They dumped the man unceremoniously in the chair before Libro, head wrapped up in a hood so you could only see the outlines of his face.

"Wouldn't believe where we found him," Cent said, grinning from ear to ear as he pulled the rope tight, securing their prisoner in place. "Bastard was picking at gold coins stuck between the stones in the larder. Can you believe it?"

"We killed his friends," Moss said, fingers working on a knot that would never break. "Had to use a pillowcase to shut him up. Very mouthy, this one."

"Good to know," Libro said as he took his own seat, a table placed neatly between them. "Take it off once he's secure. Would you?"

"Oh, he's secure all right." Cent leaned back, putting one foot on the chair as he pulled the rope hard, making it strain in protest. "Sure as any sailor worth his salt, I reckon."

Moss stood back to admire his work, smiling with self-satisfaction as if he were taking the time to enjoy the little things. Then he smacked the man hard across the head and ripped the hood off.

Libro sat back, his face expressionless, taking on the iron mask he'd seen Dux put on in memories past. Now it was his to command. "Evening. Or is it morning? I can never tell in this bloody country of yours. Too much bad weather."

"Where am I? What have you done to my crew?" The man looked around, pale withered flesh barely bruised from Moss's strike. As if he barely had any blood left to spare. "And just who the fark are you lot?"

Cent answered with a punch to the man's guts, the air whooshing out of him in a withered hiss.

The sour, stale smell of grave dust wafted over Libro, forcing him to lean back to keep himself from gagging. "You're in the tallest room of the tower. Your crew is dead. Moss and Cent here killed them. Who I am is irrelevant. What matters is you answering a couple of questions for me."

"Kiss my ass," the man roared, twisting desperately in his restraints, but the ropes barely budged. Worth their salt, indeed. "You think you can order me around? Who do you farking think you are?"

"Moss," Libro said. " Shut him up."

Without missing a beat the guardsman stepped forward and produced the hood once more. Instead of throwing it over the man's head, however, he jammed it into his mouth With one hand he wrenched his jaw open, and with the other pushed the bag all the way in till the bones clicked hard.

"There, that's better," Libro said. "Now we can talk like truly civilized men. I can do all the talking, and you can do all the listening. How does that sound?"

He cleared his throat as the man's choked threats slowly simmered down.

"Now, I need you to understand something before we begin." Libro held his hand out, and Cent dropped a hammer into his awaiting palm. "I'm in a bit of a hurry. I need to know things, very badly you see, and you happen to know them. I'm going to give you this one chance for us to talk it out like a couple of good fellows, but if you give me even one reason to think otherwise." And he lifted up his arm, a solid block of dull iron gleaming in the half-light.

"I will have to do awful things to you with this hammer," Libro said. "Moss, remove his gag."

The guardsman obeyed, a flinty look in his eye as he reached down and ripped the wadded cloth from the man's aching craw. There was a lot of coughing at first, a lot of spluttering, a lot of heavy breathing and hard looks. The man weighed his options, looking between the three of him, and hopefully coming up to the right conclusion.

"Go fark yourselves," he snarled.

"Give me one of his hands," Libro said.

Cent wasted no time unspooling one of the knots, ripping the man's arm up and slapping it onto the table, fingers spread taught against the wood. Most people started cursing and pleading for their lives around that time, but the man was resignedly calm, watching on with morbid curiosity.

If only he knew the show Libro had in store for him. "Thank you, Cent. Moss, be a good man and hold the nails steady for me."

The guardsman leaned over, finger and thumb gripped around a thin length of iron, tip ground to a razor sharp point. He hovered over the man's hand, under the first knuckle of his thumb. "Ready when you are, chief."

"Are you trying to intimidate me?" The man asked, cold eyes watching everything.

"I don't know. Is it working?" Libro said. Without looking he brought the hammer down. The nail punched clean through withered flesh and dry bone, thudding hard into the table's surface.

The man didn't even flinch. "I've long since abandoned the feeling of pain. I am Chosen, and that means I am unfettered by the same chains that bind you pathetic mortals to this miserable life."

Libro grimaced. He was hoping to get through the first act and be done with it, but the bastard was proving himself to be more stubborn than even Regis. High time he moved on to the second act.

"Really? And why would that be? Something to do with your witch's magick maybe?" Moss aimed another nail and Libro brought it down, securing the first finger this time.

The man's brow's visibly shot up. "So you know what makes us special then, outsider? You know the ways of the Wyrd here?"

"I've spent enough time around people like your witch to get a proper idea." Down went the hammer, securing the middle finger. "Every dog has their collar after all."

"Then you will die less ignorant than most. My King's beloved lady will find great use of your corpses, once I deliver them to her."

"That will not be happening." Libro kept his mask firmly in place, knowing full well the man was trying to bait him. He wanted mistakes to be made, but this was going to remain clinical, by the book. Even if their due process was a bit rushed.

The final two fingers were swiftly hammered into place. Libro puffed his cheeks and placed the hammer back on the table, eyeing his handy work. There would be no getting out lest the man dared to rip his own hand off.

"Cent, remove my glove."

The guardsman obeyed, peeling it off to reveal Libro's scarred, worn fingertips, the beginnings of a dark mark running down the back of his palm.

"What is this?" The man asked, not appearing scared in the slightest. "Are you going to slap the answers out of me now?"

