CHAPTER TWENTY
Sartes stood by the side of the training pit, struggling against the bonds that held him in place even though it made no difference. He couldn’t just stand there. He couldn’t do nothing while they were trying to break his sister like this.
Yet there was nothing he could do. They’d tied him to a post there, ropes around his wrists, his ankles, his throat, so that he couldn’t move as much as a hand’s width without the ropes tightening to half choke him. They’d put him where Ceres would be able to see him and know that she couldn’t save him, but they’d been crueler than that.
They’d put him where he had to watch his fellow conscripts as they suffered. Already he’d seen Justino stabbed through the heart, had watched them hack a hand from Ullo, leaving him screaming and bleedi
