“How did you do it?” Boah said after an extended silence. He sat across from Jere, both on the periphery of the sizzling embers of the Manor firepit. His guards stood in the distance, halting any errant Okkanites. Most knew from experience not to interfere by now.

“Who helped you escape?” Boah repeated.

Jere said nothing. He stared into the fire, his face bruised from the beatings. He hadn’t spoken since he arrived.

It was quite a shock when the new gatekeeper announced Juddken had returned with prisoners. As far as the followers of Okkan were concerned, the guard and this stranger were just mere fodder. They harassed the two, pelting them with rocks and pans and sticks and whatever else they could find.

But Juddken refused to kill them, or even subject them to Shadeon Law. With Adok, it was understandable, for he had grown a helpful reputation over the prior fortnight. But Jere was a stranger to many, and those who remembered him had few kind things to say.

So when Juddken never gave the order, instead hinting through his guard that Jere too would join the others underground, it all made little sense. So little sense that Boah didn’t even question it. Juddken seemed so sure. He hadn’t seemed so sure about anything in his life.

Even now, Juddken refused to waver in his confidence. He stood guard on the other side of Jere, just barely out of the shadows. Almost as if he wanted to ensure Boah wouldn’t claim Jere himself.

Still, Boah had to know. As far as he knew, Jere had died in the cells. But he was here. A little thinner, but very much alive. Someone had let him out, and he needed to know who.

“Was it Appo, then?” asked Boah, laughing. “A slave, the healer, and the Accurser… all in league together. Sounds like the setup for a joke.”

Jere sat in silence. He had a black eye, and one worshiper had ripped out some of his hair before a guard separated them, but he still looked better than Adok, who looked as if he fell off the gate tower and landed on his face. It all mattered little. Jere wasn’t even paying attention.

“Are you not going to defend yourself? After what you did to him!” Boah held his open palm out to Juddken, who glared at Jere with unblinking eyes.

Still nothing.

“Fine,” said Boah, growing frustrated. “I don’t need your confession. You see, I’ve given plenty of thought as to why everything has been wrong. Ever since you met the healer, you got up to trouble. Defying orders, defiling bodies… You both were collecting blood for the wells. That’s why you stayed up through the nights.”

Jere shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“You know, it was Eanna who told us. She saw you entering the tumbril. Probably thought nothing of it. Then it was just the matter of sending Juddken to the right people and connecting the dots.”

Boah sighed, loosening his gaze as he too turned to the fire. “Then again, I suppose you did get away with it. You’re still here, when so many have died… So many you have killed.”

None of it was working. Jere would give nothing, and why would he? The last time he spoke out of turn, it led to a death sentence. He would not risk that now. Boah decided on a new tactic.

“I remember the first time I saw this one,” Boah spoke past Jere now, speaking to Juddken and to a lesser extent the guards who watched them. Speaking to a crowd was where he was more comfortable. “He looked much like he is now: pathetic and broken. Only he had much more hair back then: a big untrimmed beard and that tumbleweed of a mane. He had lived with the slavers in the Steppe for a long time… claimed they rescued him from a river. I always thought it was funny, for I very much saw the face of a man who wished he had drowned.” Some guards laughed, though forced. Everyone laughed at Boah’s jokes nowadays.

“Still, I direly needed a slave. I had just become a Head and still a young man. And what was a Head without slaves, really? So I had to buy the best one, one that would make the other Heads turn. I had offered two hundred and twenty Jiks for his soul. A fairly steep price for a single slave.” Boah turned back to Jere, almost reminiscent. “Do you remember what you said to me?”

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Jere sat, unmoving. Boah’s grin stretched.

“You said, ‘double it.’”

One guard whistled. It seemed both mocking and complimentary.

“I’ll never forget it. ‘The fucking balls on this man,’ I said! I actually said that! And did I offer that slaver four hundred and forty Jiks for a single, unruly slave? Of course not! I told my strongest guard at the time, Dumuz, to break his jaw. Even promised to pay the slaver for damaged goods. But Dumuz didn’t do that, did he?”

Silence spread again. Now it wasn’t just Jere. The others listened intently.

“You see, Dumuz started hitting Jere. Hard. And Jere took it. He never fell or dropped to his knees. Nothing. After one of the harshest beatings I’ve ever witnessed, Jere raised his hand. He held a pendant. One that belonged to a priest. And Jere, his face looking very much like it does now, simply said ‘is this how you treat a man of God?’”

