Snowblind {complete}

Wet - Consquence

Chowa made the preparations. She instructed Lanna to shower and get herself as clean as possible. 'Your hair will need to come off,' Chowa said as she made up a formula to keep Lanna asleep.

'It will grow back,' Lanna muttered. Her resolve wouldn't be shaken by something so shallow.

'There may be some physiological differences. I will not know to what extent your lower mind will be affected until the implant is settled. There may be some limited memory loss.'

'I'll be fine,' Lanna replied. What did it matter?

Frez shaved her head and the brown locks dropped to the floor. Thick hair for a cold climate. She didn't need it.

'Are you sure?' he whispered while Chowa busied herself with equipment. 'This is an experiment.' That was as much of a criticism as he could manage.

'I am,' Lanna replied. 'Her voice... I can't get it from my mind.'

How could she ever forget that desperate plea for orders? Jane Franklin, a woman so revered Lanna's people had named one of the moons after her, begging to be told what to do in the midst of utter devastation.

Her concerns were minuscule.

Lanna dressed in a clean linen tunic and Chowa laid her on a metal bench brought from her laboratory. Lanna gasped as the cold metal touched her skin. She wavered for a moment when she caught a glimpse of the unfamiliar tools on a tray beside her head. Epen put a linen sheet over the glinting silver instruments. One looked suspiciously like a saw.

Lanna swallowed her fear, and Chowa smiled as she placed a metal cup over Lanna's nose and mouth.

'Thank you,' she said and brushed leather-gloved fingers over Lanna's forehead. The cup smelt sweet and in under a minute she could hardly stay awake. Frez gripped her hand, blue eyes locked on hers.

'I'm here,' he breathed. 'I'll watch over you.'

Lanna drifted off.

***

Throbbing, warm wetness dripping down her ear and neck. Flashes of blood, bone. An apron stained red.

'Get her back under!' a voice roared, hurting her ear – she could hear through only one. A stinging bite in the skin of her arm and she sank once more.

***

When she opened her eyes again, the thick grogginess of her mind wouldn't let her remember where she was. She lifted a hand to her head to find her scalp heavily bandaged.

'Don't,' a voice commanded.

The ruler of the Empire knelt on her sleeping mat. He pulled her questing fingers from her head. Ashioto's perfect face swam into view as her lazy eyes focused. He gave her a tight smile and pressed her hand to her side, patting the back of it as he did so.

'Chowa is resting, or she would be here herself. She spent four hours putting the implant in. From what I was told, it is installed correctly and should work once programmed.'

Lanna tried to ask what he meant, but he put a finger to her lips.

'Don't talk, just look.' He held up a black box. 'I've had this in my rooms thinking I would never have to use it. Yet here I am.'

He opened the box. Inside was an oddly shaped piece of jewellery, encrusted with shimmering stones. It looked like a large fishing hook and she realised it would go over her ear. An ear jewel rested on the corner of the box for her other ear, smaller in size but made of the same bright white metal. 'These belong to the Imperial seer. They're to be worn whenever you leave your room. What their function is specifically I know not, but those were the instructions left by the last of my ancestors to have a seer.' He snapped the box closed and she winced. Despite the pain remover in her blood, her right ear ached.