Page 56 of Decimation

God is testing me now, measuring the weight of my soul against the weight of my ambition.

And I will not be found wanting.

I will not.

In the meantime I can use this, I can discover everything I can about my love; everything needed to control her, manipulate her, make her wholly mine and not his.

Istand at the top of the stairs for a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness below. The torches flicker against the walls, casting shadows that dance like spectres across the ancient brickwork.

This place.

I know this place.

Not this exact room, no, but one so similar that my body remembers before my mind does. The dimensions are the same. The weight of the air, the particular quality of silence that exists only underground, where screams go to die and no one above can hear them.

My fingers trace the wall as I descend. The stone is cold. Alive with memory.

You’re stronger now.

The thought comes unbidden, and I let it settle over me like a mantle. I am stronger now, I have walked through the desert of my own suffering and emerged on the other side. I have faced the demons that wore my brother’s face and my brother’s wife’s hands. I have been bound, broken, and remade.

This room cannot hurt me anymore, but it can hurt someone else.

The woman is chained to the wall at the far end of the cell. Her arms are stretched above her head, the manacles cutting into her wrists where she’s struggled against them.

She doesn’t look up when I enter, doesn’t react.

I take my time crossing the room. My footsteps echo against the stone, deliberate and measured. I want her to hear me coming. I want her to feel the weight of each step, the inevitability of my approach.

There’s a chair in the corner. I drag it across the floor, letting the legs scrape against the stone, and position it directly in front of her. When I sit, I’m close enough to smell her; sweat, fear, and something else, something floral that clings to her skin despite everything.

Perfume, perhaps. A remnant of the life she lived before we found her.

“Magdalena,” I say.

Her name feels strange in my mouth. I’ve known it for years, of course. I’ve known everything about Ines’s family; the cousins, the aunts, the distant relations who scattered across Europe like seeds from a dying plant, but I know nothing about her daughter. Not a damned fucking thing.

She doesn’t respond.

I lean back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. The posture is casual, almost bored. I learned this from watching my father interrogate men who thought they were brave. The ones who broke fastest were always the ones who couldn’t stand the waiting.

“I’m not going to ask you about the Esau,” I tell her. “I’m not going to ask you about Ezekiel Sewell, or any of the plans they might have had. I don’t care about any of that.”

A lie, but a small one. I care about everything. I have made it my business to know every thread that weaves through the tapestry of power, every hand that pulls those threads, every mouth that whispers in the dark. But right now, in this moment, there is only one thing I want.

“I want to know about the girl. Your daughter. The one who wears Ines’s face.”

At the mention of her daughter, Magdalena’s head lifts. Her eyes find mine through the tangled curtain of her hair, and I see something flicker there; not fear, not yet. It’s defiance.

“You already have her,” she says. Her voice is hoarse from disuse. “What more could you possibly want?”

“Everything.”

I let the word hang in the air between us.

“I want to know her name,” I state “I want to know what she was like as a child. I want to know her favourite foods, her favourite colours, the songs she sang when she thought no one was listening. I want to know what made her laugh, and what made her cry. I want to know the name of her first pet. I want to know every secret she’s ever told you, every fear she’s ever confessed, every dream she’s ever whispered in the dark.”

Magdalena stares at me, and the defiance in her eyes has shifted into something else now; confusion, perhaps. Or the beginning of understanding.