An irritating flash of pain in her arm woke Mithra up. Reflexively, she moved to scratch it but her nails met only air. Right, my arm’s gone.

  She sat up rapidly, memories coming back to her all at once. The missing arm was the least of her worries. Abominations—real abominations, not like Leah—carried her off last night. Maybe not even last night, depending on how long she was out. She didn’t worry too much about Menace, he would be fine on his own, at least for a while. But where was she? Where was Leah? For that matter, where were the abominations?

  The room she was in was small, dark, and most importantly, empty. There was the cot she was currently sitting on, as well as what she guessed was a toilet in the corner, but not much else. Light was coming from the ceiling: a dim, unnaturally white glow that illuminated the surroundings just enough to see, but not enough to discern any details. A quiet hum of air was the only sound in the otherwise silent room.

  Someone—or something—changed her clothes while she was unconscious. Her bloody rags were replaced by a plain gray shirt and pants that felt uncomfortable on her skin. Relief fought with indignation in her mind. Wearing clean clothes after so long, no matter how uncomfortable, was a godsend. But when Mithra imagined the grotesque creatures changing her clothes with clawed hands while she slept, she shuddered.

  That didn’t matter, she chastised herself. She was in unfamiliar, possibly enemy, territory. First, she had to look for weapons, then for a way out. The jail cell, because that was the only thing it could be, had nothing. Not even bars in the heavy door that she could potentially pry off: it was solid steel and didn’t even budge when she pushed on it. The cot itself was little more than a mattress, no frame and no springs inside. The toilet was just a shallow basin carved into the ground with a lever that would probably flush it. Maybe she could break off the lever, but mentally categorized it as a last resort. She’d rather not break it, just in case she couldn’t find a way out and had to stay in the cell for a while.

  That left her with the weapons she always had on her. Her body, and her marks. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much right now. She had only one arm and her marks weren’t in the best condition either. The one on her hand ached from the punishment she put it through trying to heal Leah, while her mind mark still didn’t regenerate, its energy sluggish and unfocused after the fight with Duncan. Which, oh Gods.

  No. Mithra forced her thoughts away from that topic. Now was not the time to think about how she almost killed her uncle. Or how she potentially left him to die a slow, agonizing death while the Air Mage keeping him alive slowly succumbed to his wounds. Actually, when would be the right time to think about that?

  Mithra stood up and started pacing around her cell in circles. She didn’t know what terrified her more, the fact that Duncan could be suffocating to death right this moment, or that she killed a Guardian. Not directly, but the responsibility was certainly hers. Yes, the Priests mind-controlling her uncle were ultimately responsible for everything, but she had options. If she approached more cautiously, or if her mind mark was working properly—which was her fault that it wasn't—maybe nobody would’ve died. If she was just better, nobody would have to get hurt. A veteran Guardian, a hero, would’ve been alive.

  Her actions led directly to a person’s death. She killed Mildred, as surely as if she put a blade to his throat. Like she did to her uncle. Gods. Was he okay? Vin’s mastery over blood magic was impressive, but would it be enough to hold together an eviscerated Air Mage for the weeks of travel back to the Veil?

  The Priests would pay for it, but the guilt was hers. She would live with it the rest of her life, just as she did with the guilt of maiming Ives. How many more lives would she ruin—or end—because of her incompetence? Her father was right. He was always right. She wasn’t her mother, she was a failure. A mockery. She went off on a grand adventure with an outsider, and got people hurt. Maimed. Killed.

  No. Mithra pushed her face into the mattress to stop that train of thought. She wasn’t being fair to herself. If it was anybody else, she wouldn’t be as harsh. She made some mistakes, but that was no reason to give up. It was a reason to get stronger. Better.

  Her lungs burned with the lack of oxygen, but soon her aching mark activated. She tracked the energy with her mind and watched it repair the damage to the lungs and fill them with air. Figures she couldn’t suffocate. Obvious, in hindsight. But where did her mark get air from? A mystery for later. She got up with renewed resolve.

  She needed a plan. And not just for now, but a proper long-term plan. Her career with the Guardians was obviously off the table. It has been for a while, ever since she sided with Leah. No, even earlier than that. If the Priest had mind-controlled the Guardians, which, obviously they had to, she was doomed the moment she went against them.

  The question was, how deep did the conspiracy run? Did all the Priests know how to utilize their marks that way and hid it from the general public? With that level of influence they could as well be running the Veil’s politics from the shadows. But no, the amount of resources secrecy like that required was astronomical. Not unachievable, when one had an army of mind-controllers at their beck and call, but unfeasible. Their reach was obviously deep, since they got to Duncan in the capital, but she had faith that the Gods would have intervened if the Priests were this organized. Still, the possibility was startling.

  A more sinister thought wormed its way into her mind. What if the Priests were involved in her mother’s death? Father always talked about her unusual behavior after the last mission. Behavior that a mind mark would explain perfectly. Did she notice the church’s manipulation? Did she see something she wasn’t supposed to and the Priests tried to silence her? When he learned about Mithra’s mark, her father called her a Mind Mage, not an Emotion Mage. He had to know something. Was he trying to warn her? Was his outburst calculated, to get her out of town and out of the Priest’s grip?

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  No. She was reading too much into it. Her father was a drunk. He’s been for a long time, and he just relapsed. He hurt her not to protect her, but just because he could. Even if he knew something, he sure as hell wasn’t looking out for her. She tried to shake the thought altogether, but it was stuck churning in the back of her mind. She forced herself back on track.

