Rina raced into the common room and found a dishevelled Anat, a trail of blood trickling down her temple and tracks of black kohl running under her eyes. What in the nine hells? Pieces of broken porcelain scattered the floor about her. Anat paced about the room, picked up another vase and threw it, smashing it against the wall, then fisted her hands in her hair and shrieked.

Ice streaked through Rina's veins. She fell with a crack of kneecaps on marble tile.

"Anat!" Sara rushed into the room, a wraith in her pale white nightgown. "Anat! What are you doing? No, stop it!" A pot smashed. Sara's body slammed into something invisible, and she flew back, landing on her backside. Groaning, Sara rolled over to hands and knees. "Anat—"

Another howl ripped through the room, and the windows shattered, the glass falling like hail on cobblestones.

When the wail ended, and she could move again, Rina shoved Mai's cloak under a chair and crawled toward Anat, vaguely aware of the heads poking from the corridor and the thumps of footsteps approaching the room.

"Please, Anat!" Sara had stood and now struggled against an invisible wall, but Anat screamed again, this time higher.

Stabbing pain crashed through Rina's skull. Unable to think through the noise and throbbing, she pressed her palms to the side of her head.

Not until the wailing died to sobs could her mind begin to sort through the pieces about her. The scent of blood permeated the air, acrid and metallic. It was thick with it. But there had just been the blood down Anat's temple. She sniffed. No, there was more of it, and something else. Sweat and—Oh, gods.

"I'm here." Sara pounded on the barrier. Anat crumpled to the ground, and Sara fell through it and bolted to Anat. Rina scurried across the floor on all fours but stilled at Sara's upheld palm.

Sara took Anat in her arms and cooed to her. "Shh, shh." She rocked Anat as she sobbed. Watching on, Rina swallowed, tightness in the back of her throat. Please, no. Not that.

After a time, Sara said, "Tell me, dear one."

Anat began to mumble. Sara lowered her head so Anat could speak in her ear, and her face blanched, the kind mouth twisting into something full of hate. Rina's stomach wrenched.

The rumble of boots thumping in synchrony intensified. The door swung open, banging against the wall, and six guards entered the room, escorting high-magister Ro, Nab and Anya.

"What happened?"

Anat curled into Sara's lap, whimpering.

Sara glared at Ro. "She was hurt—bad."

Ro's eyes flicked to Anat's bloody face, then down her body to where a wet, dark patch marred her burgundy gown. "Anya."

"High-magister?"

"Take her to the infirmary," Ro said, her voice softening to something low and deadly. "And have her seen to."

"Yes, your excellency."

It took some convincing on Sara's part to get Anat to leave her arms. In the end, Sara and Anya both walked Anat from the room. A pair of servants slipped into the room with buckets, broom and scrubbing brushes. They set to work cleaning the blood and clearing the pottery. Rina exhaled, relieved that red puddle would soon be gone.

Mutters arose from the Denese women, speculations about what had happened. Had Anat finally cracked it?

Ro spun to the chosen girls. "Get to bed with you. In the morning, this will be forgotten." They fled to their rooms, and Ro rolled her eyes, turned on her heel, and left the room.

Rina stayed where she was, the only sound that of the scrubbing brush against the pink-stained tile, the harshness of lye covering the metallic tang that had filled the air minutes before. What had happened? Anat had been with that lord again. The blood staining the floor, it wasn't from the gash on her temple. No, it had dripped down her legs.

She squeezed her eyes and shook her head. No. Mai wouldn't let that happen. He'd promised to protect them. They were guests of the Magisterium, and as such, no-one would dare to hurt them.

Unease coiled inside her like smoke.

She hurried to the chair and retrieved the hood, and made her way to her bedroom, throwing the covers over her head. She half-tucked the dark material under the pillow and held Fin's crystal, twirling it between her fingers until she fell asleep.

☆☽○☾☆

The next day, Rina joined a handful of Denese in the infirmary. Mehdi threw Rina a dirty look. She smiled at him and wondered if it was fear of her gift, or just jealousy that she could out weave him.

The devotions had ceased for the chosen who received frequent training from the magisters and acolytes, and as a result, most days Rina found herself with more vigour. Today she felt the same, despite what she had done the night before. Part of her thought it must have been a dream. Were it not for the cloak and the lingering aroma of roses, she would have been certain it had all been a figment of her imagination. Then there had been the absence of Anat at breakfast.

