Vérzavar Ház

Chapter 19: Lust for Pain

Day went on, "To be free of the Asteri, there are things that we all must do that will leave a mark on our souls. It's the cost, so that our children and their children won't ever need to pay it. So they'll know a world of freedom and plenty."

The words of a dreamer. A glimpse beneath that hard-ass facade.

-House of Sky and Breath, pg. 526

Lidia could barely keep her eyes open, her brain fuzzy and senses dulled to anything other than the pain that throbbed with every beat of her heart. Even with the less-than-friendly welcome she'd received, she hadn't expected to end up here - restrained in an Ophion interrogation cell. She had no idea how long it had been since she had been separated from her party, from Ruhn. But every moment had been an excruciating exercise in focus as she used every technique in her arsenal to keep the terror of her triggered memories at bay.

It was no surprise that her arrival might not warrant the warmest of welcomes, and the shifter had even kept calm as she was led straight into the windowless room and strapped to a metal chair. She understood the protocol in place, but as a high-level operative she knew that she could provide ways to identify herself once the questioning started.

Of course, it hadn't been that easy.

As the inquiries came, along with slaps and punches and shallow cuts, Lidia had provided every code and identifier she had ever been given as Agent Daybright. Nonsense combinations of words and numbers that should have halted any further interrogation, or at least warranted a conversation with superiors. But her captors did not yield, and would not accept that the Hind and Agent Daybright were one and the same. They demanded she tell them what had happened to the agent, what the Hind had done to her for her to learn how to identify herself to Ophion. They insisted it was all a ruse - understandably blinded by their disdain for the female known the world over for her cruel breaking of soldiers not unlike them - no matter how much Lidia argued her case.

It hadn't taken long for things to escalate.

The golden-haired shifter was too well acquainted with what an Ophion interrogation entailed. The word interrogation was nothing more than a euphemism. The torture that the rebellion doled out gave even the Asteri dungeons a run for their money. She'd been released from her chair a couple hours in - or so she guessed. The lack of windows or clocks or meals were all strategic choices made to keep prisoners disoriented and on edge.

But her freedom had been short-lived, and she was immediately strung up by her wrists that were cuffed behind her back. With her arms wrenched upwards, her torso was forced downward, until her body was bent at the waist at a near ninety degree angle. If she could not remain on her feet, it would pull her shoulders out of their sockets, and nearly all of her body was left unguarded against whatever implements they chose to wring answers out of her. Answers that she'd already given, over and over.

They had beaten her with metal rods - over her back and down the backs of her thighs. They had heated them and pressed them against her flesh, now bare where the beatings had torn her clothing from her body. She was covered in bruises and angry, raw welts, at least from what she could see and feel of herself. And her mind felt the same. Battered and so incredibly exhausted. They had immersed her head in water until she thought she would pass out from the lack of air, and they would use the water and smelling salts to keep her awake and as alert as possible. Just like with Pollux, she had been determined to keep her reactions minimal. Screams and pleas would only fan the flames of their lust for her pain. But the interrogators of Ophion were highly skilled and merciless, and as the shrieks burst from between her teeth she once again found herself resigned to her fate. So close to freedom, yet still unable to escape the unforgivable legacy of the Hind.