The Kraken King, Part 7 by Meljean Brook

Governor?”
    â€œWe don’t have to be. You only need to leash Tatsukawa. I’ll stop Ghazan Bator and see that he pays for the lives taken by the marauders he hired. And the people in my town and in Nippon will continue on as peacefully as we have been.”
    She studied him silently for so long that Ariq suspected she saw the practicality of that compromise, and was trying to make it fit with her objectives. “And the Skybreaker?”
    Heavy as stone, his body burned like a kiln. “The machine will remain hidden, and I’ll see that no one ever takes possession of it.”
    â€œHow will you guarantee that? You have said the admiral and general intended to use the threat of her majesty’s fleet to force you to reveal the location. Won’t others be able to force you?”
    â€œThey can try.”
    The captain sighed. With a curl of her fingers, she gestured one of the guards nearer and took an etched steel box from him. She set it on the table. “Her majesty does not agree with many of the views her excellent mother held. Before her ascension to the throne, there were a pair of . . . unconventional scientists who served her venerated mother. Her majesty prefers that her guards and soldiers do not avail themselves of many of those scientists’ crueler inventions, but some of their creations have proved useful enough to keep.”
    The twins, Ariq realized. The den lords had been the pair in the former empress’s service—and had created whatever torturous device the box contained. It would likely be worse than what he’d expected.
    But he’d known pain would be coming. And though his head would not stop twirling, his mind descended into calm. The heaviness of his body seemed deeper now.
    She lifted the lid and sudden rage fired through Ariq before his calm enfolded it. Within the box, screw beetles skittered along the steel bottom, their sharp legs clicking faintly against the metal. Just as they’d used on his brother.
    My heart is iron.
    â€œYou must be familiar with these, though not personally—and not exactly in this form,” she said. “In the prisons, the larvae are preferred, because they burrow through the flesh more slowly and the damage is not so extensive. But we do not have weeks or months to extract information from you now, and so I will use the adults, instead.”
    And deliver a speech intended to dishearten Ariq before the first one dug under his skin. Torture was not only pain, but the anticipation of it.
    My will is steel.
    â€œI am fortunate that the empress no longer allows the cruel inventions to be used,” he said dryly.
    She smiled but her gaze remained level on his. “You are.”
    He would show his gratitude some other day. “My brother knew nothing of my mother’s work or her loyalty to the rebellion. You tortured an innocent.”
    The captain inclined her head. “So we discovered. We chose the safety of many over mercy for one—just as you have done the unspeakable to protect your own when you threw a pair of honorable airmen into the ocean to feed megalodons and to cover your escape. When you shot arrows through your fellow rebels during your wife’s rescue.”
    The drug had made the room spin but it hadn’t scrambled his brains. She knew of the guards on Tatsukawa’s airship. She knew what had happened on the ironship.
    That only meant one thing. “You said the admiral was a friend to the throne, but you already suspected his betrayal. You have a spy close to him.”
    Lady Nagamochi didn’t confirm or deny it. She only said, “The Empress sees all.”
    â€œThen she knows there are no marauders on the western shore,” he said. “She knows there is no threat except from Tatsukawa and Ghazan Bator. Honor demands that she recall her fleet.”
    â€œExcept that we have discovered a new threat in the Skybreaker. We will recall our fleet