The sharpness of distilled alcohol suffused the air of the clinic, offset by a ghost of something sickly sweet. Rows of white-sheeted trundle beds lined each side of the room, heavy curtains separating them, and the patients rested with peaceful expressions—even with the bandages or plasters swathed about them. One man, a splinted leg hoisted by a rope pully, gave Rina a poppy-drunk smile and a wink, then closed his eyes and dozed off.

They filed into an open surgery room with three treatment tables. A medic's assistant scrubbed one down with soap and water, while another swept the water to a drain in the floor. Rina winced as she took in a line of polished surgical tools, remembering the glint of metal before Anya had removed the bone from her foot. With Anya's gift, there had been no discomfort.

One-by-one, a series of patients came in, and the chosen took their turns, treating them, guided by the senior medic, high-magister Pilo, and Anya and Martha.

A small girl was allocated to Rina. She'd fallen from a tree and bitten through her bottom lip. The sight of blood brought that now-familiar hollow hunger, urging Rina to drink. Her hands shook as she used salt water to wash the laceration, and drew the needle and thread through a shallow dish of alcohol. The girl flinched when Rina raised the needle. She drunk a tincture of poppy juice, but the stitches would still sting.

Rina hesitated, hand frozen.

"She'll be fine," said Pilo from behind. "Keep your movements swift, and sure and you'll do the least harm."

Pursing her lips, Rina tunnelled her vision on the red hole. The girl squirmed on the table. Mehdi muttered something, and a few chuckles followed.

Rina ignored him. She let her eyes unfocus, trying to see past her regular spectrum of vision, to the place where the lights of the Carnelian Way could guide her.

A flash caught her eye. Then another and another. She glanced down at her chest and saw a glow there, and imagined tugging at it with phantom hands and pulling strands of light from it, as thin as the thread dangling from her needle.

"I want to try something else," she said, her voice flat, one foot in the real world, the other in that other plain.

"Just a couple of stitches, Rina," said Pilo, his voice seeming to come from far away. In a softer tone, he added to the girl, "It will only be a couple of pinches, Nila."

"Stitches become infected. Do not harm—that's the medic's creed."

Without waiting for his response, Rina let the needle fall to the clay-tiled floor and stepped into the other realm. She took a strand of light and cupped Nila's chin, sensing a hum below the skin. The strand pierced through Nila's flesh like a ray of sunshine through a gossamer curtain. Back and forth, she threaded the light, drawing the skin together, shoving down the urge to drink in the tiny illuminated whisps that bled from Nila's wound. Her teeth were clenched when she completed the final stitch and tied it off, and her head spun as she returned to her physical body, Nila's face warm in her hand. With her thumb, she wiped away the blood, her hand shaking with the need to lick it clean. She revealed perfect skin.

Silence.

After a time, high-magister Pilo spoke. "How did you do that, girl?"

Rina shook her head. "I don't know."

His face grew ruddy. "Who taught you?"

"No one."

"Impossible! Only acolytes in their advanced stages of instruction can do something like that, and you shouldn't be—how are you standing?"

Rina shrugged. Slight fatigue buzzed through her, but she was fine. "I don't know," she repeated.

"Of course you do, girl. That took years of practice you were not permitted to have." Pilo approached Nila. He took her under the armpits and helped her to the floor, tucking her hair behind her ears. He reached into a pocket and bent down, holding out a sweetmeat. "Go to your mother, Nila."

Martha moved to Rina. "He's right, I'm only just learning how to heal like that, and I wouldn't be standing by now. Who taught you?"

"I swear, Martha, no one," she said, at the same time trying to convince herself that lying in Mai's name was a reasonable excuse.

"You're the closest thing I have to a sister, Rina, so I want to believe you..." Martha's large eyes fell on Rina, her hands pressed against her stomach as if she was in pain.

"So trust me."

"Give me a reason to and I—"

"Argh, dammit, what are you doing?"

They turned to see a man half chasing, half being escorted into the room by a harried acolyte, one of his hands cradled in the other. Rina squinted—a swollen index finger.

