Another trick from Falla. This one works better.
The shaking in my hands subsides to a fine tremor. I straighten slowly, testing my weight on legs that still feel unreliable despite weeks of healing. The stiffness is there, that deep ache in my thighs and calves where they kicked me down, dragged me across stone floors, left me crumpled in corners when they got bored.
Nothing broken, Falla had said when he first examined me. Just badly dislocated. Swollen. Damaged but functional.
Lucky,he'd called it.
I turn on the water pump—blessedly simple technology that the Frostfang were able to piece together from our old ruined lives—and splash cold water on my face. It shocks my system, drives back the nausea another few inches. I cup more water in my palms and drink, rinsing the taste of bile from my mouth.
The reflection in the polished metal backing of the sink shows a stranger. Too thin, all sharp angles and shadows. My red hair hangs limp around a face that's lost the softness it had before. Before the woods. Before Nia. Before everything went to hell and dragged me down with it.
I look away.
The cabin feels smaller suddenly, walls pressing in with their sparse furnishings and careful emptiness. Saela worries I need more things. Shae keeps offering blankets, cushions, little comforts that would make this place feel less like a cell.
They don't understand that the emptiness is the point. That too many objects mean too many places for memories to hide. Better to keep it simple. Clean. Controllable.
I sink back into the chair—the one Falla made me sit in earlier—and press my hands against my thighs. But the memories keep coming, relentless as a tide I can't outrun.
The worst part wasn't the cutting. Wasn't even the pain, though that was considerable. It was the anticipation. Hearing their boots in the corridor outside the cell, not knowing if this time they'd just bring food or if they'd drag me out for another session. The waiting. The not knowing.
And under all of it, the constant, gnawing fear that Saela was in another cell somewhere, going through the same thing. Or worse—that she was already dead, and I was suffering alone for nothing.
When Kai burst through that cell door, when I saw Saela alive behind him with Falla and another orc I later learned was called Ursik, I didn't feel relief. I felt?—
Nothing. Numbness. Like my brain couldn't process that the nightmare might actually be ending.
It still feels that way sometimes.
I hear them before the knock. Two voices, one low and warm, one higher and familiar. Shae and Saela. Of course. They coordinate these visits now, tag-teaming their concern like I'm a problem that needs solving from multiple angles.
The knock is gentler than Falla's. More tentative.
"Ressa?" Saela's voice. "It's us. Can we come in?"
I could pretend I'm not here. They might believe it—the cabin's small enough that I could claim I was out walking. But Saela knows my patterns as well as I know hers. She'd know I'm avoiding them.
"It's open."
The door swings inward, and there they are. Saela in her practical layers, patched trousers and worn boots that match my own. Her gray-green eyes find mine immediately, sharp and assessing in that way that used to comfort me and now makes me feel exposed. Shae stands beside her, deep green skin and long black hair, warm eyes that radiate the kind of maternal concern that sets my teeth on edge.
An orc. Right there. Tall and strong and capable of?—
I force the thought down, bury it before it can take root.
"Falla just left?" Saela asks, stepping inside. She moves carefully, like approaching a spooked animal. Maybe that's what I am now.
"Yeah. Same checkup as always."
Shae follows her in, and I have to actively stop myself from leaning away. She doesn't come too close—she's learned thatboundary—but her presence fills the space in a way that makes my chest tight. Green skin. Strong hands. Orc.
Not Stonevein, some rational part of my brain insists. Frostfang. Different clan. Different people. Shae has been nothing but kind. She checks on me even when Saela doesn't come. Brings food. Offers help without pushing.
My body doesn't care about the distinction.
"How are you feeling?" Shae's voice is gentle, that particular tone people use when they're afraid you might shatter.
"Fine." The word comes out too quickly, too sharp. I soften it with a shrug that pulls at my shoulder. "Healing. You know. The usual."
