Chapter Two - The Atrium

Raven.

Raven was a slender but muscular woman with the long dark hair and elegant features characteristic of the Emerald Isles. Her skin was pale, but it looked to only be so because she clearly hadn't been in the sun in a very long time. Every ounce of her cold grace and attention was fixated on the broken woman before her.

Raven dunked the blood-soaked rag into the basin again, pausing only briefly to wring it out. The girl before her had been flayed, that much was clear. Entire strips of skin were missing in patches all over her body. The crisp neat lines of the missing patches of skin were telltale of someone who'd been practiced in flaying and a fondness of mercifully sharp knives. She had also been badly beaten. The skin that did remain was a wretched mix of purple and crimson. Raven shuddered, not wanting to picture how long she'd been tortured.

Moving lower down her body it was apparent that her leg was broken. Examining the injury made Raven's own leg ache. Raven's calf was an ugly, broken thing and she had to shift regularly to prevent her leg from cramping. She winced remembering the beating she'd gotten for trying to escape, the snap as her tendon had coiled up the back of her leg like a spool of yarn and how the madame had not let her treat the injury so that it would be impossible to make another attempt to run in the future. 'You don't need legs to lay on your back' she'd said at the time, delighting in the loss of hope.

The girl before her was, despite the wounds, arguably very beautiful. She had pale skin that seemed unblemished paired with delicate but strangely angular and symmetrical features. Her lips were a reddish-purple colour even without tint. Arched, even and full brows a whisper darker than her platinum blonde locks. Her body was curvy but gaunt, someone who'd been fed well during her life but had recently fallen on hard times. Maybe she'd been a member of Salva's court when it fell like the other girls they'd trapped to bring here. Many of the girls in the court had bleached their hair light blonde to match their crown princess.

Raven brushed one last blonde strand away from the girl's face before she placed the cloth back into basin and pushed herself up into a standing position. She took the basin and emptied it into a sink nearby before filling it with scalding hot water. She was so wounded, so decimated and so filthy that Raven had already emptied her basin twice now for fresh water. This time, she added medicinal herbs for pain, to further disinfect her wounds and promote healing. The room took on a sickly-sweet smell and Raven cringed, hating the taste of it on the air, on her tongue, as she breathed it in. With some difficulty she carried the basin back over to the girl, sitting again at her side on a hard wooden stool and dunking the rag in the water.

Gently she continued to pick any final grains of sand out of the wounds, soaking the skin in the liquid before moving on methodically to the next area. When she was satisfied, she dropped the cloth back into the basin and stood up again. This time she nearly fell, her leg seized in a cramp, but she caught herself on her chair. The basin's water splashed all down her legs and all over the floor around her with a clang. The girl on the table didn't move despite the loud noise.

Raven took a moment to stretch her bad leg, before, with a sigh she picked up the now empty basin. She dropped it into the sink loudly. In slow, careful paces she walked over to a shelf and picked up a basket. It was heavy but she maneuvered herself back over to her chair. Inside the basket was string, smooth exotic-looking oversized leaves and a large jar.

Raven recognized that the balm inside was worth more than her weight in gold. Spelled medicine that could heal almost anything. She'd been surprised when she was directed to use that on the girl, she'd only seen the balm one other time during her tenure at the Birdcage. Raven snuck some on her own leg when she was sure nobody could see her before gingerly starting to cover the girl's entire body in the balm. The balm itself made her ache ease instantly and it smelled of peppermint. She hoped that it would help her own recovery at least a little and sent an internal prayer up to whatever god may deign to listen.

Each area Raven applied the balm was wrapped in leaves to prevent the girl from moving and wiping the medicine off. By the time she was done, the girl's body reminded her of the last funeral she'd attended with her parents in the Emerald Isles. Her people cleaned their dead and then bound them in beautifully coloured leaves, their only dress on the funeral pyre. Raven wondered to herself if this girl had been taken from somewhere further North because of her pallor. The women here did not come by choice and even more rarely did they come by chance.