Sorry that this part isn't particularly exciting... the next part will be, but I didn't want to make it too long. Thanks for all the help so far!
The new captive was visibly shaking with fear. Yoedine remembered dimly through the haze of amnesia what she had felt her first night here. Cold, hungry, petrified and alone were feelings that sprang into her mind. She didn’t want to think of what this new one must have felt: sitting there in the silence, surrounded by darkness and sinister silhouettes, only to have Yoedine suddenly spring back to awareness. It would have unnerved Yoedine, and it had certainly unsettled this one.
Yoedine struggled to remember how to speak.
“Hello,” she whispered in a croaking voice; her throat was so dry she could feel it cracking.
The girl, who looked barely ten years old, trembled violently. With her improved vision, Yoedine saw the outline of a tear glistening on her cheek, and felt her heart break.
“It’s OK,” she told the girl, reaching out a hand towards her. The scared little girl tried to smile in response to Yoedine’s dry, cracked-lipped smile, and all of a sudden another piece of Yoedine’s life came flooding back.
A tall girl of twelve, with almost-black hair that fell in gentle waves to the small of her back, was stood by the table, chopping vegetables. She turned suddenly, and her sun-kissed oval face lifted up into a smile. Her dark brown eyes twinkled as she opened her mouth to speak.
“When can I go home?” asked the little girl, anxiously nibbling on her fingernails, her eyebrows knotted together and her forehead creased with fright.
Yoedine felt her broken heart rip and tear into even smaller pieces. It was as if an old, rusted, jagged knife was twisting through her chest. A tear or two of her own dripped off her sparse eyelashes.
“Soon. You’ll be going home soon.” It was not just the girl who was comforted by those words.
Yoedine felt vindicated in her lie the second she saw the girl’s face relax and her tiny, stiff shoulders loosen. She looked so thin. Her cheekbones stood out against her sunken eyes, complete with dark shadows surrounding them.
“My name’s Yoedine. What’s yours?” she asked softly.
She hesitated. “Amalia.”
Yoedine stiffened involuntarily. She knew that name.
A small girl, about eight years old, was skipping through a small yard with tall grass. She had light brown hair that she had grown until it brushed the bottoms of her shoulder blades; Yoedine remembered her being proud of this. She had a chubby, innocent face with a roses-and-cream complexion. Pausing in her prancing, she looked at Yoedine and smiled with plump lips, showing gapped teeth.
“Really?” she said, as if she had not suddenly had another burst of memory. “My sister’s called Amalia, too.”
* * *
The two girls spoke a little for the next few hours, exchanging their words in soft whispers. While at first Yoedine had been a little surprised that Amalia shared her name with her sister, she suddenly remembered about half an hour after they first spoke that Amalia was a common Gehemeniese name. She had never met anyone who shared her name. Maybe its rarity was the reason her mother had given it to her.
Yoedine was still musing, trying to find the reason of the sour feeling she got every time she thought of her mother, when Amalia stiffened again. Looking up from her pointed fingernails, Yoedine saw the shape of a guard in the frame of light that was the open door. When he started to head towards them, Amalia whimpered softly.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” whispered Yoedine hurriedly, gripping her bony shoulder firmly as she caught and held her gaze. “I’m not going to lie. It’s not nice.”
Amalia gulped; her almost black eyes were wild.
“Calm down. Just zone out – think of something, anything else. OK? Imagine you’re at home. Close your eyes and go to home...” She spoke the last two sentences in a rush, as the guard was only a few steps away by that point. He eyed Yoedine curiously, and she resisted the temptation to unnerve him further by glaring at him. Instead she studied his lower body while she pretended to be unaware, staring blankly ahead.
He wore the usual black trousers with a dark brown jacket. His knee-high boots were made of rich brown leather and laced at his ankles. With a frown, she noticed a dull silver chain hanging from underneath his jacket, the end of which disappeared down his boot.
The guard lifted Amalia easily, his hand curling right around her upper arm as he pulled her to her feet. She gave Yoedine one last, petrified look, which Yoedine returned with an encouraging nod, before she was dragged out of the dungeon. The clang of the door shutting behind her rang hollowly in Yoedine’s ears.
It brought back the memory of her first trip to that room. There had been no friendly, reassuring face for her. With sudden clarity so strong she flinched, she recalled the burn. It was the red potion that burned.
The flashes of certainty and bursts of memory were as worrying as they were glorious. It felt strange, after all this time, to realise she had been absorbing information the whole time she had been ‘away’ from her own mind.
Yes, the red potion burned. It felt like there was fire blistering her mouth. Then she would swallow, and the liquid slid down her throat as smoothly and as kindly as hot coals. Yoedine chuckled humourlessly. The red potion was the numbing one. It burned and scorched her throat, yes, but it prevented her from feeling the pain of the blue and green ones. She could still feel their effects, however. The sensation was like her skin was stretching, pulling away from her bones. Her limbs would convulse as her spine rippled and moved in her body like an angered snake. It was almost worse, feeling that but not feeling the pain that should accompany it.
Just remembering it was sending shivers all over her skin. To distract herself, Yoedine thought of the drage, of how scared she had been of him all that time ago. The distraction worked; she smiled. She took great pleasure in the idea that he, one of the most feared people in the whole of the country, was dependent on her. He needed her. He was desperate to find out what she knew.
Yoedine had to laugh. The idea was so delicious that she wanted to devour it again and again. The Emperor’s drage was reduced to despair by her – just a girl; just a mountain girl. They were held in the lowest regard. And yet, she had bettered him.
If only Koetin could see me now, she thought before she could register it.
The euphoria from besting the most intelligent man in the country was overcome by despair. Koetin could not see her now, because he was dead. They had been best friends for a matter of days, and yet she had felt so close to him.
Maybe it was because they were in the same boat: stolen from their families by the soldiers. Maybe it was that she had admired him for having the courage to voice the things she was too afraid to say, to stand up to the soldiers. She smiled sadly at the memory of Koetin shouting at a soldier – she couldn’t remember his name.
But she had remembered the real reason they had come to be so close: he was her first true friend. Back in her home town, all the people her age had avoided her. For over sixteen years, children and adults alike had backed away from her in the street and shied from her gaze.
It irked her that she could not remember why.
The door to the dungeon creaked open, and Amalia was shoved through, followed by the guard. It was not the one with the scar this time, nor was it the one with overly-hairy arms. They must have started a new shift.
