Blurry vision forced him to blink several times and shake his head, which felt heavy. Vidar wet his lips and then grimaced as the intense ache from the palm of his hand finally made it through the fog of his waking. Moving his hand was wasted effort, for it was still tied fast to the table. The deep red piece of cloth the veterinarian used covered his hand. It was wet with fresh blood.

  Strangely enough, his feet would not move either. Vidar blinked again and again and looked down to see straps securing both legs to the chair.

  “What is this?” he mumbled.

  “Vidar?”

  His other, healthy hand was tied to the chair as well, and a leather strap went over his chest to secure him against the backrest.

  “Let me go.”

  The words were slurred and his lips felt too big. A haze of pain filtered everything around him, but he was still able to turn his head the second time someone called his name.

  “Vidar!”

  “What?” Vidar asked.

  A new pain flashed across his face.

  “Wake up!”

  Vidar drew in a sharp breath and coughed. His eyes finally focused and he saw the shape looming over him. It was not the veterinarian.

  “Torbjorn?”

  “Now you’re coming to. Good boy!” Torbjorn’s voice boomed in the spacious barn.

  “What is this? Why are you here? Why are you wearing my coat?!”

  Only then did the cold register and the shivering set in.

  “You mean MY coat?” he asked, hunching over so the front wasn’t quite as open. His frame was much wider than Vidar’s and the coat was too small for him. Almost comically so, but neither that fit nor Torbjorn’s smile made the situation very amusing to Vidar, who saw how that smile didn’t reach the thug’s eyes.

  Panic flooded Vidar’s chest, almost overpowering the pain, almost, but he pushed it down. Showing weakness in front of a predator like Torbjorn might serve to set him off.

  “You’re no longer with Embla, then?”

  “There is no more Embla and the rats have all dispersed, but I’m doing well for myself.”

  It dawned on Vidar, then, why Torbjorn was there. “You joined the thieves’ guild.”

  “I did,” Torbjorn confirmed, playing with one of the spikes from the dragon’s tail. “Ansgar came looking for a guild representative the moment you passed out. As luck would have it, the person he found was a friend of mine who knew I wanted to talk with you personally. He told me rather than go here himself.”

  The veterinarian sold him out. Vidar was not surprised.

  “So what do you want?” Vidar asked. Sweat was pouring down his face, back, and chest despite the cold. He glanced at the piece of cloth covering his hand again.

  “What is this anyway?” Torbjorn asked, testing the very tip of the bone spike. “Ouch!”

  A droplet of blood formed on his finger and Torbjorn wiped it off on Vidar’s sweat-soaked shirt.

  Vidar didn’t answer and Torbjorn shrugged. “I’m a practical person, Vidar. Just tell me what I need to know and do what I tell you to, and all will be great. Agreed?”

  Vidar’s head was heavy and he had to focus to keep it from dipping forward. “I’m waiting for a question.”

  “Where is Ida?” Torbjorn asked, pocketing the spike as he leaned in close.

  The question took him by surprise and it must’ve registered in his face. “Surprised?”

  “I don’t know where Ida is,” Vidar said, ignoring the second question.

  “Of course you do. You were here with her, perhaps in this dung heap of a barn, just a few days ago. Tyv wants her and he gets what he wants.”

  “Who’s Tyv?”

  Pain flashed again and Torbjorn gave him another slap.

  “She went off on her own,” Vidar breathed, flinching in anticipation of a third strike. They took the breath from him, but the pain wasn’t bad, not compared to his hand. “We haven’t been able to find her.”

  Torbjorn sat down on his heels with a mischievous smile on his lips. “We?”

  Vidar cursed inwardly.

  “The silent sister is with you. Of course she is. We all need someone to warm our beds, don’t we?”

  “Shut your mouth,” Vidar spat. “She’s a child.”

  That made Torbjorn laugh. “So are you. So am I.”

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  “Not me.”

  “It does not matter. Perhaps Siv will be able to lead us to her sister.”

  “Leave her be! You know Siv doesn’t speak. How should she tell you anything even if you hurt her? Why do you want Ida, anyway?”

  Mirth played across his dead little eyes. “I don’t need her to speak. I’ll dangle her as bait and Ida will come running to save her.”

  “What did Ida do?” Vidar repeated, his head swimming from the pain in his hand.

  “You know what she did, Vidar,” Torbjorn admonished. “She must’ve told you.”

  “She hasn’t told me anything!” he blurted, spittle going everywhere.

  “The little bitch torched my boss!”

  “What?”

  “Yallander, I know you know him. You worked for him, same as me! The runes and whatnot!”

  Vidar furrowed his brow, not understanding. “You’re saying Ida did that?”

  “Of course! Who else? You?” Torbjorn laughed, a tinge of madness in the sound.

  Vidar chuckled, his throat going dry. Or perhaps it was already dry. It was difficult keeping track of things.

  “Why her?”

  “Retaliation? Revenge? Hate? The little bitch had many reasons. Yallander ordered her little guild put to the knife, after all.”

  “He did?”

  Torbjorn sighed. “Competing thieves’ guilds are apparently a big no-no. Who would’ve thought, except everyone in the entire city? Unfortunately, Ida was not among those we’ve found.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh is right,” Torbjorn said. “So now you need to tell me of Siv’s whereabouts.”

  “No,” Vidar said, swallowing hard.

  Torbjorn raised an eyebrow. “No?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps I should cut off one of your ears to start. They’re so big you only need the one, no?”

  Vidar glared at him.

  “Or an eye, maybe. That way, you and Ida would be a matching pair.”