"Careful!" the man screeched, as the acolyte assisted him to sit on the table.

At first, Rina didn't recognise him, still dressed in his bed robe, all civility gone. Then she did, and she became still as a stalk of frozen grass at midwinter. It was the nobleman who'd courted Anat. Monster. A burning started in her palm as her nails dug into it.

A glare from Magister Pilo had the man clamped shut, his face red with agony.

"When did this happen?"

"Last night," gasped the man, the words coming frayed through his teeth.

"Why did you not you come then, Lord Cassander?" Nose wrinkling, Pilo began to inspect the finger.

"My servant gave me poppy juice and set it, but now—argh! "

"Looks to me like they made it a hell of a lot worse. How much did they give you?"

"For fuck's sake! Urgh." Turning to his side, Cassander wretched. Done, he straightened and said, voice slow and soft, "Apparently too much."

"Certainly enough to send you to sleep."

Pilo retreated, hands clasped before him and indicated for Sara to stand before the man. She grasped the white apron tied over her brown dress and her eyes darkened, but she did as Pilo instructed, nostrils flaring."

The hairs on Rina's arms stood on end, and something slithered through her guts. Her eyes darted about the room but found nothing to indicate anything wrong.

"Hurry up and fix it!" Cassander demanded in a shrill voice.

The stink of his vomit hung about them.

Sara wiped a goblet of saliva from the side of her mouth. Her face was stone, her eyes black as the ocean on a cloud-filled night, and her hair... Rina narrowed her eyes. Strands moved in serpentine flickers. A charge crackled through the air, barely perceptible, but there. No one but Rina appeared to notice.

"What do you think you're doing girl? I'm... I'm... Gods, I'm... Urgh." Cassander folded in on himself, slumping, and fell headfirst on the tiles, his skull clanking like an apricot seed thrown against a wall.

Only half-aware of what she was doing, Rina took a mental step back on to that other plain. What she saw made her gasp.

Sara's phantom form stood, hands outstretched, the folds of her dress flailing like waterweeds in a stream. Cassander lay on the floor. His eyes trained on Sara, the whites vivid, his face stricken, as yellow light poured out of him and into Sara's palms. The light swirled there, spinning and spinning, twin green-tipped tornadoes.

"Sara, what are you doing?" said Rina.

The emerald light cut Sara's profile in angular planes. She smiled, her canines sharp and prominent, and her words came so devoid of emotion, Rina shuddered. "I'm curing him of his affliction."

Cassander's torso lurched, his head lolling and arms flopping. With the jerky motion of a marionette, one arm lifted. Sara pincered her thumb and forefinger and twisted.

Snap.

"Arrghhhh!!!"

Someone retched, and someone else cried out. Cassander breathed with rapid pants. His eyes were black pools, reflecting green light—the eyes of a hunted wolf.

Martha edged to Sara. "Sara," she said, her voice steady. "Don't forget your oath. He will have his punishment."

Sara rounded on Martha, eyes blazing. Though they didn't touch, the movement hurled Martha backwards. Only Rina seemed to see the light streaking out of Cassander to Sara, and flowing out of Sara in a verdant halo.

Sara's lips pinched. Tears welled at her eyes. "Don't, Martha. Don't you dare defend him. Not after what he did to her."

Martha huddled on the floor, arms around her midsection. A sob escaped her. "What did he do?"

Rina continued to watch in a detached daze, sinking deeper into the light, slowly becoming it.

"What did he do?" cried Sara. "What did he do? How can you not know?"

"Sara, I don't know what you—" Martha began, but was cut off.

"Anat told me, and I heard the truth in her words. I read it in his heart when he came here. You helped them, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Sara, please..." Martha's voice came choked and strangled. She shuffled back.

"You helped them meet in secret. Did you ever stop to think of why he wanted her. What he might do to her. Did you?"

"Sara, I only wanted to help a friend."

For a moment, Rina thought Sara would turn her rage on Martha again, but a retching sound from Cassander drew Sara's attention back to him.

Magister Pilo had disappeared. Anya knelt by Martha's side, a hand on her forehead, and the Denese and acolytes hunched in corners or stared transfixed.

Head quirking like a crow before a piece of meat, Sara assessed Cassander. "How did it feel to break her?"

