The Scillas wanted me to blackout, something my father had spent the better part of twenty years trying to train out of me. I didn’t know what they expected to find, didn’t know whether it would save me or drive me mad. Perhaps madness had already come for me and it was time to embrace whatever existed in the infinite space beyond darkness. 

No, I had to resist it. At least until I gave birth. No. Longer. I wouldn’t allow my child to see me like that. Maybe my parents had no issues subjecting their children to horror, but I would resist doing the same, even if it killed me. 

Though it felt like I was already succumbing to the pull of death. 

Each hour that passed living in Kyrah’s mental entrapment was even more suffocating than the consistent humming that wrecked my brain in the few conscious hours I had. But Kyrah’s unveilings were a ploy that served the Scillas. Out of pure spite (because a blackout was preferable to living through any of this), I fought against the damning lost memories the soulmaster forced upon me, sealed my emotions away in such a tight dark place I almost convinced myself I felt nothing at all. 

I woke to the pulse of a familiar dhaheri. The person who had overseen my capture and incarceration from afar, always hidden behind walls, lurking, waiting for an end that never came. The person Veil claimed would steal my child from me. 

Corina Bain. Her dhaheri was a steady staccato, unnerving and gnawing like an excited hyena. 

‘Awake at last,’ said the Tassuri agent.

‘Can you see through metal?’ I muttered.

‘Thanks to you, yes, I can.’ 

‘Is that why you want to take my baby from me? A child for an eye?’ I wasn’t sure if she truly could see my face, but some of the technologies I’d witnessed in my father’s labs made me aware anything was possible. The fact she was still alive was startling enough. I could only guess what interventions had kept her alive after the blows Day and I had dealt her. 

‘Bit early for you to come pawing around for a baby,’ I said, when her silence became too much. ‘I’m surprised Veil let you come to see me alone. Does he know the things you had your lackey do to me in Sommersgap? I think even the savage priest would shudder.’

‘When you’re finished yapping I’ll tell you what the next few years of your life will look like.’

‘Presumptuous of you to assume I’ll be alive for that long.’

‘You’ll live for your child. Even if they’re taken from your arms.’ 

I held back any retorts. She had all the upper hands and knew how to wield them. All I had was a caged tongue. 

‘Now, let’s begin.’

It was a strange thing to see again. 

At first, the light buzzing to life within my helmet made me shut my eyes. Then I squinted to see the miniature screen begin to form words and loading graphs as it blurred in and out of focus, less than an inch from my eyes.

‘The mechanism will read your sight patterns and focus accordingly,’ Bain said as if she were just switching on a broadcast screen in a vast room, not blasting my dark navy prison with light and colour. ‘The date will show at the top once it’s configured,’ she continued, ‘Your mental and physical stability will be reflected in the bars at the bottom. In the centre you’ll see what I’ve programmed for you to see. No one on this rock can access the commands, so don’t try haggling for a movie night after I’ve gone.’

The images that formed in front of me swallowed any replies. A small fuzzy ball of light unspooled into the shape of a man. Middle-aged, blinking with vacant eyes. He was nondescript, the way most Tassuri agents were. Dark hair in the same short cut, plain features and the slightest smirk of confidence. None of Corina Bain’s exuberance. 

‘Dominic Chadwick,’ Bain announced. ‘Do you recognise him?’

(Of course I do.) 

I scanned the stats that formed around his body. Dominic Chadwick’s projection was accompanied by statistics which swirled about him in colour-coded writing. In red there was his age; height; weight. 41; 181cm; 75kg. In blue flickered his department; rank; status; alias. Kagosae Scouting Department; Head Scouter; Active; Moké. In yellow were details which scrolled along his left side; family members; marital status; close friends. 

‘You are now one of sixteen people who knows this man’s true identity. As I’m sure you know, he’s also the Kagosae’s top Scouter of the past twenty years. Chadwick has had his eyes set on Scouting you for nearly a decade, though your parents staunchly fought against your participation.’

(My mom was against it. Dad had no issues selling me out. Mom won.) I’d watched their recycled arguments as Scouting season approached every two years. 'I’ve done all I can to control her urges,' dad would say, 'she needs a controlled environment to hone her dhaheri sufficiently.' 'She’s our child,' mom would reply, 'we can’t send her off to an overstimulating military parade where her violence will be exploited.' 

(My violence. Am I anything without it?) 

‘I doubt offering me this information is out of generosity.’ 

I imagined her smile. A strong pull of maroon-painted lips across manicured teeth. The door grated open and I tensed against the wall. Her steps were light, assured. The chains dug into my skin as if they sensed her malice and wanted to hide beneath my bones. 

‘You will kill him for me.’

‘We’re finished making deals, Bain. Don’t you remember how our last one ended?’ I couldn’t picture her with two eyes. In my mind, Corina Bain had a gaping, fleshy hole where her eye should have been. In my mind, she wasn’t someone who could harbour power over me anymore. But my mind was not reality. Veil couldn’t phase me, but Corina Bain could and she knew it. 

My bed dipped and creaked. I pressed further into the corner.

‘Comfier than I expected,’ she said. ‘Our last deal hasn’t yet ended, Blake.’ She allowed silence to spread between us as the images within my helmet shifted. The Scouter’s profile faded away, to be replaced by footage of my home before the explosion. Four rectangles showed four separate angles; front door; the front garden with a glimpse of the street beyond the high walls; a portion of the back garden; mom’s gardening patch.  

