They came for Arc while he slept. He was roused by the pounding of footsteps, and as he opened his eyes, they surrounded him in his tiny cell. His arms were held and bound before he could even think to fight back, and a forceful pull brought him to his feet.
“What now?” he asked, trying to mask his surprise. Was he being taken back to the dark room? Was it his turn to go beneath the crab to suffer Osterly’s fate? His stomach clenched at the thought, but he knew enough to avoid panicking.
The helmed Zulkar stared at him silently from behind their visors, as if they expected him to break down right there. One gave a sudden, impatient shove against Arc’s back, sending him stumbling through the hole they’d opened in the membrane. If Alis’s cell hadn’t been closed, he would have fallen on his face, but the other membrane caught his weight and allowed him to regain his footing. Alis watched him through a half-opened eye, wearing a miserable expression. Before Arc could so much as draw breath to speak to her, a four-fingered hand fell on his shoulder and whirled him about to face down the corridor. A gun barrel pressed against his back, and he didn’t need any more motivation to start walking.
Not the dark room; this one was further into the labyrinth. Arc wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or terrified by that, because it was possible they were taking him somewhere worse. Behind the sliding door was what appeared to be an operating room, with a table already prepared. It didn’t take a strong imagination to figure out where they wanted him. Shodus was waiting inside, and he stepped aside to let the soldiers in. He hardly acknowledged Arc as he passed by.
Arc took a chance and stopped under Shodus’ nose, relieved when he didn’t feel a cold round pierce his back. “What is this? More torture? I’ve heard it loses its effect if you do it too often.”
Shodus’ eyes passed high over Arc’s head to the soldier behind him, who removed the bonds around Arc’s wrists. Arc tried to flex his arms and get the blood flowing again, but the soldier pushed him hard, and pinned him against the table. He was stripped, every shred of clothing forcibly removed and tossed in a heap on the floor. Fear returned, just for a moment, and he tried to pull free. A sharp punch to his stomach stopped that, but the Zulkar did nothing more.
Very slowly, Arc turned his face towards Shodus. “If you wanted to get me naked, you could have started with drinks.”
Again, Shodus’ eyes never came close to looking at him. “Turn him back around.”
What felt like four separate hands grabbed hold of Arc’s shoulders and turned him to face a blank wall. Behind him, he could hear Shodus step closer. “Augerium slaves are branded on the back, between the shoulder blades, isn’t that right?”
Arc didn’t dignify the question with a response.
“Yours seems to be missing,” Shodus continued, as if they were having a perfectly normal conversation.
“It would be pretty strange for a free man to have a slave brand,” said Arc. “Medical technology in the Kinship is a far step better than Empire medicine, and most of it’s free, too. First thing Marissa and I did once we were off the Rhapsody was have the brands removed. It was quick and painless.”
Shodus’ boots clacked loudly as he stepped around to stand in front of Arc. “But I see you kept the scar. Does this wondrous Kinship healthcare not cover such injuries? I would’ve thought you’d want to be rid of it. It must be a strong reminder of your enslavement.”
Arc narrowed his eyes. “I guess you could call it a different kind of brand. The difference is, I respect what this one means.”
Shodus tilted his chin forward, finally meeting Arc’s eye. “A brand implies ownership, which I thought a ‘free man’ would be adamantly against. Perhaps it is in your nature, an inherent desire to serve your betters. The question is, who?”
Arc turned his head away. He wasn’t going to share something so personal with an imperial snob like Shodus. The scar was a deeply private thing, something he’d never fully explained to anyone. No one needed to know.
“No matter,” Shodus said. “If you still carry the slave instinct, there is hope that you can be rehabilitated.”
His arrogance was infuriating. “You mean you want to beat me into the perfect obedient servant. You’ll fail. Slavery didn’t tame me—it made me wild. What makes you think you can do better than all of Augerium?”
Shodus nodded to the soldiers, and Arc was suddenly hoisted onto the table, his chest and stomach resting against the cold metal. It was a humiliating position, but Arc held his dignity close and craned his neck to watch Shodus.
“I can’t say whether it can be done or not.” The Zulkar commander wandered to one side of the room, where an unfamiliar metal apparatus, waist high and roughly pyramid-shaped, stood against the wall. “You might think me foolish for trying, but where would any of us be if people didn’t try things they weren’t sure would work? Would we have discovered hyperspace if some brave souls hadn’t risked their lives to exceed the speed of light? Would we have discovered vaccinations if everyone had been unwilling to stick a needle into a vein? The greatest discoveries of every civilization came about through experimentation, and so will this one. You will be my test subject.”
Shodus grabbed hold of a thin handle protruding from the top of the apparatus and pulled. The hiss of steam struck an old chord of fear in Arc as the red-hot brand was lifted into view. Hands gripped his arms and legs, nullifying his attempts to struggle. Shodus stepped closer, the shape of the brand becoming clearer; a serpent, identical to the sigil Shodus wore on his shirt.
“Back before the Empire came to our world, Zulis—before we had space travel, before we had cities—the Zulkar lived in the vast canopies of mighty trees.” There was a touch of whimsy, of the dramatic, in Shodus’ voice. “Back then we had not yet conquered nature, and the great beaked tree-serpents, the Levvir, were a constant threat to my ancestors. At their biggest, they could measure twenty meters long, more than enough to crush any prey with ease. They shared the branches with the Zulkar, hunting us from the camouflage of the thick green leaves. People would go missing, what remained of their mangled bodies found days later in the lower boughs. What records of that time remain describe the Levvir as true terrors, slithering into villages at night and devouring any that could not flee fast enough. Some set fire to trees where the serpents nested, but this hardly solved the problem, and destroyed valuable territory. A new solution had to be found.”