Another crunch, this time his wrist. A scream. Sobbing. The stench of piss and vomit.

"Did it feel as good as it does to me right now?"

Crack.

"Did it?"

A scuffling came from a side door out of the building. The muffled voice of Pilo, the shuffling of his slippers, and three Magisters emerged, trailed by a contingent of guards.

The familiar sensation of obsidian eyes raked over Rina, and then they moved on.

"Enough!"

Sara froze at Ro's words. The whole room did. Magical bonds wrapped about Rina's wrists, bringing back memories of when that magister had bound her uncle and the rebels that night. She struggled, fighting them, and then let herself slip beyond the hidden veil and into that other plain, seeing the world through another spectrum. As she did, the bonds dissolved, replaced by the zaps of power about her. Sara still guzzled the light from Cassander, though, with her back to him and her body immobilised by Ro, Rina realised she couldn't see what she did.

The Taint. This was the taint.

Sara shook. Her fingers began to twitch.

"I said, enough." Just like the girl on the ship, Sara flew through the air and halted, hovering before Ro. Just as abruptly, the lines of power stopped flowing from Cassander. Instead, amber light flowed from Sara to Ro, and out again from Ro, wrapping Sara in a green haze.

"Let. Me. Go."

Ro scoffed. "Why would I let a torturess go?"

"Be—be—"

A swipe of Ro's hand through the air and Sara's head lolled. When Sara came to, she spoke without obstacle. "Because he tortured my friend. He forced himself on her and made her—"

"You need to learn your place, girl. Mai gave you a chance, but you thought to take the law into your own hands."

Cassander moaned. Bile rose in Rina as she took in the contorted angles of his fingers, wrist, and knee. His dark eyes gazed unblinking to the ceiling. She dropped down beside him and checked his pulse. It beat erratically. She wasn't a medic, but she knew it wasn't good.

"Take your hand off him!" snapped Ro.

Rina's head jerked, but she dismissed the words. Closing her eyes, she sent her senses into Cassander's mind, searching for that place of torment. If she could ease it, she might calm his heart. She paused. Did she want him to live? Men like him deserved to die, but more importantly, he deserved justice. This was not justice. It was torture. It was the law taken from Mai's hands by a rebel.

At the edge of her awareness, Rina sensed the way Ro poked and prodded, trying to take hold of her. But hiding within this other spectrum, Ro's magic couldn't touch her. Olav's hands could, though. Just before, she found the spot, that dark, throbbing place deep in a ravine of his cortex. Rina plunged a bolt of energy into it. Cassander sighed, and his body relaxed. A moment later, she was yanked to her feet and away from the light.

"Are you crazy?" Olav hissed at her. He smelled of leather and lye.

She turned on him. "Fuck you!"

His coral lips twitched. "I missed you too." He pushed her forward and walked her to Ro. Behind her, Pilo dashed toward Cassander.

Sara dangled in the air before Ro, body wilting. Ro's mouth bent, pale eyes locked on Rina. "What were you doing, girl?"

Rina didn't speak. She wanted to shrug Olav's hands away, but she couldn't move.

"Answer me."

"Magister Ro?" interrupted Pilo.

Ro's gaze moved to Pilo. "Yes?"

"She didn't injure him."

"He looks just about dead to me."

"No—no he's not. I think she overrode his pain centre—likely saved his hear." He gestured for help to lift the body. "If we operate fast enough, we might save him."

"He deserves death!" Sara spat, thrashing again.

Ro nodded to Pilo. "Do what needs to be done." She turned on Olav, then directed her focus at Sara, then Rina. "Captain, take them to the tower and wait for me."

Sara thumped to the floor and groaned.

Olav nodded. His grip never left Rina as he barked, "Alec, Yaris, take her," with a jerk of his head at Sara.

The guards grunted as they hefted her between them, so the tips of her shoes brushed the ground. "She's heavier than she looks."

The Denese backed away as they exited through a set of double doors into the sunlight, Mehdi hissing, "Unnatural."

The doors slammed behind them. 

★☾●☽★

A/N Thank you again for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. You know the drill: feedback, suggestions, confusions (I am not sure that is technically a term), comments and votes are appreciated. But most important is the fact that you took the time to read 😻