“Now, let me make one thing clear: Dumuz was indeed a man of God, but not a very smart one. I doubt Jere knew that at the time. If he had just taken a look at the pendant, he would’ve seen it had nothing to do with Okkan. But it didn’t matter. Dumuz was overcome with guilt, and he fell over, crying into his lap and begging for forgiveness. It was pathetic… How did you forgive him, Jere?”

Jere was looking past the fire now, his expression dour.

“He snapped his fucking neck… To this day, I’m not sure how he did it. His hands were bound in chains. The only way he could have done it was if Dumuz put his neck right where it needed to be.” Boah gestured his hands around his neck, placing it in a firm grasp.

The guards murmured amongst themselves. They had heard various versions of this story before, but no one believed it was true. Jere was never one to discuss it himself. To have it confirmed by Boah himself was something else entirely.

“He killed my best guard that day. Someone I had known for many years. I knew his family. He was a pious man… I could have killed him then. We were right outside the walls, and the Steppe had just delivered my business a great misfortune… yet I didn’t. I looked into his eyes and saw a dead man. A man who expected to die and wanted to take someone with him. Someone who accepted the bitter reality of defeat… I ended up paying that slaver five hundred and fifty-five Jiks to have him. I was going to have the best slave. And for almost six years, he was. For that, I rewarded him. I gave him a home, and I let him earn his own drinking money. I even let him leave the city, kind as I was. He was as far from a slave as one could be.”

Boah stood up, beginning to pace around the firepit. “And yet he betrayed me. Not just me, no. He betrayed Ash. We offered him our necks, and he twisted them. That’s why he’ll never be more than a follower. Not because he isn’t capable of more, but because he’ll betray anyone he’s ever known and loved.”

Boah turned back to Jere, expecting him to be hurt. To see just a twinge of guilt on his face. Knowing that he would never amount to anything beyond what he was to his master.

Instead, Jere slumped over, his chin in his chest. He was asleep.

Boah’s rage was immediate. He rushed over to Jere and slapped him. Jere awoke lazily, bringing his hand up to his cheek.

“Sorry,” Jere grumbled. “Meditating.”

“You utterly worthless, insolent-” Boah got himself under control, but barely. He couldn’t look weak now. He leaned over Jere, staring directly into his eyes. “Do you expect us to believe anything you’ll tell us now?”

Jere looked up at Boah, indignant. “Believe what you want. Stop wasting my time.”

At first, Boah was furious. But his fury calmed. “Not like this,” he reminded himself. “Not when they’re watching.” Boah turned back to one of his guards, pulling out a serrated blade without asking. He walked back over to Jere, crouching in front of him. His voice lowered to almost a whisper. He wanted to make sure the guards struggled to hear.

“The Shadeon were an interesting people, you know. Barbaric, but in many ways ahead of our time. When one eventually reads the annals of history of this city, all of the worst of its crimes will wash away. The starvation, the exiles, even this plague… all wiped clean. But the Shadeon reveled in their crimes. They spread tales of torture far and wide, the details growing more and more gruesome the farther they spread. They did this because they knew the power of fear. I know this power well… What do you fear, slave?”

Jere’s lackadaisical expression tightened. He wasn’t looking at the blade, but actively avoiding it.

“Shadeon Law is but my instrument. I could have your hands because you swung a sword at my son. I could have your feet for trying to run. Or your tongue for how little use it’s been to you.” Boah angled his blade outwards, pointing at the body parts he threatened to take. The knife fell downward, landing between Jere’s legs. “Or maybe I could have your balls for how much you’ve fucked with me. Would be an appropriate interpretation, no?”

Jere did his best not to squirm but failed. He knew Boah could back up his threat.

Boah suddenly withdrew the knife. “But here’s the thing, slave. That would be too easy. You’d bleed out by the end of the morning. They all do. Instead, I think I’m seeing the wisdom behind by son’s mercy.” With that, Boah stood again, raising his voice so the others heard.

“Anyone care to tell me where a slave belongs?” Boah asked indiscriminately.

“In chains!” one guard cried.

Boah held the knife above his head. “You’re where you belong, slave. We’re going to lock you in a dark hole and throw away the key. You’ll be stuck with your thoughts and your failures and your guilt. Eventually, once the hunger sets in, you’ll forget what you ever stood for. Eventually, I believe you’re going to think about this knife and wished that I killed you sooner.”

Boah looked directly into Jere’s eyes as he delivered his verdict. He did not know what Jere had been through the last few weeks, but it seemed to finally get under his skin. Jere’s blank face was not of defiance. It was fear.