The Kraken King, Part 7 by Meljean Brook Page B

thick, as if he’d spoken them with great effort. Terror stretched her voice thin. “Ariq?”
    Lady Nagamochi faced her. Crimson stained her white sash. “Madame Fox—”
    â€œWhat have you
done
?”
    â€œâ€”you have just provoked your husband’s first words and emotional response since we began our questioning,” the captain continued easily, ignoring her shout. “I apparently should have brought you in sooner. But first, we have questions for you.”
    Questions. Rage and horror boiled inside her, filling her eyes with hot tears. Everything blurred as the guards urged her forward. Fiercely she blinked them away, her throat burning and tight, and her stomach roiling.
    They wanted the machine. Ariq apparently hadn’t told them anything.
    Zenobia wouldn’t either. Not that she knew anything, but God help her, she wouldn’t say a word either.
    And Ariq—
Oh, God. Oh, God.
She cried out in helpless anguish as the guards marched her past the table, letting her see him from the front for the first time. Her hands flew to her mouth to hold in her sobs.
    His dark gaze rose to meet hers, his eyes glazed with pain. “Don’t . . . cry.”
    What else could she do? Blood streaked his bare skin and matted his hair. And she’d never seen him sit like this, with his shoulders slumped and his forearms resting heavily on the table, as if he barely had strength enough to hold himself up.
    His left fist suddenly clenched. Her gaze dropped to hand and sheer horror locked her chest. Something was squirming
under
his skin, bulging like a small wriggling stone on the back of his wrist. Another was burrowed into his right pectoral—and even as she watched, the fabric covering his right shoulder seemed to shift as if a mouse was moving beneath it.
    â€œIt isn’t as terrible as it appears,” Lady Nagamochi said, then spoke in Nipponese to one of the guards before lifting the lid of a steel box. The guard took Ariq’s wrists and drew them behind his back.
    Ariq didn’t—or couldn’t—offer any resistance.
    â€œHis flesh heals even more quickly than we anticipated. So we’ve been forced to make additional incisions and use additional beetles.”
    Beetles? Zenobia’s stomach lurched into her throat. “Take them out,” she whispered hoarsely.
    â€œSoon. You need to tell us what you know of the machine first.”
    â€œI don’t know where it is!”
    â€œThen tell us everything you do know.”
    â€œNo.”
    Steel glinted in the captain’s hand. A horizontal slice opened up on Ariq’s cheek, spilling blood down his jaw. Zenobia screamed and threw her weight forward. The guards’ grip didn’t slip.
    The captain placed the beetle against the cut. “This is fitting, I think. The only way to kill a kraken is by spearing its eye. This beetle will burrow in the same direction—and after it takes your husband’s eye, it will drill into his brain.”
    Sour bile filled Zenobia’s mouth. Desperately, she choked out,
“Don’t—!”
    Lady Nagamochi did. The cut widened and split as the beetle began to screw beneath Ariq’s skin. His jaw clenched, his eyelids squeezing shut, and Zenobia screamed again, pleading, because she didn’t know anything, and the beetle squirmed up over his cheekbone.
    The captain pinched the beetle through his skin, stopping it just beneath Ariq’s eye. “Tell me what you
do
know. You’re an observant woman, Madame Fox. I don’t believe you haven’t learned anything about the machine.”
    â€œI . . . I don’t—” She could hardly form a word past her terrified sobs. “His father ordered it made. He wanted to tear the gods from the sky.”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œAriq’s mother knew where it was because she was a spy and she shared his bed.” And none of this mattered.