It's a stunningly, sharply, disappointingly uncreative tactic, the application of brute force and constricting pressure closing inexorably around his throat. For all his composure, for all his struggling to maintain his calm, the instinct is raw and immediate. He strains, pressing back, pressing away with no success, spine arcing in contained agony, pinned between metal and the unbearable grip that he cannot escape that he must escape that he cannot -

The cut, when it comes, is relief hissed out between clenched teeth.

"I've seen more auspicious beginnings," he whispers hoarsely, barely, between the relentless push of fingers and the slow decline in pressure, "as far as beginnings go."

He shakes his head fractionally, a tiny, insufficient defiance to the pained locking and tensing of musculature. The scrape of wrists against metal. Shoulders set in a contorting, tensing line.

The careful incision of a blade into his cheek is nothing, nothing, in comparison to the shrieking, fracturing release that had been the retracting of the excruciating voices from his mind so they could peel away his ribs, pry them apart to place something small and whispering and metal beside his heart.

Fring cannot touch him.

He's confident.

There is nothing of him left.