of moments like this would be my life from now on.
Seconds, minutes, hours and days all blended into one another. At first I felt resigned to my fate, but as time grew and stretched and thinned, so did my patience. Prison taught me to be scrappy and resilient. Even though this place was draining me of my abilities, I hadn’t completely given up hope yet. I didn’t need the moon or earth’s divine magic.
I needed my lifetime of knowledge accumulated from living here. I was going to get out of here. I was going to survive.
My plan was simple. I spent days thinking and preparing. I wanted to kill Bhaltair or die trying, and there were only a few ways I knew of to get him here.
I was his weakness. He was determined to keep me safe, and I had every intention of exploiting that. It took four days to make the knife. I burned the end of my plastic toothbrush with a lighter I pickpocketed off of a guard, and pressed it into a sharp point. I watched the guards and learned my new, stricter routine. There was a three-minute window at night during shift change that I could work with, and after weeks of planning, it was finally time.
The night air was cool and damp. I closed my eyes and envisioned the glow of the moon guiding me. I could almost hear her outcries of disapproval at what I was about to do. It was a risk worth taking.
The guards moved swiftly, and I grabbed my makeshift blade. I didn’t want to bleed out and die before anyone could help me, but I needed to be noticeably injured so that they would send me to the infirmary. I let my internal clock work as I waited with bated breath. Then when I could hear footsteps approaching, I lifted the blade up and stabbed myself in the stomach.
A grunt escaped my lips, and the approaching footsteps sounded like they were running. My mind was woozy. Crimson blood poured from the wound and coated my palm with its sticky pain. Perfect.
They came in quickly, probably drawn by the scent of blood. I never knew exactly what species the guards all were. Some of them could scent it. Some of them could taste the damage in the air. Strong hands hauled me up while another person took me from that pair of hands and dragged me to the infirmary. I’d rarely been inside, not in all my years at the prison. Keeping me healthy was one of the things they did for Bhaltair. I was his power battery after all.
Laid out on the table, I stared up at the blurred image of the woman gazing down at me. This wasn’t the first time I was meeting her, and I knew that the sadistic Dr. Brina had a reputation for pain. It might be a good thing I was drifting in a haze of blood loss at the moment. If she wanted to mess with me, I’d rather not feel it.
“Self-inflicted, hmm? That’s a first with this one,” she spoke to someone behind her. “Better let the warden know so he can tell that fellow Bhaltair. You know the rules. She isn’t supposed to be hurt to the point of needing assistance. This one is special.”
Hands pressed to the wound in my stomach, her fingers sloshing around my guts. More blood flowed freely from the wound and onto the concrete floor. “Clean cut. Should be easy to heal,” she replied with a sigh. “Should I let her suffer a little longer, though? This was obviously self-inflicted. What a waste.”
“Not today, Dr. Brina,” one of the guards replied. My veins flooded with ice. My body trembled. I held onto my strength and looked around for a weapon of some sort. I wasn’t the first to try escaping by way of the infirmary, but I’d be the first to succeed.
“Fine. You’re no fun,” she complained while ripping my shirt off and cleaning the wound. She worked methodically and without care for the pain I endured or the moans breaking past my teeth. I jerked as she stitched me up with her magic-infused needles, healing the cut efficiently.
And as she worked, I waited. It didn’t take me long to realize that my cell was spelled. As long as I was in my cell, my power was siphoned. But now that I was out, that thin thread of earth and moon and life strummed against my