Adam's hands are tied painfully tight behind his back, so when his captors push him down, he has no way to catch himself. He hits the floor, the wind knocked out of him, his barely healed ribs aching. He knows he should get up quick, knows showing weakness means he's good as dead, but his body is refusing to respond. He struggles, makes it to his knees before a boot catches him between his shoulders, and he's forced down again. This is it. This is how he'll die, with a boot on his back and a bag over his head. This is what he gets, trying to rise above his station. This is what he gets for reaching for something more.
"So. This is the traitor's pet mage. He doesn't look like much."
The bag is yanked off his head, and he blinks back tears at the sudden light. He feels off balance, more so than usual, and it takes him a good few seconds to locate the speaker.
Sir Joseph of Kavinsky, knight of the realm of Aglionby, smirks down at him. He's dressed casually, but even his plain tunic and breeches are made of finer fabric than Adam could ever hope to afford. Of all the people to capture him, it had to be the king's own Dreamwalker. Ronan will be furious, when news of Adam's death reaches them. He will take it as a personal attack.
Adam eyes Kavinsky, and realizes that is precisely what this is.
He doesn't say anything in response to the knight. He won't give him the satisfaction. But Kavinsky doesn't seem bothered.
"Skov, get him up."
The man behind him lifts Adam by his collar as if he weighs nothing. Adam scrambles to get his feet under him, not taking his eyes off of Kavinsky. If today is the day he is to die, then he'd like to do it standing. He can fight for that much.
Sir Joseph circles him, and the hand on the back of his neck keeps him from turning. He hates when the man is behind him, his gaze on him like a weighted thing. His skin crawls, and he half expects to feel the sudden touch of cold steel.
"I find it hard to believe you are the best mage the rebels can muster," his tone is teasing, but there's a cruel set to the knight's eyes. Sir Joseph of Kavinsky's reputation is hardly one that can be avoided. He trained as a page and squire in the same year as Ronan and Richard, and he was cruel even then. Now, with his own group of knights under his command, a company of foot soldiers, and control of the Dreaming, he is an earth-bound demon, leaving the dead and the broken in his wake wherever he rides. He is the perfect example of what Sir Richard wants to change about this country, a noble who sees himself as a god, and doles out death accordingly.
Sir Roman's hatred of him is much more personal.
Adam knows it has something to do with an incident when they were squires, one that left Roman's younger brother maimed and publically outed both Ronan and Kavinsky as Dreamwalkers, or 'Greywarens', in the old religion's texts.
"Ronan does like his pets, though." He reaches out, brushes a gloved hand down Adam's cheek. His fingers linger on the bruise on his jaw, a gift from the knight who succeeded in capturing him. He presses down on it, and Adam gasps before he can stop himself, which gets a laugh from Kavinsky as he steps away again. He reaches over, and one of the men hands him his sword. He takes it, and his shoulders straighten. When he turns back around to face Adam, any humor is gone.
Adam can hear his heart racing.
"Adam Parrish, as a rebel conspiring against His Majesty Colin the Greenmantle of the house of Glendower, your fate is death. As a knight of the realm, I hereby sentence you to a traitor's death, and since my fine steel is not to be dulled on a commoner's neck, you will meet your end at the gallows. Notice will be sent out, so that the public can gather and see what happens when peasants try to pretend they have worth."
He locks his knees, so he will not shake. He will stand strong, he will not cower in the face of death. He closes his eyes, and casts his mind out wide, searching for Cabeswater. For he is as much priest as mage, really, and Cabeswater had taken his soul when he offered it, blessed him with power and protection. He is not sure if that protection extends to death, but he would like to attempt to call on it now, all the same.
Nothing. There must be counter-spells woven into the tent walls, and the ties on his wrists as well. The priests and mages of the old faith were too well known for being good with their hands for anyone to overlook that.
A sharp pain brings his mind back to his body all at once. He opens his eyes and his vision spins, and only his locked knees keep him up. Kavinsky must have hit him. His cheek burns.
Kavinsky is shaking his head. "None of that sacrilegious nonsense in front of me, witch." He sighs, and goes back to the chair at the head of his tent, slumping into it like he is suddenly bored with the whole situation. "I don't suppose you know anything about your false king's plans?"
He knows almost everything, actually. Knows the whole shape of the rebellion, roots so much deeper than the King or Kavinsky knows. He knows about the attack on the coastal town of St. Mark, which should be posed to begin. He knows about the weapons being made in the roots of Giant's Grave. He knows where Cabeswater sleeps, and the home of the Sisterhood of the Fox.
Adam Parrish is knowing and unknowable.
But aloud he says "I'm just a mage."
Kavinsky laughs, and the laugh is picked up by his men, until Adam feels like he is surrounded by one of Ronan's unkindnesses, harsh cackling of the ravens indistinguishable to all but the Greywaren.