Arc listened, bewildered and nervous, as the brand hung from the Zulkar’s hand above him. Much as he’d like to be brave, he still remembered the scorch of his first branding all too well.
“Thus, the shodi were born,” the Zulkar rambled on. “A shodus was a true warrior, born of a special class and trained from infancy to hunt the Levvir, to become the apex predator. They ventured across the jungles of our world, eradicating the serpents with their twin blades and predator’s cunning. After three centuries of hunting, the Levvir were no more, and the heroic shodi were elevated to their rightful place as rulers of Zulis. If I were to put it into more modern terms, they are analogous to the Rashani, only their skill was earned through hard work instead of freakish witch powers. I trace my own bloodline back to those valiant warriors, the greatest of the Zulkar.”
Arc sneered with the full force of his contempt. “A god and descendant of ancient heroes? I think one of those would be enough for most.”
Shodus shrugged. “Your attempts at jibes were amusing once, but they’ve been growing tiresome. I merely wished for you to understand the honour I am bestowing upon you by marking you with the sigil of the shodi.”
“Take your honour and cram it up your ass!” Arc snapped.
A quiet sigh escaped Shodus’ mouth, just before he jabbed the brand into Arc’s back. Searing heat exploded from the impact point, an unimaginable pain that clouded Arc’s vision with tears. He clung desperately to consciousness, fighting back the enclosing black as the sensation of fire spread over his body. He screamed, thrashing against his captors’ grip like a beast, his mind reverting to simple animal instincts; escape, survive. The smell of burning flesh spiked into his nostrils, eroding at his reason. In desperation, he twisted his neck at an uncomfortable angle to bite a hand pressing down on his shoulder. His teeth made contact with an exposed, scaly digit, and the soldier backed away with a yelp. With three other soldiers pinning him down, it changed little, but hurting someone gave the animal in him some small satisfaction. At last, Shodus removed the iron, taking the worst of the pain with it. That feeling of being on fire remained, but Arc allowed himself to relax in spite of it, gathering up the pieces of his rational mind.
Shodus set the iron aside, humming to himself. “Seems there’s still a little gladiator in you after all. Soldier, get that wound cleaned up—wouldn’t want to catch whatever this one has.”
Shame racked Arc as he realized what he’d done. All these years, he’d convinced himself that he’d changed from the murderer he’d once been, that finding his soul had wiped away that part of his past. But at the first prick of real pain, the animal had come roaring back to wrest control from him. The soldier he’d bitten left the room, cradling his bleeding hand, and a second realization stabbed into Arc: Shodus had won, if only for an instant.
The other soldiers hoisted him from the table, and Arc stood unresisting as they roughly replaced his clothes before leading him back to his cell. When he was alone, he fell onto his cot, his body shaking with a whirlwind of emotions. He just wanted to go back to sleep and forget everything. He wanted Marissa; just having her there to hold close would have soothed him, but he was alone.
“Arc?” Alis’ voice called. “You all right?” She spoke as if every syllable hurt her, and Arc felt further shame for not withstanding his pain as she did.
“I… don’t know,” Arc answered, hesitantly. Pain still lingered, just beneath the skin.
“I felt you,” Alis continued. “So much pain, anger, fear…”
“They branded me again.” It almost came out as a sob.
The lump of robes on Alis’ cot shifted, and her pale face peered out from it. “Can I see it?”
Arc couldn’t understand why she’d want to, but he also couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse her. He removed his shirt and turned his back to Alis, who hissed in sympathy.
“That bad?” he asked. Shamed as he was, he didn’t fear the brand itself; it could be removed in less than an hour if he ever got back to the Kinship.
“Yeah,” replied Alis.
“Well, I’ll live,” Arc assured her as he put his shirt back on. “You said you felt my pain, didn’t you? I remember you said the same about Osterly. I thought you said you couldn’t use your abilities.”
“Didn’t,” Alis insisted. “I can’t control. Every strong feeling comes in, and I can’t keep them out. Makes the headache so much worse. Can’t focus on anything else.”
A glimmer of hope. “Could you still use your abilities, if you tried hard enough? Maybe to escape?”
Alis groaned. “Hurts too much.”
Arc decided to be direct. “Alis, this is not going to end. They’re using you as a lab rat—if this goes on, you will die.”
“Feels like I’m already dying,” Alis grumbled.
Arc slammed his fists against the membrane, the points of impact becoming hard and opaque beneath his knuckles. “But you’re not dead! Think, Alis—what are they going to do with that stuff once you’ve died and proved to the Zulkar that it works? They’ll weaponize it, use it to torture and kill your sisters! Or worse, they’ll use it to control them, threaten its use on disobedient Rashani, or use small doses to dull their minds until they no longer resist. They could make slaves of the Sisterhood.”
“It hurts so much,” Alis whispered, then, “What can I do?”
Arc paced the cell, revelling in the small victory, but knowing it was only the first step. “Only you know your powers—I can’t tell you how to use them. Think on it, please.”
Alis sighed. “Right.” Then she folded up on her cot and went back to sleep.
Arc spent the next few hours lying on his stomach, his back still sore. First Osterly, now this. He did not sleep, only brooded on how he might make Shodus pay. He wouldn’t let the animal within win out, but he would bring the Zulkar bastard to justice, one way or another.