  There was no way to determine the scale of their conspiracy from a jail cell, but no matter the size she had to do something about it. She felt she was in a unique position to do so. The Guardians dealt with corruption inside the Veil, but the Guardians themselves were corrupted under the insidious influence of the Priests. That would be her mission, to root out the clergy, find the people responsible and bring them to justice. If they were mind-controlling people, she just had to get good enough with her own magic to counteract it. Once she figured that out, it would just be a matter of finding enough allies. She wasn’t arrogant enough to think she could achieve her goals alone, after all.

  That was still a hell of a long-term goal. Even if she couldn’t become a Guardian, she wanted to protect people. And not just her people. Leah’s plan still burned in her mind, and she had already promised to help. Hopefully, once they took care of that, Leah would help her in turn.

  That was her short-term plan. Get out of the jail cell, find Leah, go to the Enclave with her. She hoped the woman was okay, but she had to be. The abominations took her just like Mithra, and she was relatively safe. Maybe they thought the steel woman was one of their own? She certainly looked similar. Hopefully she would recover from her wounds and together they’d find a way to get out of here.

  A shuffling sound interrupted her thoughts. A small slot opened in the door and a tray slid in. Mithra rushed to the door and with her only hand, started banging on it.

  “Hey! Anybody there? Let me out!”

  No one answered, even after she scraped her fist raw on the rough steel. No amount of screaming had yielded more than a sore throat, her captors either deaf, or completely insensitive to her pleas.

  The gray slop on the plate could barely be called food, but Mithra ate it anyway. Slowly, her regenerative mark stopped hurting as she did. So she couldn’t suffocate, but she could starve. Noted.

  After the ‘meal’, she got to work on the one thing she could actually do in the small cell. Fixing her arm. She was lucky that it was her left hand that she lost. If Mildred targeted the one with her mark, could she repair it in time? If she had lost the marked hand, would the mark appear on another body part? Somehow, she doubted that. With Leah’s theory of marks being advanced devices, it stood to reason that it would simply be lost. And she would be dead.

  No point in worrying over something that didn’t happen. She’d just be careful in the future. Mithra examined the divine energy flowing to the stump. There wasn’t much of it. Her mark seemed to consider the arm healed: the wound was closed, scabbed over and covered in scar tissue. That was an issue, but she could always just reopen the wound and try directing the energy herself. Actually…

  The skin broke by itself, split by her directing the energy. Veins and arteries snaked through the holes, muscle fibers built themselves around them and attached themselves to the bone slowly growing out of her shoulder. It took all her concentration and the sight was grotesque, but the arm was weaving itself together. One inch done.

  Her mark sputtered, her divine energy stilled and promptly ran out. Blood rushed from the half-formed veins and Mithra puked, the vomit mixing with the gore on the floor. She tried to stop the bleeding with her mark, but it was unresponsive. In desperation she tore the sheets of her cot and tied it with her teeth to stem the bleeding. The world was getting darker and she recognized the pull of unconsciousness that came with blood loss. Shit. She had to do something. The trick with her mind mark wouldn’t work either, the reserves hadn’t rebuilt yet. Fuck.

  ?

  Mithra came to. Her arm wasn’t bleeding anymore, and the sheets were fresh. Her clothes weren’t covered in blood and vomit either. Well, that answered the safety concerns she had with being held in a cell by abominations. There was a fresh tray of food on the ground.

  She ate it, and then examined her arm and her mark. The issue was obvious in hindsight—she used up all her divine energy to try and heal Leah, and didn’t have enough for herself. It was, frankly, stupid, to try and regrow a whole damn arm at once. The last time she had to do something like that she broke her mind mark so badly it still didn’t recover.

  But she had an inch more arm than there was before.

  That was progress. And since using a mark caused one to be hungry, it stood to reason with enough time and food she could build up her reserves enough to regrow the arm. Or she could just try the start and stop method, leaving herself enough energy to stem the bleeding next time.

  Well, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. She might as well try to perfect her energy management.

  Her routine firmly established itself as she spent her time eating, sleeping and trying not to bleed out. The good news was that if she banged and yelled enough, her captors rewarded her with more food. Even her mind mark was slowly regenerating—she could see it swirl again in the reflection of the food tray. She tried using it to detect something outside of her cell, but the energy couldn’t penetrate the walls or the door. Even when she tried to use it with the food slot open, it couldn’t reach outside. The toilet drain was a no go, too.

  She couldn’t tell how many days—or weeks—it took, but finally, her arm was functional again. She clenched her fist, amazed. But something was wrong, something was missing. Mithra obsessed over the vague feeling, until finally, she figured out the issue. The scar, the one she gave herself while learning to carve wooden figures, was gone. The one her father helped bandage and care for.

  It felt like losing him all over again.

  Days passed, distinguishable only by the unnatural light turning off periodically. They blurred together, meal times the only break in the monotony. Sleep, eat, exercise, repeat. With no need to spend most of each day regrowing the arm, she trained instead. The lack of weights wasn’t as limiting as she thought it’d be at first. It was wondrous what one could achieve, bored out of their mind and not fearing injury. Even one-hand, no-legs push-ups got boring after a while.

  A body that healed itself quickly let her do wonders when it came to building strength. Gone were rest days, gone was training the body in sections not to overwork it. While previously fit and healthy, after days of non-stop training with accelerated healing her body was at its peak.

  When one day her captors missed a meal, Mithra was shaken. The timing was so ingrained in her mind as to be instinctive, the change to the routine deeply unsettling.

  With a screech of metal, the door to her cell finally opened.