"Parrish, do you know why Ronan of Lynch never lies?"
Kavinsky's gaze is hungry, when he speaks Ronan's name, and Adam wants to look away but he's caught in that stare. He doesn't know why Ronan refuses even the smallest of untruths. He will walk away, refuse to answer, but nothing untrue will pass his lips.
When Adam offers no answer, Kavinsky continues. "It's because one of my talents is seeing lies." Adam's heart goes cold. "I suppose I left a lasting impression with Sir Ronan." He looks over Adam's head at the guard still holding him. "Throw him in a cell overnight. Let's see if he'll tell us what he knows tomorrow."
Horror is spreading through Adam's blood. One of the first protections he laid on himself was for lies. His lies should ring true in any mortal's ears. He knows too much to go unprotected, and the suicide spells that are usually the protection of choice in case of capture and interrogation are a type of magic that Cabeswater cannot stand. Any such spell Adam tried to lay on himself Cabeswater burned from his body. So he gave himself the protection of lies instead.
And Kavinsky had seen right through it.
He sits in his cell, numb hands still tied behind his back, and prays to the forest where he was reborn. He slips into a trance, but does not let himself sleep. Here, in this company, sleep is the most dangerous place of all.
It's not Kavinsky who comes for him as dawn breaks, but two of his knights. Skov and Prokopenko drag him from his cell and march him through camp. He's weak from lack of water, food, and it's terrifying to see the sheer numbers their enemy has at his disposal. He's just starting to think that maybe that's all this morning walk is, intimidation. Then they take a sharp turn, and he's pushed into a large tent.
Immediately, he starts to shake. The tent is filled with things not often dragged out into the field, usually left to forgotten dungeons in the castles of history's worst kings. He knew logically that such rooms existed, but it was in the same way that he knew the ocean existed- it never felt tangible.
Surrounded by the various torture instruments, both physical and magical alike, stands Kavinsky. He's lounging against a table covered in dried blood, looking far too relaxed for this setting. Adam is focusing on his breathing, trying not to send himself into a panic. Taking it one heartbeat at a time.
"A messenger arrived at first light, with a letter from your band of traitors." Kavinsky doesn't bother looking at him. "They're asking for a ransom demand, for your safety. As if they are worth the rules of war." He pulls out what must be the letter, and a strange piece of metal. With a flick of his wrist, there are flames, greedily devouring the request. "As if you are worth anything at all."
Adam frowns, because they agreed they wouldn't do that. They didn't want to give the king's troops any kind of power over them, and they knew they were unlikely to get anyone back alive from this dishonorable king anyways.
He's been gone two days, and they're already trying to break the rules. For him.
He feels sick.
"Do you feel like telling the truth, Parrish?" He stretches, and pushes himself off from the table. He is once again in the finest of fabrics, all whites and creams today. Strange choice, when torture is in your day's work.
"A little bird told me you're no stranger to pain," Kavinsky says, and under his sharp gaze Adam understands how a rabbit must feel, trapped in the sights of a hawk. If only he could make his heart stop, like a rabbit. A quick death now would serve both him and his friends well.
No such luck.
Adam doesn't know how Kavinsky could have possibly found out about his past, if his upbringing is what he is referencing. Yes, in the Parrish household, pain was an expected thing. Even after he'd gotten out of there, put his father behind him, pain had dogged his footsteps. His special kind of power does not come easily.
He is familiar with pain, yes. But if anything it makes him hate it more.
"Put him here," Kavinsky points at a simple chair, and Adam hopes in spite of himself that perhaps he can somehow avoid the sharp instruments around him. But as soon as he is forced onto the chair, he knows something is wrong.
"It's very exciting to have someone of the old faith to play with." Kavinsky is so casual, almost bored, as the chair takes offense at Adam's very presence. "This chair is apparently made from a tree of Cabeswater." The word is dirtied in his mouth, and Adam wants to curse him, bring a wrath as old as the world down on this pathetic creature, but he knows if he opens his mouth, he will scream. The wood is of Cabeswater yes but it is infected, as if with magical dry rot. It burns him, through his thin clothes. It makes him shake, and Kavinsky watches him and looks less and less bored. "I've never gotten to use it before. It does seem to work, doesn't it?"
He was wrong. He is not burning, he is being stung, as if from a thousand insects, and they've moved from his skin to inside him. He sends out a quick blessing to the living trees of his holy land, because he can feel the evil that has taken up residence in this chair searching, searching for his soul, and the are coming up empty.
You cannot have it, he tells it. It is far beyond your reach.
The evil takes offense to this, angry at being denied its prize. His skin crawls, there are things inside him, and they hate him. His jaw opens of its own accord, and a host of hornets fly out of him, using his body as a gateway to the physical plane.
Adam screams.