There was a strange peace that usually hung around the castle. Daine didn’t like it much; to her, it was the same kind of silence that happened when someone forced your head under water: the kind of silence that made it hard to breathe, to think, to live. Still, after six years living in the Gallan keep you’d think she’d be used to it. Two years as a prisoner, fair starved in the dank cells as they watched her, beat her, punished her for her crimes. Then there was another year when her every move was watched with careful eyes as they punished her for her madness. And for all those years there was the silence, always silence, both in her loneliness and inside her head. After three years it was a habit. She hardly spoke, and wasn’t allowed to listen to the voices, and after three years most people barely remembered she could speak at all.
Still, she hated it. They knew she had some skill with animals, although they watched her more intently than ever when she began working in the farms and stables. They started bringing animals to her, and for the next three years her silent life began to have meaning. She looked after the animals with a gentleness she didn’t feel for the humans who kept her caged, and tried not to think of Cloud, or the wolf pack. She tried to blend in, but of course she couldn’t: an eighteen year old girl, wrists always wrapped in spelled silver chains, surrounded by guards and soldiers. A prisoner... no, she knew what she was. A slave. They called her that, and other words too. The bastard. The invisible waste of life, who nursed valuable warhorses back to health and never spoke. She barely heard the words any more. They didn’t hurt. She made her face blank and stupid, and blocked out their words with less difficulty than silencing the voices inside her head.
So why was today so different? The silence seemed to be waiting. It was as if this quietness wasn’t drowning, but holding its breath. Daine shook her head to clear it of such silliness, and went about her work. She was picking stones from a pony’s hoof before she remembered why today felt different. Today they were bringing a new person here. A new prisoner. Daine started and cut her palm on the hoof knife, hissing between her teeth at the deep gouge. They wouldn’t care that she was hurt, but if they knew how sharp the knife was they might not let her have it again. They already snatched it from her as soon as she was finished with it.
As she licked away the blood that seeped from her hand she let her thoughts wander. She had heard about this new prisoner, in whispers that the servants didn’t think she could hear. She had heard that he was quite mad. He was almost a goblin, a story that was muttered to children to scare them into being good. For years he had haunted the mountain passes. Daine did not think that all the stories she had heard could be true, but she had listened anyway. He was a mage, a powerful man who had lost his mind. Drugged, some said, or cursed. One thing that they agreed on was that he could turn into a bird. The kitchen women insisted that he screamed like a banshee and fought off creatures in the night, whether they were dangerous immortals or helpless travellers who happened to cross the road when his mania hit. They knew him as the Hawk Mage, but they also called him murderer, demon and cursed. Sometimes there would be no stories for months, and then he would strike again. A nest of spidren would erupt into black flames, and all that was left of them was a pile of charred, twisted corpses by the time the soldiers got there. A village would sink into the ground as if it were quicksand. Rocks would roll uphill, crushing anything in their path.
If he wasn’t so powerful, they would have caught him years ago. If he wasn’t so clever he’d have been outwitted, but he was as good at hiding and escaping as he was at destroying things. They said he was tall. They said he was short. They said his eyes glowed red, and he drank the blood of lambs and infants. They said many things. But what was certain was that he had been caught, finally. Even Daine had been happy at that news, as much as she hated this country. It was as if someone had told the frozen nights they could no longer send biting draughts through the unglazed slits that passed for a window in her cell. A small, impossible relief that made the world seem less dismal.
It wasn’t the stories that made the blood in Daine’s veins run cold, or made her ignore the hot pulse of blood as it stained the stable floor. She had no patience for such stories. It was the fact that they had caught him and, against all odds, decided to bring him here. This place was meant to be secret, because if another country found out about Galla’s secret fort, they would surely attack. This place was meant to be secure, because the soldiers never even spoke to their captives. And this place was supposed to be avoided, because if you were brought here, it meant only one thing: you were very, very dangerous.
888
She was sleeping, her thin frame twisted at the nightmares of Snowsdale which always haunted her, when the clattering sound of keys unlocking her door woke her up. She shrieked, half-expecting a bandit to leap towards her, but it was one of the muscled, humourless soldiers who they mockingly called servants who was striding into her room. The girl tensed, instinctively wrapping her arms around her knees to protect herself - as if that had ever helped - but the man didn’t move towards her. He scowled and picked up her clothes from the tiny shelf and threw them at her, his breath steaming in the freezing night air.
