I awoke to the sound of soft footsteps padding across the floor of my cell. It didn’t take any time for me to deduce who it could possibly be, though it fully confirmed that the girl did not have a lick of sense.

“Haven’t you learned your lesson?” I quietly asked, opening my eyes to look at the girl.

Gloria, face very swollen and eyes crusty and tear stained, looked back at me from the center of the dark room, her left arm gently cradling her right. It seemed that Aela’s iron grip on her wrist had done real damage, even in the low light I could see that her wrist was misshapen. She took a further, hesitant step forward revealing that she also had a very prominent limp.

“I just never got the chance to tell you what the celebration was about,” she said, muffled through the swelling in her jaw.

I let out a long huff of air that I had intended to be a dry laugh, but there was something too pitiful about the girl’s plight for it to have actually manifested. Never would I ever have considered coming back and risking life and limb again for something so trivial, especially for someone I barely knew and so obviously made no effort to save me the first time. Aela must have knocked something loose for her to be sneaking back in to see me now.

“You have no sense,” I muttered, sitting up. “Well you’re here now, so you might as well tell me what you found out.”

“A new saint has been named,” she said, wincing as she switched which foot she was putting the bulk of her weight on.”

“Come, sit,” I motioned as I scooted back away from the edge of the bed, “if you’re caught there’s no matter if you’re found standing or sitting.”

With painful, sluggish steps she came forward and gratefully lowered herself onto the bed, letting out a sob of pain before gathering her strength once more.

“It is apparently a little girl,” she continued once she had settled, “I have not seen her myself, she is here somewhere though. The head of the kitchen said it’s a little fair headed girl, obviously blessed by the sun with her radiance.”

My lips curled into a smirk and I nodded my head. Of course that is how they were going to try to spin the girl’s power, it was far too obvious of a route. I did not know what their plan would be in the long term when the fae would eventually find where she went and try to claim her, though if they were willing to let her presence be known so boldly, then they must have felt confident they had some sort of weapon. That or they were just being incredibly naive and arrogant, which was entirely possible and personally the route I sorely hoped was the truth. I would like nothing more than to have my last moments perishing in the fae onslaught knowing that they were being crushed under someone else’s oppressive boot.

“It is an exciting day,” the girl said, though through her pain and discomfort she certainly did not sound very excited.

“That is not how I would describe how the day has been for you,” I commented.

Gloria said nothing, just gave me a wary glance and a short nod of her head.

“This is not the first time you’ve been on the wrong side of Aela’s fist.”

Again she said nothing, but tears began to flow down her puffy cheeks.

“Yet you still defy her while believing that she is part of the righteous and glorified. It seems that deep down you don’t quite believe she is as holy as she claims.”

“She is…” the girl said slowly, “but sometimes it just seems wrong what she wants to happen. I’m probably just being rotten. I have not even been fit to do my naming ceremony and there are little children to end up having it done years before how old I am not. Obviously the sun does not shine fully from within me.

“It’s just a silly tradition,” I said with a snort, “a hold over from an old tradition that your church will deny having any basis in any old religion. Though, I assure you, it predates even the earliest mentions of your gods or saints.”

The girl’s mouth cracked open slightly in shock and she winced. “That is not true at all.”

I let out a low laugh and shook my head. “Denying the truth does not make it any less true, no matter how much you want to be right. That particular right of passage came from a time before family names were common and taking a name identified you with a group for the rest of your life. It is no different now, you will likely come up with some name of a saint you want to identify with and end up in a social group with other women who made the same choice.”

Her brow furrowed and she looked away from me into the darkness of the room. I could tell that I had hit upon something that she definitely wanted to argue but she could not bring herself to come up with a reason for why I was wrong. No matter how hard she thought, she was going to come to the uncomfortable conclusion that I simply was not.

“It couldn’t be from an older tradition,” she finally said, though her voice was even more subdued than normal, “they would never practice something like that.”

She went quiet, though there was something hesitant in her pause, like she was not expecting or intending me to reply but rather needed time to compose her thoughts. I was glad that she was not so simple minded as to want to rely on me to explain everything to her and that she would rather work things out herself. Far too often it was common for people to look desperately towards others for answers they could discover for themselves with a bit of effort put into seeking the answer. I wondered if I had been willing to extend my power out in this place and I scanned her potential if she would have made a good candidate for training, even a weak magic wielder could be made powerful if her mind was sharp enough.

