Chandra didn’t exactly remember and didn’t exactly not remember her life. If she were to describe it, she would say that she was at peace with not knowing, if not exactly sure why.

It was peculiar, considering that she had just helped kill the master. She knew that peace was not an emotion she should feel right now. She didn’t know nor understand any magic, and yet something within her was quite certain that she had been twisted and manipulated with magic, and if so, they had almost certainly done a lot.

At the same time, those thoughts felt like excuses. Her real feelings were simpler, she just didn’t know quite what they were.

So she kept herself quietly in the small room which she’d been given. Although she was not under orders from the master, keeping her space clean felt like an accomplishment, so she did, and then sat quietly awaiting the lady, the guard, or the new master, whoever that should be.

Her new sleeping space was unlit, deep in the interior of the building with no windows and hardly even a crack around the door. She knew that there was a candle and a striker, but she had no need nor desire to light them. It wasn’t as though she could see in the dark; rather, the positions of things were clear to her, and seeing or not seeing them made little difference to that. So she sat, and listened intently, hoping that someone would come.

By the day’s end, there were only two visitors: her guard, Kan, had brought her a respectable servant’s dinner, one far better than she had any reason to expect; another guard had made a quick search of her cell and asked her the location of the sword. She gave an honest evasion: “I don’t know” and focused on looking quite willing to help, and he left disappointed.

And she certainly did not know where the sword was, nor how she had stashed it. She did not know or understand magic. But she had discovered some time ago that she had some.

Chandra did not allow herself to think about her past until deep into the night, when a night guard had replaced Kan outside and had, in spite of his duties, fallen asleep. To Chandra, his breathing was incredibly loud, and she kept her mind active by using the occasional wheezes and coughs to guess at his general state of health. It was clear he was nowhere near as sick as the workers in the factory, but then, this was the house of the master, and not merely the place where they took unwanted people.

Nevertheless, she wished him better health, and after a few hours, his breathing did seem to steady a bit.

The first thing she thought about, when she dared let herself think, was the stone whose power she had absorbed. More than anything else, that struck her as odd, as she understood magic not at all, and had never needed or used essences like the ones employed by the factory--unless, perhaps, those memories were simply taken from her. That led to wondering about the things that the master had done when he had bent her to his will. After all, the magic she knew she had, had not really worked well since then.

She didn’t want to go back to who she was before she met the master, but she didn’t like that something had been taken from her. And she didn’t regret disposing of the master, once he had shown signs of the taint. He would have been a danger to the lady and to the new master, but also, he would have been a danger to himself. Killing him prevented that danger to himself. She was quite pleased that she had managed that bit of twisted logic, knowing as she did that it was contrary to the bindings placed on her. Honestly, she was surprised that nobody had questioned her at the time--or worse.

Chandra breathed quietly, letting herself doze off as she sat in the middle of the floor. She needed sleep, truly, but the idea of being asleep on a bed was unappealing. Her back wouldn’t let her relax; she supposed it must have a different curve to it than humans’. So she slept there only when the master ordered it, and otherwise slept sitting up or curled up on the floor. This room had a small wooden table, and if she had not been so interested in showing faith and favor for her new masters, she would have preferred to curl up in the smaller space underneath.

An odd distinction, perhaps, when she could not see anything, but she knew what she felt.

She awoke before dawn, when the guard outside was startled by something and scrambled back into position. So long as he was awake, she could not feel comfortable, and so she allowed herself to think back to the factory, knowing that the lady would soon want to know more about the metal which the master had been producing.

Her hazy, buried instincts told her one story, but in terms of what she actually knew, it was little. The stones which the worker had dropped; how many of each type; how many he had dropped into the cauldron and how many he had held; and the type of metal he had been using. But she knew that it took more than that to make the special metal. The master would not have been searching so long for something so simple.

So she amused herself comparing what her instincts told her to what she knew. As far as she could tell, her instincts were entirely plausible, and strangely specific. She might not get to test whether or not they were correct without revealing secrets, though, and she worried about showing undue confidence in front of the lady.

After all, Chandra had been in the other place for a very long time, longer than most people who became tainted. She had been concealed beneath the workshop before the factory was built, tasked with cleaning things and distributing food rations. And before she had come to the workshop…

Chandra blanked her mind at the first sound of footsteps, and when the door opened at last, she was serenely sitting, waiting for the lady. And indeed Jani was there, with Kan and her other two guards, and she gestured for Chandra to follow. So she stood, suppressing the urge to stretch or show any sign of familiarity, and followed.

This time she was brought to a locked room, with a fluid-filled cauldron and many essence stones of many types. Chandra identified them one by one with a glance, then looked to the lady.

“Can this produce the metal that the worker made in my brother’s factory?”

“No, lady.” Chandra bowed her head. “What is here is not sufficient.”

“Not sufficient?” Jani’s eyes lit up. “What do you mean?”

“The metals, lady. The metal used was a mixture, I am certain. Heavier than copper, stiffer. I do not know exactly the formula, but they made it in large batches at the factory.”

Jani cursed a moment, then started to laugh. “My goodness, child, but my brother had no idea what he had in his hands, did he? Where did you come from? Why did you end up serving Roan?”

Chandra stopped, as several of the questions had the mental effect of being slapped, to the point that she almost missed the fact that that the lady was awaiting a response. She fought against pain and fear, with difficulty, and said simply, “I am not permitted to know, mistress.”

“Not permitted--” Jani frowned. “My brother is no longer your master. Whatever control he may have had over you, I release you from it. Serve my--serve me, and I promise to keep you safe.”

Chandra did not understand the many violent sensations in her head that followed, but found her head shaking, almost uncontrollably. “My master--the master--is not--it is not an order of the master, lady… the w-w-w.... will know.”

“The what? Who will know?” Jani was now getting visibly upset about whatever was causing Chandra's trouble, but she had no way to stop.

“The master’s wizard!” Even thinking the word, let alone breathing it, Chandra knew that she had just violated a hard restriction, and something inside her lashed back with far more intense violence than before. Moments later, Chandra realized her head didn’t seem to feel pain anymore. It rang, like it was full of noise, but the parts of her that were meant to do the thinking and feeling were out of sorts.

She stayed like that for a handful of moments, then awoke on her bed with a splitting headache, not entirely sure what had happened or how long she had been gone.