My skin could barely feel the cold as I stepped into the water. The river was moving fast enough that it plucked painfully at the things crusted to my skin, peeling the day before away without my consent.
“You’re the queen,” one said, looking at me. She was small, everything about her tiny, with dark hair that was long and knotted. She covered herself up, like suddenly this made our nudity inappropriate. “What—what are you—you’re the queen,” she said again.
A taller, older woman touched the girl’s shoulder, and I saw her hand was missing two fingers, raw red stumps where they used to be. “And just the same as us, it seems. I’m Iona,” she said softly to me.
“Shalia,” I murmured.
She nodded grimly. “Do you have the natural powers?” she asked.
I nodded. “Earth,” I told her. “You?”
She swallowed. “Water,” she said, running her hands into the river.
“You haven’t healed yourself ?” I whispered, looking at her hand.
The younger girl looked up at Iona, and Iona looked confused. “Heal?” she breathed.
“I know someone with your power,” I said. “She can heal people through it.”
“I’m not very strong,” she said, shaking her head.
“Wash!” the guards bellowed at us.
The women flinched, turning to scrape their bodies with the soap. The young man was already finished, climbing out of the water to take his cloth and dry off, then slowly put his clothes on. He was ashen and weak.
I scrubbed slowly at the dirt, ash, dust, and blood that was all that remained of my family. The river took it, folding every little piece of horror into its waters until I had none left, until my body was frozen and clean. I didn’t want to be clean. I didn’t want to ever move on from the last moment when the world was safe, when my family was smiling, when my baby was alive.
Blood still wept out of my body, and the river stole it from me.
The Trail of Smoke
When they brought us back to the central chamber, the table in the middle was empty, and everyone else was pushed back into their rooms except for me.
Calix came from down a shadowed hallway. He took a breath and nodded to me.
“Bring her.”
I pulled back, but the guards grabbed me, dragging me forward as I fought and twisted and flailed. They brought chains out, and they shackled my wrists and yanked until I was on my feet, standing away from the table, unable to go far. I tugged against my bonds as my heart pounded, making every inch of me panic and hurt.
“Stop,” Calix growled, coming over to me.
I shook my head, sucking in breath too fast through my nose, the sound high and reedy.
“I won’t hurt you,” Calix told me.
I could hardly catch my breath, but I shouted, “You’re going to kill me!”
His throat worked. “Eventually. It doesn’t have to hurt. I don’t want to see you in pain. I just need you to show us your power, and I will end all this. Do you understand?”
Flexing my hands, reaching for my power, I shook my head. “It’s gone, Calix. I don’t have it anymore. I can’t feel it!”
He laughed, leaning closer to me. “I understand. I once thought that myself—there was even a girl I tested long, long ago who claimed she didn’t have powers. I believed her, and I didn’t test as hard as I should have. Since then, I know better. I’ve tested many people with your foul magic, and I can always, always make it present. It just takes a tremendous amount of persuasion.” His hand stroked my face. “I’ll help you show your power, I swear. And once we can study it properly, your death will be swift.”
I tried to kick him, and missed, and he sighed.
“I know I was angry yesterday, Shalia. You have always been able to make me lose my temper. But I truly don’t want you to suffer. It’s not necessary.”
“You killed my whole family,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “They posed a problem. I needed to shift the lake, and I needed you to know you couldn’t leave me. I know you were trying to. Do you deny it?”
“My family wanted me to run,” I told him. “And I hadn’t decided anything.”
“Does it matter?” he asked with a dry laugh. “You betrayed me. You deceived me. All that time, I told you what she did to me before. And you did the very same thing.”
Three quaesitori entered the room, setting up small tables with paper on them, sitting down.
“Now, I have a theory about you,” Calix said to me. “There are only two possibilities to get the power to respond to us. One is to have your body protect you in the event of your near death or tremendous pain.”
Skies protect me. Please—ancestors of mine that have returned to the Skies, returned to the earth, please protect me.
“But for you, I believe there is another option. This is to exploit your compassion, my love. You are soft hearted, and I have known this from the first. I believe you will be more positively motivated by the pain of others than pain you might experience yourself. Do you understand?”
The pain of others. I shook my head, vicious and fast. “Calix, please, I don’t—”
“Do you understand?” he asked.
My eyes skittered around to the doors.
“Shalia!” he roared.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good,” he said, and waved to the guards.
They brought the smallest girl out from her cell. She was shivering, staring at the table as they led her over to it. She didn’t fight as they strapped her down. “I can do it,” she said. “You saw me before. You don’t need to hurt me again; I can do it.”
Calix stayed back, across the room from me, while the quaesitori came forward. The one who had inspected my body touched her face gently. “You did well yesterday,” he told her, and this seemed to calm her a little. “Today you just get comfortable; we won’t hurt you this time.”
She seemed to believe this, and I watched Calix as he glanced down the darkened hall. He looked back to the quaesitori and nodded.
They finished tying her down, and one of them stroked a knife over the crook of her arm. She flinched, and blood flowed out instantly, collecting in a bowl beneath her.
“That’s it,” the quaesitor said gently. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
“Calix,” I called, my voice low.
He heard and walked over to me. “Care to show me something?” he asked, smiling.
“Leave her alone.”
She shifted on the table. She was looking at me, growing unsure.
“I have a purpose for her,” Calix said. “A dual purpose to motivate you. You don’t want her to die, do you?” he asked.
“Of course I don’t.”
“Then save her, Shalia. You tore down the bridge to the desert—you can save one little girl, can’t you?”
I shut my eyes. “I don’t have my power anymore, Calix. I can’t show you what isn’t there.”
“Then I will continue my work, and you will watch,” he told me. “Open your eyes.”
I didn’t respond, and he pushed me, enough that my weak knees gave out and my body jerked down on the chains, cutting my wrists. I cried out, pushing my feet underneath me. “My feet will never fail me,” I murmured.
“What was that?” he asked.
I opened my eyes, looking at him. “I am a daughter of the desert, and my feet will never fail me.”