Burn Bright

The barge’s ablution cubicle was on the far side of the cabin housing. Retra waited her turn in line, head bowed to conceal the blood on her face. She listened to the conversations around her, about Ruzalia and Ixion. Some sounded excited, others scared.

‘I’ve heard Ruzalia ran away to Ixion and didn’t like it. So she started stealing people to make her own place –’

‘That’s stupid. How could you not like Ixion? Ixion is freedom.’

‘Did you see her boat? And the giant bat things –’

‘She killed a Riper. They put his body in the kitchen. I saw them drag it –’

‘It’s everywhere, all over the walls.’

Retra touched her face. Was it Riper’s blood? She felt sick.

The toilet cubicle became free and she stumbled into it. There was no lock, so she jammed her heel against the door. With jerky movements she removed her veil and splashed her face, heedless of the ice cold water. There was no mirror but Retra didn’t need it. She’d practised washing and dressing all her life without one. Seals believed mirrors bred vanity.

With fingers well accustomed to the contours of her face, she checked for cleanliness across her brow and cheekbones, then down to the fading scar on her earlobe, where the warden had stung her with the pain prodder for asking to go to the library.

The prodder hadn’t been as bad as the obedience strip, though. When the warden fitted the strip, he’d pored over her naked thigh for ages, pressing and prodding the soft skin there; pushing her underwear aside to make sure it wouldn’t interfere with the proper function.

Her embarrassment had been so intense she’d wanted to shrivel into nothing. And the warden had tested it for days, at any time, making sure it triggered pain-shocks whenever he chose. Sometimes he woke her in the night with it; sometimes he activated it during dinner. One time, the pain made her sick up her meat soup, and Father had sent her to her room with nothing more to eat. She hadn’t cared by then. Hadn’t even cried.

Enduring pain meant practice.

Practice meant escape.

Retra finished the exploration of her face and wiped her skin dry, on the sleeve of her coat. Although her hair was still pinned, she could feel that tendrils had strayed. She let it loose and raked her fingers through it. Joel had thought it a stupid Seal rule – girls and women having to keep their hair tied and covered. Why have it at all, he’d say, if you must keep it hidden.

Disrespect seemed so easy for him. Retra found it hard, like loving someone who was cruel to you. Cruelty didn’t stop you feeling like you belonged. Retra had felt safe in the Seal compound.

Until Joel had gone.

She wound her hair up again, reattached her veil and shifted her heel from the door. She’d return to the bow of the barge, and sat there, away from Cal and Markes. In the quiet she’d be able to think and plan.