that you’ll do neither. Nod your head if you agree.”
Nico nodded, slowly, and Sergei set down the leather roll on the bed, then came over to the young man. “Turn around,” he said, “and crouch down a little so I can get to the buckles…” Carefully, he unbuckled the straps and lifted the device from Nico’s head, the man gagging as the metal piece was removed from his mouth. Sergei stepped back, the silencer dangling from his hand, the buckles jingling.
“Stay where you are,” he told Nico. He walked slowly outside the open cell door and, groaning, bent over to pick up the garda’s water flask. He brought it inside, handing it to Nico. “Go on…”
He watched the young man drink, gulping down the water. Nico handed the flask back to Sergei, who set it on the table. “Are you going to torture me now?” Nico asked. His beautiful voice was harshened and torn by having worn the silencer for so long. He cleared his throat, and Sergei heard the breath rattling in his lungs-prisoners often became sick here, and many died from the wet lung disease. He wondered if Nico would be one.
“Is that what you think I am, your torturer?” he asked Nico. “Does the thought frighten you? Do you wonder what it will feel like, whether you’ll be able to stand the pain, whether you’ll scream and scream until your throat is raw, when you hear your bones snap, when you see the blood flowing, when you’re forced to watch parts of your body flayed and torn and crushed? Do you wonder if you’ll beg for it to end, that you’ll promise me anything if I would just stop?” He could not entirely keep the eagerness from his voice; he knew Nico heard it.
Nico gulped audibly, his throat moving under the thin scraggly beard. Sergei saw his eyes glance over to the leather roll on his bed. “I know about you, Silvernose,” Nico said. “Everyone does.”
“Do they? What is it they say, I wonder? No, don’t answer. I’ve a question for you instead-how does it feel to know that you’re going to be remembered as someone even more reviled than me? How does it feel to know that, because of your pride and arrogance and misplaced faith, the woman who was carrying your child is dead?”
Sergei saw tears form in Nico’s eyes, saw them grow and fall down his cheeks untouched. “You can’t hurt me more than that,” Nico said, his voice breaking with emotion. “You can’t cause me more pain than I’ve already caused myself.”
“Brave words,” Sergei answered, “even if they’re not true.”
Deliberately, he went over to the roll of leather, leaning his cane against the bed. He bent down as if he were about to open the ties that held it closed, then straightened again. “I met an interesting young woman on the way back to Nessantico,” he said.
Nico scowled. “I’m not interested in your filthy debauchery, ca’Rudka.”
Sergei almost laughed. “There was no ‘debauchery,’ I’m afraid. Not that I wouldn’t have been interested, mind you, especially since I wonder if she might not have shared my, umm, preferences. But there was conversation. Strangely, I saw a mirror of myself in her, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Even worse than the genuine one.” He touched his nose for emphasis. “But I wondered… Can she change herself? Can she avoid becoming what I’ve become, or is that a hopeless task? Are we what Cenzi makes us, or can we change what we’re given? It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?”
He bent down again to the leather roll. He pulled on the ties, unknotting them. He paused, fingertips on the old, soft leather, looking back over his shoulder at Nico, who was staring in dread fascination: as they all did, all of them whom he was about to torture.
They all looked. They could not fail to look.
“It’s a question we might discuss, you and I,” Sergei said. “I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.”
With that, he flicked open the leather roll. Inside, cushioned, was a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and a bottle of wine. He heard Nico’s gasp of relief and disbelief. “Varina ca’Pallo sent these,” Sergei told him. “You have her to thank for your life.”
“My life?” Sergei heard the breath of hope in his voice, and he nodded.
“She pleaded for you with the Kraljica. As you might have expected, you were to be given first to the Archigos so he could take your hands and your tongue, and then tortured and executed by the Garde Kralji-all in public so the citizens could hear your screams and see the blood. But your life has been spared-by a Numetodo. By a woman you profess to hate. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Why?” he asked. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Sergei answered. “Had it been my choice, you would already be dead and your body, hands, and tongue would be hanging from the Pontica a’Kralji as a lesson to others. But Varina…” He shrugged. “She loved you, Nico. Both she and Karl would have taken you for their own son, if they’d had the chance. In another life, you might have been Numetodo yourself.”
Nico shook his head in denial, but the movement of his head was slow and faint.
Nico Morel
“In another life, you might have been Numetodo yourself.”
No. That would never have been. Cenzi wouldn’t have allowed it. He wanted to rage and deny the accusation, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel Cenzi at all; he hadn’t felt Him since he’d watched Liana fall. Cenzi had forsaken him. Nico had spent his time praying as best he could in the midst of his black despair. Save me if that is Your Will. I am in Your Hands. Save me if there is still more that I need to do for You here, or take me to Your Bosom. I am Your servant, I am Your Hand and Your Voice. I am nothing without You… He had once felt so full of Cenzi that it seemed impossible not to be one with Him. Now, he was empty and alone.
Instead, it was Varina who offered to save him, not Cenzi.
He stared at the food and wine atop the leather, which he had been certain contained the instruments of torture that ca’Rudka was rumored to carry with him whenever he visited the Bastida. Sergei was already breaking off a piece of the bread. He handed it to Nico, and his stomach growled loudly in response. The first taste was stunning; the bread might have come from the Second World itself. He had to force himself not to cram all of it into his mouth.
He could feel Sergei watching him as he ate. He saw ca’Rudka pulling the cork on the wine, taking a long swig himself, then handing the bottle to Nico. He swallowed-like the bread, the wine tasted like nectar in his dry, abused mouth.
Reluctantly, he handed the bottle back to Sergei and accepted some of the cheese and another piece of bread.
“Slowly,” Sergei told him. “You’ll be sick if you eat too much and too quickly.”
Nico took a small bite of the cheese. “I could never have been Numetodo,” he told Sergei.
Sergei chuckled dryly, shaking his white-haired, balding head. The silver nose sent light motes scattering around the walls. “You answer too quickly and easily,” he said. “It tells me that either you’re giving no thought to what you’re saying, or that you’ve no idea how much a person’s early life can influence them.”
“I could never not believe in Cenzi,” Nico told him stubbornly. “My faith is too strong. I am too close to Him.”
“Yes, I notice how well He protected you and yours in the Old Temple.”
“Blasphemy,” Nico hissed reflexively.
“I would be careful with insults, were I you,” Sergei said. The man’s voice held a dangerous calmness, and the smile was sharp enough to cut skin. “The Kraljica has given you into my care. I will honor Varina’s desire to keep you alive because she’s my friend, but that leaves open so many possibilities.”
Nico could feel the darkness within the man, like an approaching storm striding forward with legs of lightning and grumbling with thunder. He shuddered at the vision. Cenzi, are You with me again? No, he couldn’t feel the Divine’s presence. He was alone. Abandoned.
“You see,” Sergei was saying, “that’s your problem, Nico. You think everything is preordained. You think that Cenzi always meant for you to be what you are, that He’s still directing your life. You think you would have ended up in the same place no matter what. But I don’t think that’s so. I think no one’s future is preordained at all. I think you could have easily been a Numetodo. In fact, I would wager that by now you’d be the A’Morce of the Numetodo the same way you became Absolute of the Morellis. You do have a gift, Nico.”
“ Cenzi’s Gift,” Nico answered.
