The Sorceress Remakes Her Soul

Prologue

Yahzen; Federation Year 4534

The guards came to get her at noon.

Mira had already been awake for a few hours. Her breakfast of gruel, fruit, and eggs had been delivered as promptly as ever. She ate it at her desk with the same contemplation she had afforded her morning meal for the past ten years.

Unlike other mornings, however, she did not pen letters.

Nor did she engage in athletic activity as allowed in the confines of her room, unless one counted vigorous stretching to get her blood flowing and to prevent listlessness.

Instead, Mira waited patiently behind her door, occasionally peering through the peephole until she saw someone else on the other side.

The guards slid open her door without announcement—as they always did.

“Mira Dunsman.” The older guard, one of the only full julah in her wing, stood with his back straight, shoulders up, and eyes boring into hers.

His Yahzenian Defense Force uniform was decorated with commendations from his centuries of service and marked him as one of the highest-ranking guards in the compound, only two steps below the warden herself.

“Today, in the fourth month of the Federation Year, 4534, you are released according to the agreement with…”

Mira wasn’t listening. She had tuned the guard out when he said her name, honestly.

As if I don’t know what year it is.

They supervised her gathering any personal items she brought with her, including her diary, leftover stationery, and two stuffed dolls her mother had brought to “keep her company.”

Much to my mother’s horror, these were disemboweled before sewn back up.

One could not tell, of course. For someone like Mira, only the best inspections were afforded.

Her parents were two of the most powerful people on Yahzen, and their daughter’s presence here was a courtesy to the government. Mostly to my father’s career.

With a nondescript knapsack filled and hanging from her back, Mira followed the guards out of her room. She did not look back.

One would think that she was excited to be a free woman.

The past decade had been dreadfully dull, after all, with only nine other inmates to call her friends.

Mira had been the “baby” when she arrived, both in age and newness to the low-security female prison, and she was the first to leave in her tenure there.

Yet she got along with the other women fairly well during the two hours a day she had to socialize with them.

Tucked in her diary were some notes they had passed her the day before, asking her to remember them when she was a free woman.

But what was “free,” anyway? Living beyond the prison’s walls?

The guard behind her grunted to keep moving when they reached the visitors’ area. What could Mira say? She was stunned at the sight of her mother, the venerable Lady Joiya Dunsman, who commanded a room despite her short stature and penchant for understated garments.

“Darling.” Joiya greeted her daughter from the other side of a large table.

Joining her was Warden Cari Mopah, a taciturn woman who didn’t rule with an iron fist as much as she observed and reacted accordingly.

She had laid out firm rules to Mira when she arrived, of course, but Mira had been a model inmate for her ten-year tenure at the prison.

We were all model inmates. Women who had committed Yahzenian crimes that required prison time but hardly posed a risk to each other or the public at large.

Crimes of passion. Financial crimes. Fraud and deceit that had harmed others enough to be sent to criminal court and made an example of.

I fall into none of those categories. Yet here Mira was, negotiating the terms of her release as if they hadn’t been figured out a year ago.

Did she have a lawyer? No. Well, her mother was her lawyer.

Because of course the studious and perfect Lady Joiya had dedicated herself to both Yahzenian and Federation law when her daughter was in trouble.

Joiya was not a lawyer by profession, but she knew enough to represent her daughter’s interests.

Besides, the fewer people who knew about this, the better.

Even the other inmates had been sworn to unbreakable blood oaths to never mention to anyone else that Mira Dunsman had been there.

“Ma,” Mira said, softer than intended.

The head guard joined her side of the table. The other guard manned the door. Mira’s knapsack dangled from the back of her chair.

“Well,” Warden Mopah said as she flipped open a folder with one hand and turned on a holographic clipboard with another.

The physical files contained Mira’s confidential information, while the clipboard sported rules and terms based on Yahzenian law.

“Congratulations on completing your sentence, Young Lady Dunsman. You must be excited to leave our little palace.”

“I’ve had almost all of the fresh air and mental stimulation I could want here,” she mused. “With lots of thanks to my mother.” Before Joiya could get too excited, though, her daughter amended, “And my father. He’s the real reason I got such a cozy cell.”

