blocking her way.

  “Get out, you two,” she said quietly. The two patrol officers looked at each other, then removed themselves from the tent.

  As they left, sparks of blue and white fell from a crown of flame above her. But she didn’t even notice.

  “I just want to know where my friends are,” Kera repeated.

  “I don’t even know— agh—”

  Bronnr choked, as Kera took hold of his bound wrists, pulled them over his head, then down behind his back, overrotating them far beyond the natural degree.

  “Where are the Albian prisoner camps?” she repeated.

  “No—”

  She’d sworn an oath. If there was an obstacle preventing her from fulfilling that oath, then she’d just have to break through it.

  “Tell me.”

  “Oh gods, gods… fuck me,” moaned Bronnr.

  There were two pops, then a crack, as both shoulders dislocated, then his left arm broke, while Kera continued to twist his bound wrists further back.

  “One of us is going to forsake their sworn duty, before either of us leave this tent,” said Kera. “Your duty is to some faraway king. My duty is to those whom I directly owe my life. Do you really think I’m going to give up before you do? Save yourself the pain. Tell me... where... my friends are.”

  Bronnr’s features contorted in agony. But still, rather than answer her, he seemed only to grit his teeth, and brace.

  Kera pushed down twice as hard, twisting his left arm right where it was broken.

  “Tell. Me!”

  Before she realized what she was doing, a burst of electric current was flowing through her palms, and into his wrists where she gripped them. Incandescent power crackled within the tent, illuminating the musty darkness like daylight.

  Bronnr’s stubborn groan at once became a blood-curdling shriek.

  She stumbled backward. Her captive fell face-first to the ground, gasping for air in rapid, shallow breaths.

  At last, Kera became aware of the blue-white fire above her head.

  I did that?

  She stared at her hands in disbelief. As her fire faded — without her willing it gone, just as it had come — she realized that Bronnr was babbling something.

  “Nouklon… Nouklon… please, please, no more,” he sobbed into the dirt. “I don’t know… we only ever flew prisoners to a town, Nouklon… please, gods, no more… no more…”

  Hi everybody. As I mentioned yesterday, today/tomorrow might be the first day in the next few weeks I have to take off. Not quite sure yet, so there may or may not be a chapter. If not, though, check back the day after for the update.

  Cloak of Saffron