wanted to, but I choose just to glare instead. We wait for them to slide a metal disc along the edge of the cell door. A series of clicks echo through the space. Then the door creaks open, and we walk past the guards and into the prisoner’s room. They shut the door behind us.
The cell reeks of mold and death, torchlight from outside coming in through the door’s grating and weakly illuminating the back wall, where the prisoner sits.
He’s wearing the same shackles I’d seen him in yesterday, thick bands of metal clapped around his neck and wrists and ankles and waist, the chains nailed to the wall behind him. The strange, metallic texture of his hair is noticeable even in this low light. His head is down against his chest, as if he’s asleep.
Perhaps he didn’t hear the door open, or us step in.
Then he lifts his head. Beneath his dirty, mussed hair glitters a pair of near-black eyes. Now that I see him alone, without the distraction of the arena, I can tell he has the physique of a fighter—tall and well-muscled, built solidly underneath his prison suit.
Jeran hesitates beside me, reluctant to come closer.
The prisoner says something to us that I can’t understand. I find myself taken aback by his voice—deep, gritty as the scrape of stone on stone, but with a tone so refined that I wonder for a second if he’s a trained singer.
When I just stare, he turns to Jeran and gestures impatiently at him, then repeats what he said.
Jeran clears his throat, eyes darting uneasily away from the prisoner. “He’s wondering why we didn’t bring any weapons with us.”
I watch the prisoner, careful not to let my hands stray to where the hilts of my weapons should be. He doesn’t need to see that he makes me wary, or that I hate being without my blades. I take a few steps closer to him, listening to the rhythm of my boots against the stone floor.
“I didn’t think we needed them,” I answer. My hands move in slow, measured movements, so that the prisoner doesn’t think I’m about to attack him.
He watches me as Jeran translates into Karenese. There’s a challenge in his eyes, but he doesn’t move a muscle. My gaze goes to the chains still wrapped tightly around his chest.
He mutters something.
“He can tell that you regret stopping his execution,” Jeran says for him.
I shrug. The light filtering in is so weak that it barely outlines the silhouettes of my hands in orange. “And you hate that I did,” I answer, looking directly at the prisoner.
His eyes flash at that, dark and angry. “You had no right,” Jeran says, adding a softness to the prisoner’s words.
“Or you could say ‘thank you.’ Some gratitude for saving your life would be nice, you know.”
I watch Jeran as he translates my reply. “Did you actually repeat what I said?” I ask him when he finishes.
Jeran is embarrassed enough to trip over his feet as we edge closer to the prisoner. “I said, ‘My duty is my duty,’ instead,” he replies.
I give him an exasperated look. “Being polite for me now?”
“Sorry, Talin. I don’t know how to say gratitude in Karenese and I’m trying not to upset him.”
The prisoner watches me, curious. I want to ask him if he ever fought for the Federation. If he’s ever slaughtered my people, if his swords ever ran red with Basean blood.
We’re close enough now that I can smell the stench of his breath, the stale, unpleasant smell of someone who hasn’t eaten in weeks. I reach into my coat and pull out the bag of food I brought for him, some breads and dried fish I’d saved from my own rations. At my movement, the prisoner stiffens, stirring uneasily, and for a second I assume it’s because he thinks I’m pulling out a weapon. But even when he clearly sees the food in the bag, he doesn’t change his posture.
“I know you don’t want to eat,” I sign as Jeran translates, then slide the bag next to his feet. “But this is just in case you change your mind.”
He doesn’t bother picking up the bag. Instead, he peeks inside it before turning his head away in apparent disgust. From this angle, I can see the hollow pits of his cheeks, the shadows under his eyes.
“Eat,” I sign, now frustrated. But he doesn’t bother moving, and only after another long silence does he finally say something in reply.