This is the way it ought to be. They built this place, forged these doors, made everything with me right in the middle. Even the breeze outside moves at their command, part of a plan so old they can’t remember the names of those who dreamt it up.

All for me.

For all of their love, and the things they cannot replace.

When the wheel has finished turning, they filter out as they came in. One of the wardens walks in on her own.

I recognise her instantly, though I’ve never seen her face before. She’s taller than her granddaughters, and the oldest still living in this place. She wears the same glassy plate as the others, but doesn’t have a lance of her own. It has been that way forever: she keeps the armour out of protocol, nothing more. The chains hold me, made of bonds that I could never break. Even if I could, there’s nothing in her that I can touch.

She made herself deaf for this, tore out every tether to the rest of her kind. She has condemned herself to a sentence exactly like my own, here through sheer force of will.

I can’t see her eyes or her skin, nothing of the scars where they cut her implants out.

Her name is Asha, and she is meat and bone, clothed in armour that doesn’t have a mind.

I can’t see anything. Not her thoughts, nor a glassy second-heart to hold her spirit when she dies.

I can’t see anything except for the reflection of something else’s face.

“ROOK.”

“Wake up.”

“Rook?”

For a second, I can’t quite tell if I’ve opened my eyes or not. I know where they are, a pair of pits dug into my skull, feeling a little like the Eye outside has found its way in and left the sockets full of dust. I rub the lids, and try to clear some of the sand away, but it’s a while before I’m sure I can see. A little more before I can find anything in the early-morning haze.

A warden, I think for half a second, my heart suddenly pressed against my throat.

I have to get a hold on myself. This is something else. I am somewhere other than where I was before. Wherever that was.

I try to swallow, but my tongue is swollen, feeling like it’s trying to choke me. It’s dry and powdery, and tastes a little like saddle sweat and chow hall floors. I manage to work up a little spit, but all it does is remind me how sore my throat is. Christs, I need something to drink.

Easy now.

That’s it.

I try to find something I can pin the words to, some sense of where they’re coming from, but I’m not sure I can.

“Take this.”