Joiya’s smile fell. Warden Mopah chuckled. By now, she was used to Mira’s dry humor.

“Due to the secretive nature of your incarceration,” she began, “we must go over once more the terms of your ongoing probation and your rejoining of public society. Thanks to your parents’ fabulous negotiation skills with the victim’s family,

the public believes that you’ve been in a monastery for the past ten years, correct? You must have your story straight.”

“Yes,” Mira said while maintaining eye contact with her mother.

We look so much alike, it’s absolutely uncanny.

The same deep brown skin. The same black hair.

And the same amber eyes, of course. The only way Mira looked like her father’s family was in her height.

Even then, I’m almost the tallest woman in this building.

Warden Mopah was a few inches shorter than her.

Most of the inmates were as well. Only one of the guards, a hybrid woman with great power in telekinesis, was taller than Mira.

“My mother and I have concocted quite the story.”

“And with my connections in the monastery, nobody will question whether she was actually there,” Joiya assured. “Not that they’ll say much. It’s a silent convent, after all.”

The warden wished to move on. “The first stipulation of your probation states that you are still forbidden from practicing sorcery for the next five years. You will maintain the tattoo on any part of your body that suits you, as administered by me before you depart today. Now,

would you like to have your tattoo relocated from the back of your hand to elsewhere?”

Mira shrugged. “Suppose it’s easier to explain if nobody can see my tattoo. How about the inside of my thigh, Warden?”

“Mira,” Joiya chastised, lest her daughter take the inappropriate flirting to another level.

Yet Warden Mopah contained another amused snicker as she wrote something in the paper file. “If that is what you desire. Usually, I recommend somewhere people you don’t want knowing about it won’t see it. The inside of the thigh is an excellent location.”

“Actually, I’m fine with it on my hand.” Mira gazed down at it now—a large, black circle. “Is it possible to get a different design, though? Make it fashionable. Like on purpose.”

“That should be fine. We’ll discuss designs later. Now…” The warden glanced between everyone at the table. “Where were we?”

It was a short list of stipulations, but Mira could hardly stand sitting through them for the next ten minutes.

I can’t use sorcery, meaning I can’t really work.

I definitely can’t teleport. Void, she hadn’t teleported in ten years.

Did she even remember how? If I want to travel anywhere, it must be via physical transport, or I have to hitch a ride with another julah.

Was Mira to rely on her mother like she was a small child again?

Holding her skirt and closing my eyes because instant teleportation was scary?

Occasionally, a child died that way. They let go too soon, or their caretaker wasn’t paying enough attention.

Adults were easier. They knew what was at stake.

Mira had resigned from her former profession in the Temple.

She was no longer a priestess, and she could no longer hold any position in the High Temple of Garlahza.

Unlike her mother, who was still Keeper of the Void, the most prestigious position any female julah could attain.

And my father… Well, Mira would rather not think about him.

The government assumed she would return to her natal home on Dunsman Estate, but Joiya had already arranged for Mira’s probation to be at Lerenan Estate, where Mira’s maternal grandmother would be responsible for her.

Yet Joiya already had a plan in place. Not only was she taking complete responsibility for Mira’s probationary period, but they would be embarking on a penance pilgrimage together after a short respite at Lerenan Estate,

where they would head as soon as Mira was officially released from government custody.

Mira didn’t have any opinion about it. Honestly, she had agreed to keep her mother happy.

Why do I care about human-style travel and seeing the universe in the most inefficient way possible?

That was more her mother’s thing. Joiya was connected to all humanity in some manner that her daughter did not understand.

And to think, I had all this time to try.

When the meeting concluded, Mira stood with the warden and discussed the sorcery-suppressing tattoo on her hand.

It was the same strength as the one she wore while an initiate at the Academy, but the circle made it clear that she was connected to the prison.

When she could decide her own design to pass off as a standard tattoo, marking a new start in her life?

She went with a simple butterfly on the inside of her forearm.

