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From Draghtai's keep Raya escaped on stolen horse, stealing her life for herself and braving the world beyond. The beast galloped as if it too knew the pain of blade and glowing iron, the bruising of flesh and the breaking of bone. Raya gritted her teeth and clutched her broken hand, bleeding where she pried it from her shackles. She grinned, and her smile too was broken.
The forest loomed ahead and her mount hesitated. She urged it onward, into the growing thick where she could lose herself, find herself, remake herself. Even in her determination she feared the forest, the place her keepers said could only mean death. It was a threat they placed around her, further assurance she would never escape their great lord, he would held dominion over blood and pain and biting insect.
They approached the tree line and the horse fought her control. She cursed and yelled, and as they met the trees the horse reared high in the air. She spilled heavy to the ground, falling hard on knotted roots. Raya scrambled to avoid the horse's hooves and its sharpened shoes, but the beast cantered and kicked and left her. She watched after as it galloped back to the keep and away from the trees it so feared.
Raya ran crouched and cradling her broken hand, into the trees and away from Draghtai's vile sight. She ran until exhaustion took her and tears stung her eyes. Her feet tangled in vine and root and she tumbled down a long hill of rotting leaves. Her body struck rock and tree and she bit back her screams and the taste of blood. She fell all the way to the bottom of the hill where a shallow pool softened her final descent. She choked and splashed as the water filled her mouth, foul and strange. When finally she breached the surface, she lay in the pool and cried.
Draghtai would find her. She would be returned and branded and punished. She risked everything from her momentary respire and here she lay broken in a dark pool. She dared not move, because it would only confirm what she already knew. She would not walk from the pool. Her bones lay broken. Her breaths came shallow, coddling tender ribs, and she wept careful tears.
The pool warmed around her as if it could sense her pain. Come below, it offered, to a world where there is no more hurt. But Draghtai would not allow it. He controlled life, death, blood, and beetle. But the pool was warm and she let herself pretend.
The pool shimmered around her in cold moonlight and soon the darkness took her.
***
Raya woke to the caress of the pool as it lapped over her skin. The forest lay still in darkness and hounds surely sought their missing captive. She rubbed at her eyes with soaking hands, removing the filth of the fall and of sleep and of tears. She rubbed until the water tickled on her lids and cleaned the mucus from her eyes. She held out her hand and stared. The blood was gone, washed away by the water, but so too was the pain. It was still broken. Even Draghtai could not mend bone so quickly. His healing was that of pain, bones bolted together to function in agony. Instead she felt the opposite. She squeezed at her wrist seeking out the fractures in her bone. She found them, but did not wince of cry. The pain was gone.
The water tingled on her eyes, a gift from the gods seeking to aid in her escape—holy water to deaden her pain. She stood from the pool with dark water at her knees lapping gently at newly-cleaned flesh.
She stepped from the pool, bare feet on leaf and earth, and made her way into the forest.
With freedom in her sight, Raya daydreamed as she trod through the wood. She stepped on clumsy feet, her gait plodding and spine bent. Beyond the forest, Lor'larum stood. The city bordered Draghtai's lands and kept him from escaping into the world at large. She would go to them for help. The pool gave her the strength, and though she hated to leave it had served its purpose. The water left a residue upon her skin and she brushed it from her body like thin leaves to the ground, flaking and falling. She shuffled onward toward Lor'larum, a smile not-so-broken on her face.
***
The pain returned. Hours passed and Raya stood among the trees wishing for the speed and ease of her stolen horse. The pain settled in her bones and Raya grew weary of fighting it. She brushed at her skin and still the flaking water fell from her, never fully cleaned from her body. Moonlight shone through the canopy above and pain racked through her body until she hobbled. It was not only the pain of broken bone and bruised rib, but a new pain. Her skin itself burned like a thousand arrows pocked her flesh.
The dream of Lor'larum did not vanish, but she succumbed to a baser need. She dreamed of the tiny pod and its numbing waters. She ached from relief from the pain that burned her body, punishment for leaving her master. Draghtai's reach was far and she knew the feel of his will. She had sat huddled among the biting beetles of his keep, seeking their pain over that which he would serve, knowing too that they were a part of him and his domain.
Raya crested a hill amid the forest, its top bathed in moonlight and inviting as the grace of gods. She stood within its light, praying the gods would aid her once more. She looked upon herself in the light. Her skin lay covered in white flakes, but they were not the strange water. Her skin died like paper and peeled from her body. She rubbed at her arms until they lay bare, and red and mottled skin shone through. It was another curse, and one she deserved for her desertion. She prayed the gods looked beyond her body, mangled and ruined, and aid her in her time of need. She pleaded that they heal her or numb her pain or bring her to Lor'larum where she could be free.
In the moonlight she spotted a glint in the trees. She smiled as she spotted it in the dark, the shimmering pool so like the one which took her pains. She praised the gods and stepped from the moonlight.
***
Raya fell. In the distance between moonlight and healing water she fell upon broken ankles and collapsed to the forest floor. She cried as pain stabbed through her body like chains and shackles and burning iron. She dragged herself through the thicket, desperate for the healing pond and the blessings of gods.
As she dragged upon her belly, her ribs sharpened around her lungs Her breath came in tiny gasps and her eyes filled with tears. She could not make it ten more feet, no matter how she tried. The pool was near.
Raya raked at the ground, broke nail and finger as she pulled her weight ever closer, knowing that all pains would be healed if only she could reach its waters. Draghtai made her resistant to pain. He bred her for this challenge, and so she would be lost to him.
She reached out her arm and screamed in pain. Her fingers rested on the edge of the pool, her fingertips wet and tingling in its holy water. She cried and they were tears of relief. With just that touch she knew she would live. She pulled herself forward until she fell and splashed into the water.
Raya floated upward, lying on her back as the pool tingled around her like tiny prickling legs caressing her body. She looked upon her breast and watched the water wash over her skin. It crawled and skittered, tiny beetles on tiny legs, biting and stinging and numbing her pain.
This puddle was older, more mature than the larva of the last. Raya laid her head back in the pool and smiled. It felt like home.
***
Originally appeared in The Dire Dark by Shacklebound Books.