I reached out with trembling fingers to touch Trew’s sketch, my heart racing.
Scratchy handwriting filled the spaces between the drawings, notes about routines, weaknesses, and opportunities. The scriptlooked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. My father’s perhaps? I’d seen his handwriting many times, but I couldn’t be certain.
Maybe I wasn’t sure because I didn’t want it to be him. Despite how cruel he could be, a part of me still cared when I shouldn’t. If only I could shove the last of my feelings aside.
A separate paper described the assassin who’d attacked me in the hallway. Every detail matched, down to what he’d worn and the blade he’d used. Payment records showed the transaction, dated the day before the person attacked me in the hall.
“Trew.” My voice came out strangled.
He rounded the wall and was with me in a few strides, his eyes scanning the table. Fury and dismay warred on his features as he took in the intelligence gathered on his castle and his people.
On me specifically.
His jaw clenched hard enough that his teeth ground together. He took my hand, his grip reassuring.
“Whoever did this will pay.” The words growled out of him. “I promise you that.”
I wanted to take time to process this, but we couldn’t remain here long.
A gust of wind scattered papers on the table, breaking the silence.
We found notes about how they drained magic from victims, plus the stages of corruption that followed on the land after they’d passed. Weaknesses were documented in clinical detail. Remove the head and they die. They needed someone to control them, or they weren’t nearly as vicious. Without a leader, they’d scatter and slip back through the veil.
But the most disturbing notes made my vision blur.
“Harvesting from the Skathes” was followed by “Harvesting after the Day of Mercy”.
Tools I suspected had been designed for torture lay on a nearby bench. I recognized some of them from the Day of Mercy ceremonies, instruments I’d seen carried away as the bodies were removed from the village square.
“If someone is being tortured…” I couldn’t quite believe what I was thinking. “Does torture make it easier to…harvest their magic?”
“Fuck,” Trew said.
The words blurred as my vision tunneled. I gripped the edge of the table, my knees threatening to buckle as the full horror sank in. They weren’t only killing people for their magic. They werefarmingthem. Every Day of Mercy I’d witnessed flashed through my mind in agonizing detail.
The mothers clutching their children one last time before taking a cup and drinking.
The young men and women who’d begged for one more day.
This hadn’t been mercy. It had been a fucking feast.
Pherin landed on my shoulder, her small body trembling.Evil place.
I needed to think about this, rage about it, but there was still more to see. Rounding another partition, I found a long table with restraints at the four corners.
I approached the table like it might bite me, each step requiring conscious effort. The metal restraints weren’t just functional. They had been designed for prolonged use, padded in places to prevent chafing during extended sessions.
My fingers hovered over the leather straps, and I could almost hear the echoes of screams that must’ve filled this space. Could almost see the terror in victims’ eyes as they realized what was happening to them.
Someone had lain here. Multiple people, judging by the wear patterns on the restraints.
They’d struggled. They’d begged. They’d endured whatever horrors my father?—
I couldn’t think of him as my father anymore. Not after this. They’d endured whatever horrors the monster who’d raised me had inflicted in his quest for power.
Dark strands of hair had been caught in the metal and a few lay on the stone floor beneath.
Oh, no. Please, please, no…