"What did you say?! Huh?!" She screamed, beating the man with her fists - weak as they were - and marring his pale, freckled face, "You fucking prick! Keep laughing! I'll kill you!"
The glowing ichor that spewed from her mouth and eyes was the worst of her symptoms. Boiling hot, the liquid magic seared the inside of her mouth; it blinded her with glaring light and made the world around her hazy. No matter how much she retched up it wasn't long before more came bubbling up from her gut.
"Young Miss, please! Please, stop fighting -!"
Iska couldn't see, she coughed and sputtered for every breath - words were wet, blubbering impossibilities and only made the choking worse.
Where was she? The world beyond the light-blindness was strange. Blurred faces blended into each other - a blink, and arcane glyphs fluttered in the corners of her eyes, searing foreign as negatives into her vision.
The cold, clammy tough of a strange hand sent a shock of pinpricks up her arm, and Iska swung out wildly against it. Her nails raked across skin, but she couldn't smell the blood through another heave of thick, liquid magic.
Where had she been last? In the slender man's basement? No - no, out in the forest - no, in town - in town with Meres, and then there were guards, and then…
A few merciful moments of breath filled her desperate lungs.
Meres…Meres, he had been holding her, and then -
The prick of a needle stung her shoulder and Iska threw her arms out in panic.
Her fist collided with someone's face.
"Agh - !"
"Hold her still! Terrence, call the guards - help me - "
More hands found her.
No matter how she twisted and squirmed, she couldn't escape.
No - no! Not again! Not more needles!
Meres! Where was Meres?!
Something vicious and freezing cold was injected into the side of her neck and Iska felt the cruel effects instantly. She lost control of her muscles and fell limp against the hands holding her.
Her head felt heavy and her neck couldn't support the weight of it. Iska blinked hot tears out of her eyes, as the blue glow of magic began to subside. She coughed weakly, body convulsing and straining of its own accord.
"Where…" she croaked, then wheezed against her muscles spasming, "...I…want…"
"There now, she'll sleep for a time - " the voice was clearer now, though it was distant - like Iska was hearing it from down a long, crooked hallway, "- but unless she stops fighting us, we'll never be able to learn what is causing these symptoms."
Who are you? Iska wanted to ask, but her lips - like the rest of her body - refused to work.
Her body was laid down against a soft bed, and someone pulled a thick, quilted blanket up to her chin. But, even with her vision back, she didn't recognise any of them. Every single one was a stranger, all silk and embroidery and jewels, as they all filed out through a dark doorway and left her there alone in an unfamiliar room -
All but one.
A handsome woman, wide-shouldered and square-jawed, with a scar that tore through the side of her face - and the only one of the strangers who wore no jewellery and who hadn't been crowding around her bedside like hungry vultures to a carcass.
Iska's eyelids hung heavy, sleep was drowning her despite her desperation to stay awake.
"Wh..ere…" Iska mumbled again.
The woman took a step closer to her, and knelt down so that she was eye-to-eye; Iska summoned every ounce of her strength. "Where…is…? I…want…"
It only took the woman a moment to parse her words.
"The man you were with?" She asked, her voice a sturdy tenor and yet gentle.
Iska tried to nod her head, she tried to agree, to say anything - Yes! Please! Where is he?! I want to see him! - but nothing came. Only a weak, wet groan as the last of her strength left her and medicated sleep finally won the battle.
----
There was no peace for her, not even in her dreams - and Iska, as she jolted awake some time later, could only be grateful that the memory of them faded, even if the lingering fright and panic remained.
She sat in an ornate bed, with soft pastel-coloured drapings and a finely embroidered quilt lying heavy over her knees. The room around her was richly decorated - ugly oil paintings of some flowers in a field, a dainty vanity with colourful glass bottles and jars, a tall, arched window with expensive-looking books dog-eared and lying open.
Iska scrunched her nose; after months of sleeping on a stone floor, and weeks of sleeping in the forest, and then a simple, clean bed in the village…
The feel of the silk and brocade against her skin was unpleasant.
The heady smell of flowers in every painted vase made her even more nauseous.
And the nightgown she was wearing was thin and white and had little purple bows tying it at the neck and sleeves. All of it made her feel small, vulnerable.
Voices from out in the hall made Iska flinch; she threw the quilt away from her in an instant and dropped onto unsteady legs - which carried her, wobbling, to the carved blue door of her room.
" - have already explained, she's completely delirious, can't remember a thing!" A man's voice was saying - something deep in her stomach churned even though she knew it wasn't a voice she recognised.
No, he's dead. It can't be him. Get it together.
"But, she's still our little girl!" A woman's voice insisted in a sickening sort of wail, "I'm sure we can get through to her if we keep trying!"
"Mother, if she attacks the doctors every time she has an episode, how will we ever get her the help she needs? She's sick! She's sick, and it's all that bastard's fault!" A male voice, a different one - younger, kind of nasal.
The hair on the back of Iska's neck raised - she pressed closer to the door, brows knitting, as that same voice went on:
"I tell you, I'll see him hanged! Prideful son of a bitch - he didn't even fight back when we arrested him!"
Iska's jaw tensed. Her heart was picking up speed.
"Leo, please," the woman's voice pleaded, "you'll wake her up!"
"When I tell you I beat that pitiful look off his face!" The nasal voice laughed, "I'd have sent him straight to hell if Kassandra and her little gang didn't spoil the fun!"
Iska's heart leapt up into her throat at the same time as she threw the door open and tore into the hallway. The looks of surprise on the three blabbering strangers blurred into nothing as she leapt at the younger one - the son - and tackled him down onto the plush, woven rugs.
"Violetta!" The old man cried.
"Violetta!" The woman gasped
"Vio -" The son tried to shout, but Iska brought her fist crashing into his face to shut him up.