Her mother complimented the warden’s tattooing skills, and everyone was reminded again that Warden Mopah had learned how to do it as an advanced student at the Academy.

Joiya always thought this story delightful, since she also used to take off and reapply suppression tattoos at the Academy.

What a weird thing to bond over.

Mira’s first breath of fresh air as a “free” woman came when the warden escorted them to the front courtyard.

For the past ten years, Mira had heard the local fauna and watched the flora bloom as the seasons turned.

Now she heard them again, with a helping of sunlight beaming directly into her face.

Her eyes took a moment to adjust. She almost didn’t see her mother reaching to wrap an arm around hers.

“I brought this.” Joiya revealed one of Mira’s precious possessions: a necklace with a light green zatbah-stone pendant.

I was wearing it the day I was arrested.

A gift from her mother when Mira was initiated as a full-fledged priestess.

Joiya had taken it before Mira reported for her ten years in prison.

To see it again was like wearing an old friend around her neck.

“I have waited and prayed for this day,” Joiya said, eyes watering. “I’m so sorry, my heart. Had I done a better job protecting you… if I had known…”

Mira looked away toward the woods with her hand on the pendant as her mother softly sobbed for a few seconds. “It is what it is,” Mira said. “I still have my whole life ahead of me. Guess it’s time to figure out what to do with it.”

Joiya wiped her eyes. “We’ll discuss it when we begin our journey. For now, home.”

Mira halted her mother. “Wait,” she said. “One last look.”

As her mother silently waited, Mira stood in the middle of the dirt road leading to the front gates of the prison.

Nestled deep in the nearby woods of Garlahza, the spiritual city of Yahzen, Mira had taken to enjoying the way the clouds amassed in the sky and how the evergreen trees swayed so close to the mountains.

She closed her eyes and felt the breeze on her face.

It was stronger here than it had been in her cell with its open window or in the courtyard where she and the other inmates were allowed fresh air.

Almost too strong, really. She rather preferred how it kissed her cheek when she sat on a bench with a fellow inmate that she had become close to over those past ten years.

“Mira!”

There it was.

Both Mira and her mother turned toward the source of the voice. Hanging from the second-floor window of the prison was a woman with long blond hair and a powder blue tunic. She waved with such vigor that Joiya expressed worry that she might fall out of her cell window.

“Farewell! Take care!” The woman had to cup her hands around her mouth to project her voice without sorcery. “Think of me, would you? Promise to write!”

“Friend of yours?” Joiya quipped when a guard pulled the inmate back into her cell.

Someone who made this place a little bearable. “A friend, as you said.”

“A friend, or something else?”

“Ma, come on. I’ve been out of prison for ten minutes, and you’re on about my love life.”

Joiya giggled. “Because I know you! You get it from your father, you know. The ability to charm any woman, in any situation.”

“Please. There were like nine other inmates the entire time I was there, and most of them were way too old for me. Gemma was…”

“Gemma, huh? What a lovely name. Wasn’t there a Gemma who…?”

“Who defrauded three generations of humans over a fake parcel of land on her family’s estate? Yes. That’s her. Gemma Qudoh.”

“Oh, my. Well, at least she’s pretty.”

Her mother was still giggling. Mira was afraid to ask. “What?”

“You have such a thing for blondes. They always give you the most trouble.”

Mira marched ahead, as if they had anywhere to go besides teleporting to Lerenan Estate. While the dirt road did eventually lead to Garlahza, it would take nearly half a day’s walk to reach it, and Mira wasn’t about to do that with her mother around.

“Are you denying it, my heart?”

Mira yelled over her shoulder. “I get that from you, by the way! The woman who married the blondest blond on Yahzen!”

“I could make a joke about a patriarchal complex, you know!”

“Oh, just take me to the land of dark hair, already! I’ll at least fit in!”

Her mother took her by the arm. The next thing Mira knew, she embraced the late afternoon of Lerenan Estate, where her grandmother had already darted out of the manor.

Mira might as well listen to the birds here. It would be the last bit of peace she had for a long while. Take me back to prison. At least nobody expected anything of her there.

At least she had all the time in the world to plot the rest of her life.