The underground stone chamber of Frost Spear Castle, damp, cold, mingled with the smell of scorching iron and blood, like some twisted purgatory.
Kalan was hung upside down on a torture pillar, his entire body stained with blood and filth, the once sturdy and upright figure now reduced to a spasming, twitching skeleton tormented by torture.
The torturer pressed a glowing red iron needle into the nerve junctions of his calf, instantly eliciting a tooth-grinding wail.
He screamed in collapse, his voice like the whimper of a trapped beast, repeating what he had already said: "It's Joseph! It's Joseph Kadari! He was the one who approached us first... he willingly offered the maps!
He provided the defense maps of the Southwest of the Empire! Even the changing of the guard times at the Empire's southwestern watchtowers, it was all written by him..."
Duke Edmund stood silently before the torture rack, flipping through a ledger and notebook from the Silver Plate Guild.