“Get dressed. They want you.” He ordered. Daine blinked the last of the sleep from her eyes and obeyed, not bothering to ask him who wanted her. You were beaten for asking questions. She didn’t waste her breath asking the man to look away as she dressed, either. None of them ever did.
Shivering in the cold air and wishing for the hundredth time that she had a fire, she forced her frozen feet to the floor and tried to remember what shoes felt like. They didn’t let you have shoes. Anything that would make it easier for you to run away was forbidden. Her toes were broken from clumsy horses hooves and nearly blue from the winter cold, but the worst thing was always the shock of cold when she had to stand up from the tiny patch of warmth that was her bed. The guard shoved her in front of him and she stumbled, still not secure on her frozen toes, and he yanked her upright by her hair with a curse. She desperately found her balance, biting her lip to stop herself from making a sound, and they left the room.
The chamber which the guard took her to was warmer, at least, and larger than her tiny cell. Rotten rushes softened the floor and she wriggled her frozen toes against them, drinking in the rare comfort before she even thought to look around. She heard the voice, though, an imperious note which held a sneer.
“This is the one?” He said. Daine didn’t look up from the rushes, watching a beetle run across one of her toes. A rough hand shoved her between her shoulders, making her stumble towards the speaker. When she finally looked up there was no-one there. Well, there was a bed- the same kind of rough wooden pallet which she slept on. But it was empty. She blinked in confusion, wondering if perhaps she was to change rooms. It was unlikely. It was more likely that this was the sneering man’s room, another prisoner, sure, but one with more to barter.
Some of the prisoners were more respected – more amenable, or they had friends on the outside, who could call in favours. Favours like the company of another prisoner, for example. Daine took a shuddering breath and shut her eyes, telling her mind to fly far away from this place. But nothing happened. No-one touched her, and after a moment she opened her eyes and let the room swim back into focus.
A bird roosted on the rough wool blanket, head buried under one wing. Daine bit her lip, ordering her mind not to let the voices in. They were always so much worse when she was near animals, terrifying in their friendliness. She looked around enquiringly. The speaker- the one with the sneer- was watching her. She forced her expression to be blank, stupid, but asked the question with her eyes. The sneering man obliged her with an answer.
“It’s not a bird, it’s a mage.” He said, as if he was pointing out the obvious. Daine blinked and looked rapidly back at the hawk. It was black, too large to be a real bird, and its breath was too rapid and shallow to be healthy. Is that... she though, aghast, but the man was talking again.
“He’s sick. It’s how we caught him. We brought him back here, he woke up, he shapeshifted. Now he’s your problem.”
Daine gaped and took a step back from the pallet, her eyes pleading. The soldier caught her arms. She could feel new bruises starting on her arms as he squeezed with his fingertips to stop her from moving. The sneering man smiled narrowly.
“Well, I hear it’s something you can, uh, relate to. Going mad, running off with the animals... forgetting what shape you’re supposed to be...” his eyes wandered over her shivering body, and Daine remembered where she’d seen him before - he was the healer. The healer whose face she’d only seen dimly in those first few weeks, laughing mockingly as she fought her way through her mad fevers. He was the one whose eyes sometimes glared in her nightmares. She hugged herself and looked down. Glaring would be punished, but she let the word hate spin decadently through her private thoughts. They couldn’t take those from her. He was still talking. “You’ll nurse him back to health, back to human, and you won’t rest until he’s well.”
She nodded, still staring at the floor. Don’t let them see you’re afraid. You’re not afraid the voices will come back. You’re not afraid of the Hawk Mage. Don’t show any weakness. Be blank. Be empty.
The stinging shock of a slap stunned her into looking up, hands fluttering to hold her cheek. Her frozen fingertips soothed the already-swelling flesh. The bird shrilled a note and looked up at the sudden noise. Daine’s eyes filled with tears, but the healer was smiling when he said, “If he dies, you die.”
She nodded, kept nodding because she couldn’t sob out her pain, kept nodding until they left the room and the door locked behind them. As soon as the door shut she fell to the floor, clutching her dizzy head, spitting blood from her split lip onto the rushes and weeping. She wept out her fear and her pain until her sobs turned into heaving gasps for air, and it was only then that she realised that the warm, comforting weight on her shoulder, the gentle stroking of tears from her cheek, was from the long, emaciated fingers of a human hand.