"What did you say?! Huh?!" She screamed, beating him with her fists - weak as they were - and marring his pale, freckled face, "You fucking prick! Keep laughing! I'll kill you!"
"Guards!" The old man yelled, "Where the devil are the guards?! She's gone insane!"
"What did you do to him?!" Iska screeched, tearing her throat raw, "Where is he?! Where is he?!"
The guards rushed in and pulled her off of him, but they couldn't stop her from landing one final kick to his ribs before he crawled away with a pained wail.
"Get off me! Let go!" Iska shouted, but her body was too weak to fight against full grown men. Another guard joined the others and held onto her shoulders, while her mother looked on nervously.
A cold sweat pricked on her forehead, the tight heat of panic was pulling at her chest
"Violetta, my darling, please -!" The woman pleaded, staring down at her with wet, sad eyes, "It's me, your mother! And - oh -!"
"Take her back to bed, she's delirious," the man who must have been her father instructed, furrowing his brows, "and someone fetch the doctors back - whatever they're using isn't working, we need something stronger."
"No!" Iska barked, her hair falling wildly in her face, "No, you - let go! You're not putting anything else in me!"
Something underneath the taught harpstrings of Iska's magic was threatening to snap.
"V…Viola…" the younger man mumbled pathetically through a mouth full of blood, "I'm your brother...how could you hit me…?"
"She didn't know what she was doing, Leo - oh, please, Dear, can't you -"
There was too much going on - Iska's head was spinning.
"Stop! I said let go!" she screamed, wrenching her arms, scratching, kicking, twisting in blind panic, "'I'll kill you! I'll - agh!"
"Get your hands off her."
The entire hallway froze. Everything went silent.
Iska looked up, her eyes wide and breath heaving.
The voice was familiar. And so was the face. That same tall, scarred woman from her room was now marching her way down the hall - a sheathed sword on her belt, and a black capelet over her shoulder.
The guards hesitated for a moment, glancing between themselves.
"Captain, his Lordship has -"
"Seems like you need better training," the woman interrupted sharply, coming to a halt in front of the whole messy scene, "I gave you an order."
The guards immediately let Iska go, taking a couple steps away and standing stiffly at attention. Iska could see the sheen of sweat on their faces.
"Kassandra," her father snapped, "this is family business, it has nothing to do with -"
"I can bring him here," the woman, Kassandra, said. Not to her father, but to Iska.
Iska touched her arms, rubbing at where the guards had touched her.
"...How?" She asked, squinting up at Kassandra and taking a careful step towards her.
"The palace jails are overflowing these days," the woman answered easily. She folded her hands behind her back and matched Iska step for step, "and the head jailer owes me a favour. I can have your man transferred to our manor's private cells."
"His name is Meres."
"Meres, then. I can have him brought here. Today, even. Is that what you want?"
Iska frowned up at her, this strange, calm woman in a too-big house full of annoying, pushy, loud, frantic strangers.
She couldn't be much older than that guy who claimed to be her brother.
"I want him to be released," she said, annoyed in an instant by how pathetic she sounded.
"That's not my jurisdiction," the woman said, "but I can bring him here. You can go down and see him whenever you want."
"Absolutely not!" Iska's father roared. "The man that kidnapped her and - and - you would bring him here?! in our home?! Never!"
Iska took another step towards Kassandra, another step away from the people who claimed to be her family.
"I'll put my best officer on him, they'll protect you while you're down there...and protect him, too." The woman said, matching her step.
"You dare -?!" Iska's father took a heated step towards them, but faltered when Kassandra finally, briefly, met his eyes.
Iska recognised that look, that flash in the woman's warm hazel eyes.
Hatred. Pure hatred.
But when she looked back down at Iska, the hardness melted into something softer, something near affection and maybe confusion.
"Darling, wait - " Iska's mother said, putting a soothing hand on her father's arm, "If - if this is what Violetta wants...that is, if there's even a chance...maybe it could help her?"
"Mother, you can't be serious -!" Iska's brother insisted through a stuffed, bloody nose, "We can't let him near her, he's - he's dangerous and - and -" his cries of outrage faded into the background, muffled and distant behind the ringing that had started in her ears.
She could feel an angry white hot tangle of magic in her chest pusling and pulling, sendjng a shiver of nausea up her throat. The heat was building, pushing out of her - another episode was on its way.
Iska didn't bother looking back at whatever mess of a family had claimed to be hers.
She was still watching Kassandra, hesitant, a pang of...some emotion jolting through her heart and strumming the strings of her magic.
"So, can...can you bring him here, then?" She asked, pressing her fist against the ache in her chest, "Please, I need to see him..."
For just a moment a tender expression, a gentle frown, flickered on Kassandra's face.
"I'll bring him. So go and rest. And stop fighting the doctors."
Iska swallowed back tears and the sickly nausea of whatever glowing ichor threatened to bubble up from inside her.
"I…want different doctors. No men…"
"And you'll stop fighting?"
Iska nodded.
Her family seemed about to interject when Kassandra stood up straight and stared them all down into flustered silence.
"I'll…I'll see what I can do…" her father muttered bitterly.
"If that's what you…want, then…"
"Viola…"
But Iska had already turned away. She was trying to make it back to her room, but found her feet ungainly and clumsy under her weight.
Kassandra offered out her arm.
Gingerly, with an annoyed heat in her face, Iska took it - leaning heavily on the woman as she was guided back to the unfamiliar bedroom, and helped back into bed.
There was a lingering silence afterwards, punctuated by a sharp headache that throbbed in Iska's head just behind her eyes.
She wanted to say something more, to ask a thousand questions - but as soon as Iska opened her mouth a gush of boiling magic poured out of her, and the world was lost again in a blue haze.
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