And her name is…

I wake up still on the floor but now with a pounding headache. When I roll over to look at my guard detail and they’re all sitting around the edge of the room watching me. One of them sees me awake and I see them bring over a tray with a cover, removed the cover and slide it under a section of the bars that curved up for it. The variety of the food over the week doesn’tvary much, there’s never any flavour, and they rationed me to keep me alive but weak, but it was always edible and they didn’t let bugs get to it.

“Thank you,” I groan, moving to sit and rubbing my head.

“You were out for twelve hours,” he tells me and when I look up at him I see the lime green eyes of the only guard who dares to speak to me anymore. “Lunch will be here soon. If you don’t want that to be all you get until dinner I suggest you eat quickly.”

I slide the tray the rest of the way under the door and balance it in my legs as I back up towards my cot, chuckling along the way. “That was a long one . Probably due to the three broken ribs Khelic gave me before they stole my blood for my birthday party.” My eyes flicked back up to his and I smirked. “Funny how I’m never invited.”

He returns my smirk. “What a hell of a party it was though. Even half a dropper full of your blood is enough to bring some colour into the oldest Sioga’s face.”

“Imagine if I wasn’t underfed, beaten, and could go outside,” I tease. “I’m not sure how your magic works but I could always work harder at home when I was happy and healthy.”

He scoffed. “You think you deserve that? After what you did to those guards?”

“And what did I do to deserve my first year here?” I ask, eyeing him as I take two large bites from an apple before adding, “was it my immaculate table manners?”

He laughs loudly and some of those behind him chuckle lightly. “You are here because you are a threat and an asset,” he explains to me behind a grin.

It is my turn to laugh. “Is that what they’ve been telling you? Wish you told me sooner so I could correct you.” I swallow what’s left in my cheek and take a sip of water. “I amherebecause I saved someone who didn’t deserve saving. Me helping someone who would have died if I hadn’t found them cost meeverything. Your king took someone that could have been an ally and made an enemy in a time of peace.”

“Good thing you’re already in a cell. You’re not much of a threat like this.” He turns to walk back to his place leaning against the wall and I consider showing him how big of a threat I can be.

Not yet. I remind myself.Let them see me for what they want until it is too late.

I can already feel my magic growing, even as my body weakens, I just need to conserve enough energy to use it. Now, I can feel their life energy from a few feet in front of my cell, meaning I no longer will need to touch them to siphon. They haven’t caught me doing it since my first escape attempt failed; all thanks to that black eyed stranger.

I managed to convince them I didn’t know how I had done it, I just panicked, but both doors that I broke were replaced and I was never left alone again. It had been awkward having people stare at me all day every day for a while, but it quickly got old. My sarcasm shone brighter then, and it was a mix between that and what happened to those guards that kept them from talking to me after a few months when the word travelled around. The dried husks of those guards bodies had been shown to me the next day, giving me my last taste of fresh air, even if it was under the weight of heavy chains. They looked like the dried out innards of a loofah gourd and it was an effort not to laugh.

True to the guard’s word, soon after I had pushed my tray back under the metal bar my lunch arrived. I slid the tray under the gap with force to have it slide across the entire room and stop at the guard’s shoe. The metal scrapping over the concrete floor made everyone’s hands fly to their ears, which always made me smirk because it didn’t bother my ears at all.

This region of Sioga have very sensitive ears.

In the early years I would do small workouts during the day. I used the bed and the small space to try and maintain my muscles, but now I was too weak for that. The most I could manage was stretching out my limbs and walking about the small space. While I did this I often told them random stories, the ones that meant nothing, like the time was I was helping Mrs. Flyn collect the vegetables in her garden and she realized she had planted sweet potatoes instead of the russets, my dad cooking all the chicken into one pie and us feasting for a night to starve the next day, or Mr. Wyll leaving his gate open often enough that I had the near weekly task of finding his sheep all over town.

I could tell some of the guards felt bad for me with these stories, which was the point. They needed to believe my stories so thoroughly that anything else I said would also be believed. If all my stories were true, and with as simple as they are they must be, then I must also be telling the truth about not knowing about the Sioga world or how to control my powers.

Truth is, I know way too much about their world, and have been practising my magic since it first started to wake up in my blood. My mother never wanted me tobe afraid of what I am, or caught off guard if I ran into any of them. She never expected them to travel through the mist on their own the way they did, but I would still never tell them who she was. I will never be a pawn in their ridiculous disputes.

With my lunch I take my time, eating bits and pieces while I speak. “… then there was that flood, and I was just barely able to divert the overflow from the river to save our crops and the school house..”

“With your magic?” The green eyes guard asks eagerly.

I quirked my eyebrows mockingly at him. “With bags full of sand,” I returned like it was obvious. “Not everyone had an affinity for… what was yours again?” I ask, eyebrow raised.

“Nice try,” he scoffs. “Pray you never find out.”

I shrug and continued around a raw carrot that I chewed from my cheek. “I assume its pretty weak or common for you to be stuck just watching me all the time. Wouldn’t those in power have all the strongest magic.” I shrug again and take a bit of lettuce from a salad with my fingers since they wont give me utensils. “The strongest rule, the weak follow?”

He scoffs. “Did you rule in your town?” He asks instead of replying.

I laugh suddenly. “Absolutely not. A woman named Carla was our leader, because we valued strength of character and intelligence, but it didn’t hurt that she made the best roast pig you’ve ever had.”

My mouth begins to water at the thought of it and green eyes laughs. “Our food not up to your standards princess?”

My eyes pulse brighter at his slight and I look up at him from my plate. “There is no way everyone eats food here as bland as the food I’m given.”

“Maybe we do, maybe we don’t,” he replied indifferently.

“If you do no wonder you’re all so crabby,” I mutter, before returning to my food.

The rest of the day doesn’t offer much in the way of conversation, but Wulfric comes down with my dinner and I know it will be anything but a peaceful night. The guards file out of the room, some looking at me with pity in their eyes. That’s fine, I’ve been playing the long game with Wulfric and I’m finally ready to play my hand.

“Hungry?” He asks as he slides my tray under the bar after we’re alone.

“And if I said I wish I wasn’t?” I return, retrieving the tray and glancing over all the food assembled.

It’s obvious the bread had been covered in the same nutty spread that will make me light headed, and the berries will make my body crave another. I’ve become wise to which foods do what and I hope there’s nothing in the pasta that will throw off my thinking. Beginning with the bread I bite it strategically so he can’t see I’ve missed the spread and then pick up a bit of pasta daintily.

“I’d think you’re at least smart enough to see an obvious pattern,” he chuckles, pulling up a chair to sit closer; inside my new siphoning reach zone.

I take another bite of bread, having already dropped half berries with what I could get off the bread down the waste hole in the corner while his back was turned, and followed the first bite with two more as he turns back.

“You can really pack it away, huh little mouse?” He chuckles and I act embarrassed.

“Being bled until I can’t stand and beat until I’m broken will do that to you,” I mutter but I know he’s heard me. “As much as I’d love to I havequitefigured out how to live off spite.”

He glances at my plate, grinning at how much is already gone. Then he just watches me eat for several minutes in silence while I pretend he makes me nervous. When all that is left are the few berries and half the bun I lean back, rubbing a barely protruding belly.

“My stomach isn’t as big as it used to be,” I muse, starting to feel the effects of the few berries I had to eat and the small amount of the spread I couldn’t get off.

His smile is almost flirtatious when he returns. “Not even the bread? The rolls here are the best. The women up there love bread more than their men.”

I shake my head and hold my plate toward him. “I couldn’t possibly have another bite, I didn’t touch it, do you want it?”