‘Turn it off,’ I said as I watched myself and Day entering the house, carefree, smiling. I shut my eyes as tight as they would go but the image continued to swim around in my head. 

‘Look at the street.’ 

The front garden image froze. Passing by the gate, head tipped low, was Dominic Chadwick. (He was there.) I glanced at the date shimmering white within the frame. III.42 Alinay. Third millennium, 42nd day of the third season. A day before my house went up.

‘I’m not an assassin,’ I said. ‘Even if you’re trying to send me out on revenge, I’m not a tool like that.’

‘I think your record under the Contis would claim otherwise. How many clean up cases did Serafino send you and your beloved Aurelian on?’ Bain paused. Long enough to let cold sweat gather in my freezing mittens at the sound of Day’s official name. Though the circumstances of ending up beneath the Conti thumb had been less than peaceful (I may have accidentally broken the bones of a few Conti thugs resulting in an uneasy retributional kidnapping), I’d soon learned that in the Conti dynasty, creating pulp out of people was admirable. They didn’t want to punish me; they wished to use me. Day’s father, Serafino made no pretence of what he expected from me. He wanted my monstrosity and would feed it until I was a polished tool. Of course, he hadn’t taken into account that his adopted son would become affixed with me and perhaps the two of us together would become too volatile to control. I made Day unafraid to step out of line, and Day gave me a sense of hope I had never imagined for myself. In an attempt to continue using us, Serafino had sent us on jobs together. ‘Why do you call me Day?’ he’d asked me on one of those blood-doused jobs. There wasn’t much that felt light anymore. We were nineteen and had spent three years doing the work of thugs for this father and older brothers. ‘Because you make me want to wake up,’ I’d replied. He’d smiled and kissed me, then asked that I call him Day forever. Forever. I thought we would have forever. We spent nearly four more years at his home and then we decided to leave Vonaty for Alturica. We had nearly half a year with my family until Tassuri killed them.

Corina Bain stood. The weight leaving the bed made me take an involuntary gasp. ‘Chadwick has become a liability to Tassuri,’ she said, graciously ignoring my slip up. ‘A few months after you have your child, you are scheduled to have a Scouting with Chadwick. You will kill him then. We’ll cover the backlash.’ 

Her steps were slow around my cell. Taunting a reaction from me. I bolstered myself not to give her any. If I was scheduled to have a Scouting that meant they were planning to have me conscripted to the Kagaosae. 

‘Your sentence has been discussed with the higher ups and it’s been agreed your life would be much better utilised in service of the Tassurian cause than locked away to rot. The High Rector informed me that you are aware your child will come into my care after the birth.’

(Don’t react. Don’t react.)

‘If you serve one cycle in the Kagosae and take a few jobs for us during that time, you’ll be reunited with your child.’ 

‘To what end?’ I asked. 

‘What do you mean?’

‘Who else will you have me kill? How many kills will you expect of me? After one cycle, will I be free to live with my family as I like, or will I still be expected to participate in Tassurian political life?’

‘The entire Blake estate has been left to you, just by existing as a Blake you are an integral tool in Tassurian sociopolitics.’

(Always a tool.) ‘You want me to kill someone with millions of people watching?’ 

‘Yes, the Kagosae has been stale. The higher ups wish to add some intrigue to the upcoming cycle.’

(Monsters.)

‘So no more Sommersgap?’ I asked.

‘No more Sommersgap, but you will remain here under Scilla care until you’re transferred to Kavis.’

‘Why Kavis?’ There were several Kagosae training centres across the empire, but Kavis was the one situated nearest the capital, Lindine. It was where some of the most notorious Kagosae Aitos lived. 

The screen fizzled out and my heart lurched with sudden dread. I wasn’t ready to return to total darkness. 

In Chadwick’s place, another body took shape. My body ached as the lethal form of Dion Kestales appeared before me. Too close. Suddenly I did want the darkness. I didn’t know the man personally, but I knew and trusted his brother, who spoke of Tassuri’s golden boy less than favourably. Dion Kestales was a spectacle of unhinged violence, no doubt a mirror of what Tassuri wished to turn me into. I wondered idly how much of his violence had also been manufactured. 

‘You’ll need to up my salary if he’s on the chop after Chadwick,’ I muttered, looking at the severity in his brown eyes. Could someone else possibly hate as strongly as I did? The statistics came up as they had for Chadwick. 25; 190cm; 89 kg – Kagosae Aitos; Kavis Sector; Active. There were few people who made me question the depths of my own rage, but I’d seen Dion cutting through opponents with a rabid sleekness that rivalled mine. I wasn’t sure I could defeat him.

‘You’re being very accommodating, Sapphire,’ Bain noted as my helmet returned to darkness.

Panic moved my lips. ‘It’s Ellie or Blake. Don’t call me Sapphire.’

‘Do you know where the name Sapphire comes from?’

‘Yes, but Tassuri doesn’t allow people to talk about things like that.’

‘Your mother chose it?’ 

‘Dad, actually.’

‘Surprising.’

‘It’s surprising that you’re talking about it.’

‘Soahl,’ Bain said, soft, charged with a hunting panther’s grace. ‘The volatile serpent daemon who nearly destroyed mankind, isn’t that how the story goes?’

‘I’ll entertain your plans for now, but I’ve agreed to nothing.’ 

‘Alright,’ she chuckled. ‘I will check back in when my schedule allows.’ 

‘H…how long have I been here?’ I asked.

‘It is your third day.’