(Essylt gets stabby beneath the cut, gore warning)
Iesin has been watching, and listening, in between the bouts of agony that Essylt calls experiments and he calls torture, and he has a plan.
He waits for a day when Essylt is attending to the other matters of her estate, and he’s been allowed as much time as he’s likely to get to recover before she returns to extract more knowledge from his flesh. Then, he waits for Talvos to bring the daily bowl of barley-and-meat hash that has comprised his diet since he arrived. It’s the only time he’s not muzzled and off of the tables simultaneously, and Talvos is watchful for that very reason, but Iesin has been careful to be quiet and unassuming during his feedings, both in fear - cowardly, disgusting fear - that even this small mercy of regularly given, never-quite enough portion of food might be taken from him, and in calculated knowledge that this, if any, will be his best opportunity to escape.