  “Fuck you!” Vidar shouted, throwing himself against the restraints. The wound in his hand screamed in pain and Vidar stopped moving, overcome with agony.

  “I’ll need her whereabouts, Vidar, and I’ll need them soon. I’m not leaving here without that information. I take no pleasure in taunting you and I won’t take pleasure in torturing you, but I will.”

  Vidar knew the lie as soon as it was spoken. Torbjorn reveled in this power dynamic and would be ecstatic to cause more pain.

  “Your hand perhaps? Or both? With no hands, making runes might be hard, no? You can still teach, at least. Tyv wants me to bring you around once we’re done. Made me swear not to kill you.”

  Torbjorn gave Vidar a thoughtful look, then removed the piece of cloth covering his hand. It had stuck to the wound and the pain as it tore off made Vidar whimper despite himself.

  “Play nice and you might keep your hand. All I want is some information.”

  Vidar shook his head, sweat going everywhere. “No!”

  Torbjorn held up a single finger, showed it to Vidar, then moved it to Vidar’s hand before pressing down.

  Vidar screamed.

  And he screamed.

  “Tell me!” Torbjorn shouted, moving his hand so the finger turned and turned in Vidar’s wound with a squelching sound.

  He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see or hear. Fire. His hand burned, as if a sowilo rune had been pressed against his skin. Numbness. His dazed mind thought only of lessening that pain, and Vidar knew only one way of doing that. A glimmer of something at the back of his mind screamed at him through the agony. The answer to a question he, at first, couldn’t form. Then, in the briefest moment between agonizing breaths, the question appeared in his mind without distraction, stark against a backdrop of dark eternity.

  What was the purpose of the runes surrounding the dragon?

  They were used in draining the dragon’s essence.

  Vidar barely knew what he was doing when he drew essence from the rune in the palm of his hand back into his body, forcing it to overflow with little regard for what it might do to him. This new rune was not meant to hold his own essence. It was meant to hold another’s.

  Triggering the empty rune, Vidar felt essence crashing into it in great amounts, like the raging river of a person’s life force. Not any person’s. Torbjorn’s.

  The only sound from the thug of a young man was a surprised “erp.”

  Then the finger on Vidar’s palm disappeared and the flow of essence into the rune cut off. Even with all that, the circle in his mind, the circle he barely saw through the pain, was barely half-full.

  Panting, Vidar opened his eyes. Torbjorn was on the ground. His face looked haggard, the skin pulled too tight against his skull, and his eyes were open wide in surprise. A surprised death mask. His chest did not move. Torbjorn wasn’t breathing.

  A loud whimper sounded from the doorway and Vidar forced himself to ignore the worst of the pain and the swell of overflowing essence inside him.

  “Release me, veterinarian!” he shouted, mustering all the authority he knew. “Or suffer the same fate!”

  The veterinarian whimpered and hurried over, undoing the leather straps.

  “I am sorry,” he kept repeating with each strap.

  When he got to Vidar’s arm, Vidar stopped him. “Hold on, you need to fix this. Goddamn traitor.”

  “I am no traitor, boy,” the veterinarian said. “Yes, I fetched one of the thieves’ guild,” the veterinarian continued. “But not for the coin. If they knew you’d come to me and I didn’t report you, they’d have my hands. I need my hands. Don’t you see?”

  “What do you mean?” Vidar grunted.

  “I mean that the reach of the thieves’ guild is long and encompasses much.”

  “Fix me,” Vidar replied, his patience running thin. “Enough of this.”

  The veterinarian eyed Torbjorn’s corpse, then bent over to get a closer look at the wound. “I removed most of the dead and damaged flesh, and the bits of wood, as well as the burnt skin that remained. I have a poultice we can try, but I make no guarantees.”

  “Do it,” Vidar said through gritted teeth. “If you try to run, I’ll find you.”

  “I don’t doubt it, boy,” the veterinarian said, exiting the barn. He returned a short while later with a bowl full of something fragrant.

  “What is that?” Vidar asked.

  “Garlic, honey, and some herbs to deal with the infection. To hopefully deal with the infection. If this doesn’t work, our last-ditch attempt will be to take your arm, boy.”

  “Stop calling me ‘boy,’” Vidar snapped. “When will we know?”

  The veterinarian grabbed a handful of the mixture and placed it into the wound. It immediately began to itch. Vidar winced. “This’ll work?”

  “Like I said, no promises,” Ansgar the veterinarian answered, wiping off his hands. He grabbed a bandage and began wrapping Vidar’s hand. Each time the cloth touched the wound, Vidar winced a little, despite his best attempts to remain still.

  He kept stealing glances at Torbjorn’s withered form, and when the veterinarian was finished with his ministrations, Vidar nodded toward the corpse. “Check his pockets for me, will you?”

  The veterinarian gave him a hesitant look, and Vidar raised an eyebrow.

  The bounty from the man Vidar had just killed to defend himself and his friends was a rusty, almost useless knife that he immediately discarded and a small amount of copper coins. Not much worth for a man’s life, but then again, Torbjorn’s life had never been worth much.

  “When will I know?” Vidar asked again.

  The veterinarian cleared his throat. “If you wake up tomorrow, you have a fighting chance. If you don’t, have someone bring you by and we’ll take that arm.”

  Vidar stood and rubbed at the area where the leather strap had tied him to the table. He nodded to the still-very-uncomfortable-looking veterinarian. As he pushed open the door, Ansgar asked, “What do I do with the body?”

  “Feed him to the pigs. I don’t care,” Vidar answered without looking back.