Raeia started. At least ten hours had passed since she’d been out picking buttercups and primroses on her morning routine. It wasn’t cleric work, but the wards smelled stale without her bi-weekly dawn excursions to gather the available wildflowers, and so it had become ritual.

‘Any orchids growing here?’ The prisoner’s voice was rough with thirst but strong, deep and reassuring in a way that unsettled. ‘Orchid is a minor ingredient for Jester. I could use some right about now.’

Raeia knew of the drug. She knew it killed more than it helped. 

‘No,’ she replied, controlling her surprise enough to take a wash cloth with steady hands and drop it into a deep basin. She ran the tap to a comfortable warmth and filled the basin, then added oils that would soothe the prisoner’s sour wounds and encourage quick healing. She could deal with scarring too, she thought, but then beheld the wounds again. Some of them had healed quite badly and would require skills beyond Raeia’s capabilities to ensure a perfect recovery. Skills that would not be provided for at The Arabella.

The thought was accompanied by pangs of remorse and resentment. If she were ever released, the prisoner’s scarring would never let her forget this phase of her life. But maybe she would rot away here forever the same way Raeia was doomed to do. Maybe they could rot together. Raeia took a calming breath and lifted the full basin in both hands. ‘I’m Raeia, I’ll clean you up before the ibictors return. What should I call you?’ she asked as she approached the desk. 

‘I don’t know anymore.’ The cleric held her hands out without prompt. It was quick and precise like a hawk’s claws. 

Raeia tried not to baulk. ‘You’re quick.’ 

‘Sorry.’

‘No, it’s fine. It…it’s been some time since someone strong has come.’ She set the basin on the desk and took the closest arm offered to her. The extra straps the guards had fastened restricted the prisoner’s movement however, and Raeia still had to crouch and twist to reach properly. Her back strained after her shift but she didn’t have the heart to complain. At least she was free to move. 

‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t given a key,’ she said, though she couldn’t see any evidence of a keyhole on the mittens or helm. The tiny black chains twining across the criminal’s body and connecting her limbs seemed to recoil at Raeia’s proximity.

‘How do you know I’m strong?’ the criminal asked.

‘They have dampener technology in our rooms. Takes effect on our dhaheri while we sleep. It stops moderate to weak clerics from using any strengths that might give them an upper hand over weaker Scillas. The Scillas are all Dhaherite, too, but many are a bit useless. Meagre dhaheri that weren’t good enough for the Tassurian army.’ 

‘Them? Not you?’

‘I...I’m considered strong too. They give me a pill which is meant to dampen it further, but it doesn’t work.’ Raeia wasn’t sure why she gave her greatest secret away to this stranger. Maybe it was that voice, lulling and luring. ‘Don’t tell them though, just pretend. Pretending is the only way to live here.’

‘Is pretending living?’ 

Raeia didn’t have an answer for that. It would require her to remember buried parts of herself, instead she busied herself with the wounds. 

‘If you’re strong, why are you afraid of me?’

Raeia paused only briefly, wishing she could read the prisoner’s face. Had she been so obvious? 

‘What do you call me?’ The next question was asked before Raeia could conjure a reply. 

‘What do you mean?’

The helmed head tilted as if the prisoner were looking through the metal, right to Raeia’s uneasy soul. ‘I assume my arrival hasn’t gone unnoticed. What name have I been called and what do you call me?’

‘It’s not important.’

‘Names are important.’

Raeia said nothing for a time. She wasn’t sure what to say, only she was sure she didn’t want the new cleric to know ‘the prisoner’ and ‘the criminal’ and ‘the cleric’ were the only names she’d given her.

Whispers had indeed spread across The Arabella over the past ten hours. Clerics and Scillas alike spoke of the criminal who had killed her entire elite Tassurian family, but Raeia had little time for whispers. She had been the subject of them enough to know their vapid weight.

She eased the cloth round the edge of the cuff, where the welts were rawest, and wondered if the cleric was flinching with pain under the metal. ‘Blue,’ she said. 

Silence spread between them. 

‘I call you Blue,’ Raeia confirmed, more for herself. 

‘You’re a very pretty liar.’

‘Th...the helmet. I saw it when you were coming up the steps this morning. It looked like you had taken part of the sea with you.’

‘Romantic.’

Raeia felt her cheeks sting with heat. ‘And…the war god Vallia, that’s who you have tattooed on your hip, right? She wears blue in ancient artworks. You seem to know rage like her.’

Blue was quiet and still for a few moments then gave an acquiescent tip of her head. ‘Blue. I like it. Very gender neutral.’

‘I’m sorry. We’ve all referred to you as she.’ 

Blue’s head swayed from side to side and the chains jangled along with the movement. ‘You can use they or xe for me. Sometimes I don’t mind she, as long as it isn’t wielded as a weapon of condescension.’

‘I’ll let the others know.’ 

A chuckle came from behind the mask. 

Raeia smiled as she moved to Blue’s right side to tend to her other hand. Sobriety returned swiftly when she saw the extent of damage to Blue’s right wrist. The chains slithered apart to show her the full extent of the injury. This one was worse, cut deeper, as if the struggle to break free had been unbalanced. The sight of struggle made Raeia think Blue had the rage of the sea buried under that pallid skin. She shuddered to think of what might happen if the restraints were removed. Raeia had enough rage buried deep within herself that she wasn’t sure she would stop whatever wrath Blue might unleash. 

 It struck her then, why she was so afraid. It wasn’t dhaheri strength that worried Raeia. There were very few who could withstand the obliteration of her true power, and strong as they were, Blue would likely be swallowed up by it too if Raeia let loose. But Blue had unsettled something far more terrifying than the prospect of a fight; through a few words and scathing breaths, they’d reminded Raeia how much she used to fight, and how much of herself she’d given up to survive.  

Raeia cleared her throat. ‘Did you fight them a lot?’ 

‘Probably. I don’t remember,’ Blue replied.  

‘Oh. They’ve wiped your memory?’ Her skin pebbled. 

‘No,’ they chuckled. ‘I do all the wiping myself.’ Another head tilt, like a wolf pondering supper. ‘I won’t remember this conversation either, which is a pity because I’ve enjoyed it.’

Silenced by confusion, Raeia finished tending to Blue’s wrist wounds then did the same at their ankles. After they’d been cleaned, she returned to the counter to dump the used cloths and retrieve salves. When she returned, Blue moved at a more measured pace to hold their hands up as they had in the beginning. Raeia had the prickling sensation that she was being leered at. 

‘This won’t do much for pain, but will help the fresher wounds from scarring.’

Blue nodded. 

‘I can’t check for the baby’s vitals here, so later we’ll move you to an assessment suite where…’

Blue’s body became instantly rigid. Their breathing seemed to cease. A sudden wave of cold spilled out from them like a gale bursting a weak window, but there were no windows. Raeia jerked back in the hopes of escaping it. But invisible ice whispered against her skin in a daring threat. She couldn’t move. If she did, the cold would swallow her whole. It wrapped over her limbs and wound across her neck. Squeezed. Then it was gone. 

Raeia stood, heaving, blinking away tears

‘Sorry,’ Blue croaked, as if the gale had gripped their throat as well.

Your baby will be safe, Raeia wanted to say, but it would have been a lie. 

‘I could ask for a key.’ Panic rose. There was no visible sight or end to those chains, no holes or welding lines in the helmet or mittens. Maybe she could use her dhaheri, just this once, banish those chains from existence–

‘Thank you, but don’t. They’ll make it worse.’ The voice that had been rich with joviality and cunning was flat, unfeeling.

‘Why are they doing this to you?’

‘I’m a monster.’