When Numair heard of Daine's flight from Carthak, he felt an emotion well up inside.
He knew she would never have left, she couldn't have left, but she certainly could have been taken, and it didn't take a scrying mirror to guess who orchestrated it.
Their companions were horrified, of course, those who believed her innocence. Alanna was furious, ready to unsheathe her sword and race through the castle complex to find the Emperor and kill him personally. Gary was appalled, but had enough sense to hold back the Lioness.
Numair was terrified.
Only he knew for certain the depths of Ozorne's depravity. He, who had been his closest friend throughout their years at the Carthaki University. Ozorne as a boy had taken Arram under his wing, a young child, son of cloth makers from Tyra. The prince at that time had watched over him, fed his arrogance, introduced him to the best pleasure-houses and libraries, both equally valuable and overwhelming to the impressionable boy.
It had, however, taken some effort to gloss over the existence of the torture chambers in the deep dungeons of the Palace.
Arram had attempted to ignore them, explaining them away and burying himself in books and bosoms. Ozorne dangled the vivacious Varice in front of his nose and he was only too eager to take the bait and let any lingerings of conscience fade into the background of his mind.
Until he himself experienced them.
Chained and tortured for days, Numair still bore the scars no amount of Healing could erase. At times, when surrounded by friends and comforts, he did not mind them. They bespoke of a young, foolish, arrogant boy – without them, Numair did not exist, could not have existed, and he actually liked himself now.
Nights, though. Nights were difficult. More often than not, he woke up to the sound of his own hoarse screams.
If he had company in his bed, they either prevented him from falling asleep by their close proximity, or woke him up when he began to stir.
He had experienced a peculiar luck recently. When on the road with Daine, the nightmares came less frequently and with lesser force, a fact for which he thanked the gods. It was awkward to have his student shake him in the middle of the night, pale face afraid of his frantic mutterings.
Numair could not remember exactly what had occurred in those dark depths in Carthak. It was a mercy, for what he could remember in the daylight chilled him to the bone. Starvation was the least of it, but there were beatings, archaic tools for torture without drawing blood, conventional instruments and creative. Ozorne seemed to delight in using his hands rather than his Gift.
Now that monster had his magelet.
And Numair was terrified.