Marcus noticed it. So did Thessian.
Blood appeared slowly where the metal edge had broken skin along her forearm, surfacing in a thin line that widened as the seconds passed and she refused to acknowledge it.
She looked down at it once and then she smiled—a terrible thing, that smile, belonging entirely to the category of people who had learned somewhere along the way to treat their own suffering as evidence of something. Power. Endurance. Righteousness. It sat on her split lip like a declaration.
"You think this changes anything?" she hoarsely whispered.
Marcus did not answer. The next strike landed harder than the last, and her body jerked violently against the chair, the restraints snapping taut, the legs of it scraping an inch across stone before going still again.
The smile vanished for half a second—a half-second being exactly as much as she could not prevent—and then returned, slightly less steady than before but present.
"Still nothing?" Marcus asked quietly.
