WAYFARER: CLAIM THE UNCLAIMABLE

The stone beneath his elbow rose another fraction, sending pain through the joint and into his shoulder hard enough to pull a sound from Sio before he could swallow it. Mira cried out at almost the same moment, twisting desperately in her chair while his vision blurred around the edges. Vise waited until Sio could focus on him again before returning to the question of distance.

”I don’t know the exact range,” Sio said, speaking slowly because deeper breaths aggravated both his shoulder and his head. ”I’ve had this Claim for a few days. Most of those days involved being attacked, examined, chased, injured or being told that using it too much might make my brain regret belonging to me. I haven’t exactly had ideal conditions for measuring anything.”

It was more information than Arch would have wanted him to give, but it was also true, and Central almost certainly already understood from the examination that his control was immature.

Mira caught the shift in his expression and knew immediately that he was blaming himself for talking. ”Don’t do that to yourself. You are not failing because somebody hurts information out of you. Stop acting like every answer means you personally handed him a weapon.”

Sio looked toward her but could not answer honestly without risking even more. There was no safe way to explain that small details might matter enormously to whatever Arch intended.

Vise returned to the thing he wanted most. ”Show me the ability.”

Sio’s pulse climbed again. He could demonstrate something. Pebbles had crossed through paired openings, he had learned that smaller openings were easier to sustain, and training with Arch had begun pushing him toward a more useful idea, letting only the necessary part of an attack cross distance instead of dragging his entire body through it. He understood the concept, but he had never actually used that kind of strike against another person.

Showing Vise any of it would turn uncertainty into something measurable.

”I have a concussion,” Sio said. ”You watched your room give it to me. Using something that already puts pressure inside my head sounds like an excellent way to make your doctors angry again.”

For the first time, irritation flickered faintly through Vise’s composure. It vanished almost immediately, but Sio saw enough to understand that practical refusal bothered him more than simple defiance.

The room flattened beneath Sio’s arm, relieving the pressure in his shoulder, but the relief lasted only moments before the lower half of the platform began sinking. His ankles remained fixed while his torso stayed restrained higher up, pulling his body into an awkward downward angle. Sio sucked in a breath as his abdomen and lower back tightened against the strain.

Mira’s restraints snapped audibly against the chair when she pulled forward. ”Enough. He has blood dried through his hair, he can barely keep his eyes focused and you’re still pretending this is some kind of examination. He came here because you used me to make him come. You already know you can hurt him. What exactly are you still trying to prove?”

Vise finally turned toward her. ”Nothing.”

Mira stared at him, more disturbed by the calm answer than she would have been by anger. ”Then why are you doing it?”

”Because he still hasn’t shown me.”

That was when Sio stopped waiting for Vise to lose patience. He had assumed frustration would eventually change something, that there would be a point where Vise became angry enough to make a mistake or reckless enough to expose what he wanted. Vise did not seem frustrated at all. Pain was simply another method available to him, something he could increase, reduce or replace whenever it stopped producing useful information.

Sio forced himself to breathe shallowly through the strain. ”You want me to demonstrate something while every part of me is strapped into your floor. Even I can see the flaw in that.”

Vise regarded him for several seconds before the room gradually returned the platform to level. Sio’s muscles trembled as the pressure released, and for one brief moment he thought Vise might actually loosen the restraints. Instead, Vise stepped closer and pressed two fingers lightly against the bruising around Sio’s left wrist.

The contact carried almost no pressure, yet Sio froze faster than he had when the restraint tightened.

Vise examined the swelling beneath his fingertips. ”You talk more when you’re afraid.”

Sio’s mouth went dry. Vise pressed his thumb into the bruise, sending pain flaring through the wrist and making Sio flinch before he could stop himself. Mira immediately pulled against her chair and demanded that Vise take his hand away, but he ignored her completely.

”Your mother knows when you’re afraid,” Vise said while watching Sio’s face. ”Arch probably does now too.”

Sio kept his jaw clenched.

Vise waited another moment before adding, ”Silas would have.”

Something moved inside Sio.

The reaction was stronger than what he had felt when Vise first entered the examination room. A sudden tension pulled through his chest, unrelated to the pain in his wrist or the concussion. It resembled the buried response he had experienced around Arch, except there was none of the strange familiarity now. Whatever stirred beneath his awareness recoiled sharply at the sound of Silas’s name in Vise’s voice, and Sio’s expression changed before he could control it.

Vise caught the reaction immediately. For the first time since the interrogation began, genuine interest displaced the detached calm on his face. ”What was that?”

Sio’s heartbeat accelerated. He genuinely had no answer, which somehow made the situation worse. ”I don’t know. I’m serious. Something has reacted like that before, and I still don’t understand what it is.”

Denying something Vise had clearly witnessed would only make him more suspicious. Across the room, Mira had gone strangely still as well. She had noticed Sio’s reaction, and confusion temporarily pushed aside some of her fear.

Vise removed his hand from Sio’s wrist and watched him for several seconds longer. Eventually the platform returned fully to level, and the restraints eased enough for Sio’s aching muscles to stop fighting the room. His body sagged against the surface while pain continued pulsing through his wrist, shoulder and skull.

Vise walked toward the far wall, and Sio followed him with his eyes, unwilling to believe the interrogation had simply ended. His suspicion proved correct when a section of stone opened beneath Vise’s hand and revealed a narrow recess that had not been visible before. Several objects sat inside, arranged with enough care to suggest the compartment had been used many times.

Mira saw them too, and Sio noticed her breathing change before he had even understood what he was looking at. He tried lifting his head despite the pain. ”Vise, whatever you want to know, keep asking me. Mum doesn’t know anything about my first Claim. She wasn’t there when it happened, and she can’t tell you something I haven’t even figured out myself.”

Vise turned slightly toward him, but Sio continued before he could reconsider the words. ”Whatever problem you have with Arch or Dad, that isn’t hers either. You wanted me here, and I’m here. Keep this between us.”

For several seconds Vise simply regarded him before his attention moved toward Mira, and something in Sio’s stomach dropped. He had meant to remove her from the interrogation. Instead, every desperate attempt to protect her had shown Vise how much more frightened Sio became whenever the threat moved away from his own body and toward hers.

Vise reached into the recess and selected something small enough to disappear inside one hand before the wall sealed again. As he started walking back, Mira pulled against her restraints and Sio finally understood what the interrogation had taught him. Vise could keep hurting Sio until his body gave out, and stubbornness might carry him farther than either of them expected. Mira was different. Watching somebody he loved suffer because he refused to speak could reach places physical pain could not.

Hurting Sio might only make him more determined. Hurting someone Sio loved might finally make him crack.