hearts of metal

xlviii. let's talk

Aedion still had blood on his hands when he waltzed into the next cell. Rhoe followed closely behind, brown eyes glittering with violence.

The last three attempts had been futile. Their Valg prisoners were beyond tight lipped, no matter how much they tried to pry information out of them.

This one seemed...promising. The man was young, perhaps a few years older than Aedion himself. He called himself Stefan and had been rather forthcoming when Vaughan had interrogated him earlier.

There were very visible signs of that interrogation, gashes steadily oozing blood and a black eye, to name a few. But the man was otherwise intact.

He glanced up at Aedion and his father when they entered, eyes hollow and haunted.

They waited. The man rasped out, "I said I'd tell you everything. Everything that I know."

"How do we know you're speaking the truth?" Aedion muttered. "Shall we test it out?" he asked darkly.

Stefan's expression hardened at the threat of more torture. "Nothing you do could beat what the Valg did. What he did," he said.

"Who is he?" Rhoe asked. "And what did they do?"

The man hesitated. "I have a wife," he said.

Aedion didn't let his surprise show on his face, even as confusion filled him. What did that have to do with this?

"Had a wife," Stefan amended, his voice raw with pain.

Rhoe stiffened ever so slightly beside him, and Aedion's stomach dropped.

"And a son," Stefan continued. "He was just about to turn three. Those soldiers stormed in one day. I tried to fight them off, but..." he shook his head. His head dropped as he regained his composure. "They killed my son. Then dragged me and my wife off with a bag over my head. When I came to, I was in this room full of cages. There were dozens like me."

Aedion straightened at that, recalling Aelin's description of the room in the Valg bunker. Rows of cages with prisoners. Stefan hadn't gone willingly. How many of the prisoners they had currently were like him?

"And what did they do?" Rhoe asked.

"They took people one by one. The ones who left either never returned or returned differently. Hollow husks of the people they once were. When they could barely function, unable to sleep or eat, they disappeared for good," Stefan explained. "My wife was one of them."

"One day, though," his gaze turned distant. "One day it was different. The woman they'd been experimenting on walked back with the soldiers. Dressed in their uniform. Her sister tried to call her name, but she didn't answer. She was one of the Vag now."

Aedion's blood ran cold. That had been the Valg's goal. Making perfect obedient soldiers. They'd assumed that the Valg had failed, but it turns out that they hadn't.

"Did they try it on you?" Aedion asked.

Stefan nodded. "They brought me to the room. Strapped me to a table, hooked wires in me. I remember this white hot electricity flowing through me, then I blacked out. When I awoke, I felt different. They told me who I was -a Valg soldier- and I agreed. But I was still...there. Inside, watching something else take over my body.

"I don't know why I was different. Why I overcame it, but I just know that I couldn't be their puppet," he finished. "As time went on, the effects faded and I became more in control. Erawan was the head scientist behind their project, the one who was in the room with me when I turned."