Saikhara jerked her hand free and slammed a fist down on the table. Her cup toppled over, spilling hot tea across the embroidered cloth. “You swore to me. You said you’d make this right, that if I brought them back they’d find a way to fix him, you promised—”
“Silence, woman.” Vaisra pointed to the door. “If you cannot calm yourself, then you will leave.”
Saikhara shot Rin a tight-lipped look of fury, muttered something under her breath, and stormed out of the room.
A long silence hung over her absence. Tarcquet looked somewhat amused. Vaisra leaned back in his chair, took a draught of tea, then sighed. “You’ll have to excuse my wife. She tends to be ill-tempered after travel.”
“She’s desperate for answers.” A woman in a gray cassock, the one who had stood over Rin at the dock, laid her hand on Vaisra’s. “We understand. We’d like to find a cure, too.”
Rin shot her a curious look. The woman’s Nikara sounded remarkably good—she could have been a native speaker if her tones weren’t so oddly flat. Her hair was the color of wheat, straight and slick, braided into a serpent-like coil that rested just over her shoulder. Gray eyes like castle walls. Pale skin like paper, so thin that blue veins were visible beneath. Rin had the oddest urge to touch it, just to see if it felt human.
“She’s a fascinating creature,” said the woman. “It is rare you meet someone possessed by Chaos who yet remains so lucid. None of our Hesperian madmen have been so good at fooling their observers.”
“I’m standing right in front of you,” Rin said.
“I’d like to get her in an isolation chamber,” the woman continued, as if Rin hadn’t spoken. “We’re close to developing instruments that can detect raw Chaos in sterile environments. If we could bring her back to the Gray Towers—”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Rin said.
General Tarcquet stroked the arquebus that lay in front of him. “You wouldn’t really have a choice, dear.”
The woman lifted a hand. “Wait, Josephus. The Divine Architect values free thought. Voluntary cooperation is a sign that reason and order yet prevail in the mind. Will the girl come willingly?”
Rin stared at the two of them in disbelief. Did Vaisra possibly believe that she would say yes?
“You could even keep her on campaign for the time being,” the woman said to Vaisra, as if they were discussing something no more pressing than dinner arrangements. “I would only require regular meetings, perhaps once a week. They would be minimally invasive.”
“Define ‘minimally,’” Vaisra said.
“I would only observe her, for the most part. I’d perhaps conduct a few experiments. Nothing that will affect her permanently, and certainly nothing that would affect her fighting ability. I’d just like to see how she reacts to various stimuli—”
A ringing noise grew louder and louder in Rin’s ears. Everyone’s voices became both slurred and magnified. The conversation proceeded, but she could decipher only fragments.
“—fascinating creature—”
“—prized soldier—”
“—tip the balance—”
She found herself swaying on her feet.
She saw in her mind’s eye a face she hadn’t let herself imagine for a long time. Dark, clever eyes. Narrow nose. Thin lips and a cruel, excited smile.
She saw Dr. Shiro.
She felt his hands moving over her, checking her restraints, making sure she couldn’t move an inch from the bed he’d strapped her down on. She felt his fingers feeling around in her mouth, counting her teeth, moving down past her jaw to her neck to locate her artery.
She felt his hands holding her down as he pushed a needle into her vein.
She felt panic, fear, and rage all at once and she wanted to burn but she couldn’t, and the heat and fire just bubbled up in her chest and built up inside her because the fucking Seal had gotten in the way, but the heat just kept building and Rin thought she might implode—
“Runin.” Vaisra’s voice cut through the fog.
She focused with difficulty on his face. “No,” she whispered. “No, I can’t—”
He got up from his seat. “This isn’t the same as the Mugenese lab.”
She backed away from him. “I don’t care, I can’t do this—”
“What are you debating?” demanded the Boar Warlord. “Hand her to them and be done with it.”
“Quiet, Charouk.” Vaisra drew Rin hastily into the corner of the room, far from where the Hesperians could hear. He lowered his voice. “They will force you either way. If you cooperate you will garner us sympathy.”