"I was thinking more of ripping them out of you instead." Libro placed his hand on top of the Chosen's fingers, and the marks in his arm slowly began to shimmer as they smelled the magick beneath.

And so his theory became fact. The Chosen in this land were magickally inclined, but not like Brand or the Ministers of old. Like a cup, they were filled to the brim with the stuff, like a human decanter. And as a cup is so easily filled, so too can it easily be emptied.

The snapping sensation in Libro's palm happened near instantaneously now, as if on instinct, a light glow beginning to form beneath his palm.

The man gasped, visibly upset for the first time, as he stared down at his nailed hand. "What is this? What are you doing?"

"Let's just say I've figured out something useful about myself, and I'm going to use it to rip your fecking soul out if you don't start answering my questions soon."

Libro let the sensation in his hand grow, allowing the magick to be drawn in, the luminescence in his marks growing brighter by the second. In the past a faint ripple of heat and light would appear over his shoulder, but this time he willed it away, imagining the magick going into him instead. Immediately he felt a rush of energy wash over him, the surface of his skin prickling with nerves.

The man's hesitation quickly grew into full blown panic as he struggled desperately to wrench his hand away. He thrashed relentlessly in his chair, so hard even Moss was forced to hold him down lest he break the damn thing.

"This can all go away if you simply do as your told," Libro said, his voice sounding unsettlingly calm in his own ears. "Just tell me what I need to know and I can make this all go away."

"I'll talk," the man finally whimpered after his screams had turned into shrieks and his shrieks had turned into wails, till the walls began to vibrate, till the rafters began to shake.

"Thank Nido," Cent muttered, pulling his fingers from his ears. "I was about to lose it myself."

Libro pulled his hand back, feeling the tether between them separate. The man snapped his head back, gulping in a lungful of air, the stench of stale rot returning.

"Let's start with an easy question. What is your name?"

"Corvere. Just Corvere. I Lost my old name ages ago."

"I don't give a shit about that Corvere. Who do you serve?"

"The High King!"

"Lower down the food chain, please. Who's your immediate master?"

"The Right Hand!"

"Now we are getting somewhere." Libro sucked in a shuddering breath, the ache in his arm growing by the second. Like he desperately needed to punch something and had nothing to swing at. "What happened to the rebels here? Did you and your Right Hand kill them all?"

"Most of them," Corvere said, eyeing Libro's clenched fist. "The rest we chained up and hauled off to Kel Dracon."

A spark of hope bloomed in Libro's chest. He grit his teeth, shoved it back down, and kept his focus. "Any particular reason you kept them alive? Do your men like using them for target practice?"

"The Right Hand said to keep all the women folk alive as best we could. Said he needed them for his experiments."

A cold silence fell over the room.

"What experiments?" Cent demanded.

A new look of fear fell over Corvere. The kind a cornered rat makes. "I had nothing to do with it! They're his experiments, not mine! I was only following orders!"

"What experiments," Libro snarled. He smashed his fist against the table and the damned thing split in two as if it were made of glass. It crumpled to a heap before them, everyone staring dumbly down at the remains.

"Better tell us what you know before we turn your skull into that," Moss said.

"The Witch," Corvere cried out. "She wants a new type of Deathless to command, and she told the Right Hand to make it happen. He thinks he can make them from pregnant women. Cut out the babes before they're born and bring them back after they've died, raise them as warriors."

Cold silence returned to the cramped room. Any flicker of heat Libro possessed drained out of him the more he listened to this bastard talk. This land truly was cursed. Filled to the brim with monsters. Why Regis had ever wanted to return to a place like this still remained a mystery. Maybe the man had been a monster himself after all, and now he was rightfully home.

Libro's hand snaked towards the hammer, fingers gripped tight around the handle.

"Now listen," Corvere started to say. "It's like I told you. I was only following orders."

"Where is Kel Dracon?"

"To the north! Along the eastern coast once you pass the town of Veil!"

Libro rose from his chair, stalking towards Corvere. His arm was on fire now, but its flames were nothing compared to the raging inferno in his head.

"Look, I told you everything! It's a massive fecking stone castle! You can't miss it!

There was an ear splitting crack as Libro smashed the hammer in Corvere's face, breaking his jaw clean off, bits of bone and ashy teeth clattering against the wall. Cent caught the man by the hair and wrenched his head back, planting all four legs of the chair back down.

"Harrgh!" Corvere hissed, eyes wide at the sight of his own judgment come to pass.

Libro brought the hammer down, again and again and again, thinking of Elena, thinking of the Empress, thinking of Elba and praying for her safety. By the time he'd worn himself out, there was nothing left of Corvere. Say what you will of magick, but he doubted anything could bring the man back after what he'd done to him.

The hammer clattered from Libro's numb hand as he stepped back, watching as ruddy ash fell down in neat little piles around Corvere's feet, as if he were more scarecrow than man now. A truly empty vessel.

"What the seven hells was he?" Cent asked, the nobble in throat bobbing as he swallowed.

"A puppet," Libro said. "One whose strings have finally been cut."

"Very apt," Moss said. "Off to Veil then?"

"Quite. We've wasted enough time here already. Grab whatever supplies you can find and let's go."

"What should we do with him?" Cent said, kicking at the headless corpse still tied to the chair.

"I don't know." Libro shrugged as he made for the door. "Strip him down for anything useful, but make it quick. We have a castle to storm."

***