“No, the cleric twin would have struck down the practice and she herself runs them,” she said finally. “If there was any hint of an old practice to it, then she would have made sure any with a name renounced it and it would go into dormancy with all the other forbidden practices.”

“You do have a good head on your shoulders, but you are making one glaring flaw in logic,” I explained. “Do you think that these twins you seem to look to as leaders are good people who make only good decisions?”

The girl made a snuffling sound through her nose that might have been a laugh and she gingerly ran her fingers down her swollen and bruised arm. “You’ve already asked that and I told you that they are. I am the one that is not worthy and am likely rotten inside.”

“You are rotten?” I asked with an intentional note of matronly disapproval. “From what I know of you have tried to do nothing but be kind and helpful, you’re even risking yourself right now for some old woman you barely know just because you gave your word. That sounds like exactly the kind of person your church exemplifies as a good person.”

Gloria turned to look at me and pursed her lips together the best she could despite her bottom lip being a bit split and bloody. “I know you’re not a good person though,” she countered, “mistress Aela has let everyone know that you are a dark witch who is unholy. I should not be helping you and in fact I should be staying far away from you.” She let out a long sigh. “I shouldn’t be here at all, I shouldn’t be nice to you, and I definitely shouldn’t be doing anything as a favor, but…. I’m weak. I’ve always been weak and a terrible judge of character. I just jump into helping people whether they are the people I should be helping or not. That is probably why I have not been granted my ceremony.”

It took a lot of willpower to not let a satisfied smirk develop across my lips. This would be far too easy, she was much too bright to be a part of this place, and while she is currently still living with the wool drawn over her eyes it would not take much to push her into becoming disillusioned with what she had been taught. I did not yet know what exact role she could play for me and what good it would do to have her on my side, but having at least one ally in this terrible place could serve me well.

“Is that what they’ve told you? That being kind to everyone regardless of who they are is weakness? It seems like someone at the helm of the Church is putting their own spin on what your founding scrolls say. I believe the basic tenets instruct people to be kind and giving, they say nothing about how you should worry about the quality of the character of the person you’re kind to.”

“How would you know? You are a dark witch, you don’t believe in what we do.”

“Just because I do not follow your path doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with some of the basic tenets.” It was a lie, one that anyone who knew me would probably be unable to stop themselves from laughing at, but she didn’t quite know me well enough yet. “Kindness doesn’t manifest because you believe in your gods, it is something that comes naturally, just like breathing.”

I needed to prove a point and make a good show out of it, but I wasn’t sure it was safe to use my magic or even if I was recovered enough to yet. I had been able to use a low level of my power to keep my glamour active, but what I was planning on doing would take much more concentration and focus. Healing was not something I was particularly skilled at, though I knew the basics. It was worth a shot though, even if it made Aela come running I would make a lasting impression on the girl and give her something to think about after her beating for disobeying and returning to my chambers. With a gentle hand placed on the girl's warped wrist, I summoned forth a stream of energy from my magical core and focused it into a point on my palm. I imagined what the girl’s arm had looked like before her beating and formed my intention to make her physical form better match my mental image. With the image set, I released the power, eliciting a strangled gasp from Gloria though I couldn’t tell if it was from surprise or pain. The flesh of her arm shuddered and grossly jerked forward as the bone aligned into its proper position. Fully healing her limb would have taken much longer than I could withstand to use my power, so I retreated it back into me and laid back on my pillow, exhausted. It was not fixed, but it was set and the foundations of healing had been started.

“You are a healer?” she asked with wonder. “Only the most virtuous are healers, they have been directly touched by the gods.”

That was a new one to me. Someone high up in the political hierarchy must specialize in healing and wanted it to seem like a more holy use of power. Far be it from me not to use this to my advantage though.

“I am a healer, a powerful one,” I said weakly. Using my power had been more taxing on me than I had anticipated.

“Could you…” she trailed off for a moment and looked a little ashamed. “I know I’m probably not worthy of so much effort to be put into someone like me, but might you consider healing me a bit more? It’s just that my wrist was terrible and now it feels much better, but my hip hurts maybe even more than my arm did. When I hit the wall after she threw me I felt something crunch and I’m terrified that I’ll have a permanent limp now.”

“I am weak right now, but if you give me time to recover I will,” I promised.

“Do you mind if I stay with you until you have recovered? I don’t think I would be able to walk back to my room and then back here without a lot of pain.”

I nodded and gave the girl a gentle pat on her mending arm before closing my eyes to rest. It was going to be far, far too easy.