The Traitor Queen by Trudi Canavan Read Free Book Online

reversal of the one they’d taken that morning, from the cell Lorkin had been sent to upon leaving the
     palace hall, to the room he’d been questioned in. Perhaps they were finished for the day. Perhaps it was night outside. Lorkin’s
     stomach had been his only indicator of the passing of time, and it wasn’t a particularly good one. During moments when not
     knotted with anxiety it growled quietly with hunger.
    The interrogator, who hadn’t introduced himself, led the way, his assistant following behind Lorkin. Lorkin only knew that
     he was an Ashaki because a guard had addressed him as such.
    They reached a corridor that Lorkin remembered well, because it sloped downward into the prison area. Once again he wondered
     why there were no stairs, but now the answer became clear: a prison guard was pushing a trolley towards them. On the trolley
     lay a very thin, very old man wearing nothing but a white cloth from his waist to his knees. As the interrogator moved past,
     Lorkin stole a look at the old man’s face, then looked closer.
    Is he dead?
The chest didn’t rise or fall. The old man’s lips were bluish.
Looks like it
. He scanned hurriedly for wounds but spotted none. Not even marks where manacles might have encircled wrists.
Perhaps he died of old age. Or illness. Or starvation. Or black magic
… He resisted he urge to reach out and touch the corpse, and to use his Healing senses to search for the cause of death.
    At the end of the sloped corridor they entered a wide room. Manacles hung from walls, red with rust. A pile of similarly tarnished
     metal objects lay in one corner – shapes that might suggest torture devices to frightened imaginations. In contrast, the bars
     that criss-crossed the alcoves along two sides of the room were a dull black, without a hint of age or weakness.
    Three larger cells took up the longer wall of the room, and five small ones along the shorter. Only two were occupied: one
     containing two middle-aged men and the other a young couple. Two guards sat near the main room’s entrance with another man
     dressed in a more sombre version of the usual Ashaki male garb. The latter nodded at the interrogator, who returned the gesture.
    Prisoners rarely stayed more than a few weeks, Lorkin had been told. Even if judged guilty. Magicians were too much trouble
     to keep locked away, and non-magicians were simply sold into slavery. The interrogator hadn’t said whether the magicians were
     freed or executed.
    That’s part of the game
, Lorkin thought.
Constant hints at dire consequences if I don’t cooperate, but no direct threats. Yet
.
    The man had gone on to wonder aloud whether Lorkin qualified as a magician, in the Sachakan sense, since his magical knowledge
     was incomplete. Did not knowing higher magic make Lorkin a half-magician? Keeping a half-magician prisonermight still be more troublesome than it was worth. Still, it had been done before, though not here. With Lorkin’s very own
     father.
    If he was trying to insult me it was a weak attempt. Surely he knows that Guild magicians don’t see our lack of higher magic
     as any kind of deficiency – rather it is a more honourable state. I suppose pointing out that my father was once a slave was
     his true aim
.
    Even so, that fact wasn’t the source of humiliation to Lorkin that it would have been to a Sachakan noble. Akkarin had been
     enslaved by an Ichani, outcasts who were an embarrassment and annoyance to the rest of Sachaka – and an indication of weakness
     in their society. Lorkin did not point this out, though.
    Aside from a few other attempted jibes, the interrogator had spent the day asking questions and pointing out how bad it would
     be for Lorkin, the Guild and peace between Sachaka and the Allied Lands if Lorkin didn’t tell him everything about the Traitors.
     There were only so many questions that could be asked, and versions of the same warning, so the man had repeated himself a
     lot.
    Lorkin had also