The Claimed: Rashika's Resistance

Chapter 19: Reconciling

The moment Zander entered the cell, his eyes widened, and he propped his fist on one hip and his stump arm on the other.

"Rashika have mercy, what is all this? You intend to torture me, is it?"

I blinked at him. "All this? Torture? What are you talking about?"

"The, the.." He waved the stump wrist as if to rotate a hand, frowned at the zigzagging stitches, and then flung both arms wide. "The chaos!"

I glanced around the room. The mattress still nestled into the corner, though it had shifted a bit during my recent nap. The bucket propped in another corner, the metal handle still stuck upward from when it had recently been dumped. The tan tunic and trousers I had worn to Pim's house draped over a metal drying rack in the corner, still stained with the blood I had not been able to scrub out.

"What chaos?"

He jerked up his hand to smooth both sides of his mustache. "Of course, you don't see it. If you don't mind, I'll just..."

Though I still had no idea what he was talking about, I nodded consent. Then I watched as Zander hobbled around the room. He pushed the mattress straight against the wall, lowered the handle of the bucket, and straightened the tunic and trousers. Then he puffed out a sigh deep enough his shoulders sank with it and flashed me a smile.

"Alright, now let's have another look at your shoulder."

I sat cross-legged on the mattress, unlaced the top of my tunic, and slid the fabric off one shoulder. Zander sank to the mattress beside me and began to peel back the bandages. As he worked, he spoke quietly.

"Daresay Rona is delightful."

A sad smile touched my lips. "She is, but she's been through the seven hells."

"I hear one of those hells was just this morning." He laid the bandage beside me and I heard liquid splash over a cloth. "And I hear you killed Royal Guards to save Izra and Rona."

"Izra told you that?"

He chuckled and dabbed the wet cloth over my shoulder. "Who else would have?"

I furrowed my brow, remembering the confusion in her eyes, the tension in her shoulders. "Where is she now?"

Zander sucked in a breath and blew it out through flapping lips, the warm gust of air tickling the cold sweat on my shoulders and neck. When he spoke, his voice turned sour.

"With Denavin."

I swallowed. "Do you think she's alright? If Denavin turns on Rashika's Resistance because of me..."

"This is nothing new, Epsa. I knew Denavin was bad news even back when I first met the group fifteen years ago."

"Fifteen years ago? Izra must have been a child."

"She was twelve. Small, scared, and stuttering." He swiped at my shoulder once more, and I twitched away with a half-suppressed whimper. "Plu and Ru were even smaller, maybe five or six. Denavin was sixteen, I believe, but she already carried herself like an adult."

I struggled to imagine Izra as a frightened little girl. What made her scared? And why were the four of them already together?

"How did you meet them? Were they seeking medical attention?"

"Oh, you think I'm a medic, is it? No, I'm a farmer." He chuckled. "And that group was stealing my vegetables. Happened that I needed a hand on the farm anyway, seeing as I'd just lost one of mine, so I offered them food and board if they helped me out."