actions,” Aramin says, his voice ringing out across the arena. Beside him, a young translator struggles to keep up, her tongue tripping over the Federation’s clipped language. “Because you chose to fight for an enemy of our nation, because of the atrocities you have committed, the Senate has sentenced you to be judged before the Strikers of Mara. If you choose to help us by answering our questions about the Federation, we will let you live. But if you continue to stay silent, you will be executed here in this arena. Do you understand?”
As the translator repeats in Karenese what the Firstblade said, the young man gazes out at the arena. I observe him closely. He may not speak Maran, but even he must know from their voices that they are calling for his execution today. Still, he looks relieved, so serene in the face of death that he seems almost bored.
Adena frowns and leans over to Jeran and me. “Does he not understand what the translator’s saying?” she asks.
“I think the translator made a few mistakes,” Jeran says above everyone’s shouts. “The Firstblade’s words were ‘We will let you live.’ The translator repeated it as ‘We will make you live.’”
“So? What does that mean, other than that our tutors are terrible at teaching languages?”
Jeran gives her a wounded look. “I used to be a language tutor,” he protests, and she pats him twice on his cheek. “I’m serious! Actions translate poorly between Maran and Karenese. It might be making the prisoner react differently.”
“That isn’t a big enough difference to make the guy stay quiet. Why doesn’t he just talk and save himself some torture?”
“Because he wants to die,” I sign.
Both of them look at me. “What makes you say that?” Adena signs after a pause. “You think he’s actually faithful enough to the Federation to throw away his life?”
I don’t want to explain that his expression is how I’ve felt for the past few weeks. Instead, I nod down at the scene. “I’ve witnessed this before. He has the same look the Baseans who were executed in my village had,” I explain. “He has already accepted his fate. If they told him that they’d make him live if he talks, and he has no interest in living, then of course he’ll stay quiet.”
Adena whistles. Under her casual question is an undertone of bitterness. “Who knew the Federation treated anyone well enough to earn that kind of loyalty?”
“Perhaps he doesn’t believe we’ll execute him today?” Jeran suggests. “That all this is a prank to try to keep him alive to extract more from him later.”
Adena snorts. “Well. He’s about to learn that Strikers aren’t great with jokes.”
The Firstblade shakes his head in disgust at the prisoner’s silence. “Why did you cross the warfront into our territory? Were you fleeing the Federation, or have you been sent here on a mission?”
The prisoner doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes swivel to the audience, and for a beat, his gaze locks on mine.
I don’t flinch, but his look makes every muscle in me tense. There is a strange kind of desperation there, a pit of hopelessness that must have been hollowed into him long ago. Has life been so traumatic for him that he thinks of death as a release?
My gaze wanders to the sharp cut of his clavicle, where part of his brand peeks out from under his prison suit. There is something familiar about it that tickles the edges of my mind, but vanishes the instant I try to concentrate on it.
Aramin sighs and takes a step back. One of the guards approaches the prisoner from behind, lifts a bucket of icy water, and pours it over his head.
He lets out a sharp gasp and falls to his knees. Before he can get to his feet, a second guard kicks him viciously in the stomach.
The cheers around us grow deafening. Jeran doesn’t join in, but Adena stands up, craning her neck to see over the Strikers in the stands right in front of us, shouting herself hoarse. In Adena’s voice, I hear the raw anger that remains from her brother’s death. So neither Jeran nor I intervene as she calls for death in the arena.
The Firstblade now strides over to where the prisoner sways limply against the arms holding him up. He asks him a question in a voice too low for anyone else to hear. The prisoner doesn’t even try to meet his gaze. He continues to stare listlessly out at