With that, Starling opened the door. The guards that greeted them were not the usual palace guards. These wore uniforms of scarlet, their faces concealed by sinister masks. Cade was shoved out of the lift into a corridor of stone. It was damp, and he slipped. The bare phosphorene bulbs did little to illuminate the space. Cade imagined they were very deep in the earth. A powerful force even deeper vibrated the floor beneath his feet in a regular cadence—the distant roar of water and turbines. He’d been in enough mills to recognize the sounds. Why turbines beneath the palace? He supposed he would never know, and it did not matter. He had more pressing concerns.
They approached a steel door at the end of the corridor, and as one of the guards in scarlet started turning keys in a series of locks, Starling said, “This is a sight few have ever seen. Mainly just the members of the Scarlet Guard, Minister Silk, and myself. The Scarlet Guard, by the way, is under a strict oath of secrecy about what it is that is kept here. Yes, this is indeed a rare privilege, Mr. Harlowe.”
When the final lock released, the door was slowly drawn open. Cade was not prepared for the foul stench that flowed out from within, and he turned his face away. A taper was brought in to illuminate the cell.
“Behold the witch, Yolandhe,” Starling said.
Witch? Cade looked, and the creature he saw, molded out of flesh and shadows, did not appear human to him, not even living, with her mutilated body, the masses of snarls that had once been a head of hair. She hadn’t even eyes—just depressed eyelids over the sockets. At first he could not discern what was wrong with her mouth, maybe because his mind could not, did not wish, to grasp it. Her lips were sewn shut with large, crude stitches.
How could they do this to any living being? The obvious torment scarred upon her body, chaining her spread-eagle to augment her vulnerability, the tines of a metal collar digging into her neck.
Cade looked at Starling who appeared affable as ever and started humming again.
“Monsters,” Cade spat. “You are monsters.”
Starling stopped humming. “So judgmental are we, Mr. Harlowe? You don’t know who she is or what she is capable of. She is here for a reason, but for now I want you to look at her, not me.” He gripped Cade’s chin with fingers like iron and turned his head to force him to look.
“Now, Mr. Harlowe, I want you to think of your love, your Miss G’ladheon, in the witch’s place. The torment, the torture, every conceivable indignity could all await her here. The members of the Scarlet Guard are eager for a new prisoner, fresh flesh upon which to sate their pleasure and carve their initials.”
Cade struggled fruitlessly against those who held him.
“Women are much stronger than men, you know,” Starling continued matter-of-factly. “At least when it comes to pain. A man would never survive childbirth.” He chuckled. “The witch here, she has endured for a very long time. She is extremely strong and has never been entirely broken. From all accounts, your Miss G’ladheon looks to be the strong type. The guards like them strong, for it prolongs their sport.
“But you being a man who loves her, you will want to spare her the pain, the degradation, the violation. Am I right?”
“If you touch her—”
“You will do what, exactly?” Starling asked.
Cade trembled with rage.
“Yeees,” Starling said, and released Cade’s chin. “It appears I was right.”
Cade wanted to look away again, but something about the witch caught his attention. Her head was slightly cocked as though she listened. He had not been able to tell if she were even conscious.
“No one deserves this,” Cade said.
“You are being judgmental again regarding a case about which you know nothing. But for her imprisonment the empire stands.”
Cade regarded her with renewed interest. This poor wretch? This woman? She could bring down the empire? Was it his imagination, or did the corners of her mouth twitch, forming a ghastly smile?
“All you need to know,” Starling said, “is that if you do not answer my questions, this is the fate that awaits your lady.”
Cade strained against those who held him, wanting nothing more than to lash out.
“Yes, yes,” Starling murmured. “Your impulse to protect what is yours is strong. Remember this vision of the witch, and remember your duty as a man.”
Cade wanted to scream at Starling how he planned to kill him, but it never passed his lips because a ripple of calm, like a soft ocean current, soothed his mind.
Patience.
Cade looked wildly about, but no one appeared to have spoken. The witch hung in her chains like a perverse marionette. They slammed the door closed, sealing her away, cutting off his view of her.
As he was escorted back down the corridor, he asked, “Why is her mouth sewn shut?”
Starling smiled. “A precaution only. You see, one of my predecessors, or perhaps Minister Silk himself, wrecked her voice long ago. It held power, her voice, and by wrecking it, we diminished her, but there is still some, hmmm, persuasiveness, shall we say? in her voice. We could have removed it entirely, but we need her to speak on occasion. With a newcomer such as yourself, we deemed it necessary to prevent her from speaking. As diminished as her power is, there is still something there. Her tongue is most vile, in any case, and it is a relief not to have to listen to her.”
As Cade was pushed into the lift and the pulleys began winding it upward, he realized he had learned something valuable: that this woman, this Yolandhe, was still some danger to the empire, which was why they kept her prisoner in such a state. He also learned that Starling and his masters wanted information from him badly enough that they were willing to show the witch, their secret prisoner, to him.