The Borrowing

The stone is cold against her cheek. Dust hangs in the Ash Wing cell, slow and grey after the flash, as if the air itself has not decided the rite is over. Blood from her bitten finger is still wet on the floor, smeared through the banned circle she cut into the rock. The backlash already threw this body into the wall. It has not gotten up.

Maia Rusk is spent. The Borrowing ate what life she had left to spend. Smoke sits behind her eyes as much as in the room. A few days ago she was First Seat. Then the hall, the vote, three Bright Circle witches, a sentence that put her here. She refused their ending. She asked for something that could survive this — a spirit, a beast, anything that would not lie down as their traitor. That was hunger. Not knowledge.

You are in this life with her now. A second awareness in a waiting body. She can feel that someone answered. She does not know who.

She still has the mouth for one line. She uses it on the floor, looking up through that inner smoke.

Maia: Did it take? Is someone there?