text: Death was overrated.
  
  But then, so was recovery.
  
  She had done enough of both to know.
  
  She had been mangled, mutilated, infected and left for dead before. The second time wasn't any more fun than the first. The injuries themselves were far worse this time, of course. Or perhaps she had forgotten how excruciating the infected wounds from those wily court predators had been. The mind had a habit of dampening the details of trauma over time, surfacing them only when violently triggered.
  
  Her mind processed her surroundings slowly, as if moving through treacle. Close quarters. Warm. Very dark. Cramped. She lay with her knees tucked up to her chest and her arms squeezed tightly against her sides, and there was something… pulsing and moving around her and… through her. Something slick and alive. She began to tremble violently.
  
  She kicked out. Met resistance. She was in a very small space. Kicked again. Wood. A trunk? What? She began to rip at the slimy growths sticking out of her body. As she pulled them free, she felt a great sense of both pain and relief, like yanking out a splinter or a bad tooth.
  
  More kicking. Spitting. Huffing. Then she pushed up, and the ceiling gave way. Her space filled with dim blue light. She yanked away more of the growths as she tried to sit up. They were some kind of vine. As she pulled them out, her body released pale amber streamers of ooze. Her skin closed quickly around the wounds, almost instantly. She marveled at it. How incredible.
  
  A sharp pain in her sternum made her double over. She tipped her head over the end of her enclosure – a box? a trunk? – and heaved and gagged, nauseous. Blackish vomit spattered across the floor. She clawed at her chest, at the source of the pain, and felt a cold, raised lump in the center of her core, just below her breasts. She pressed her palm against it, triggering another wave of pain. The raised mark had three curved edges and a long tail. Her body broke out in a cold sweat.
  
  She peered at the great round room. It that smelled of musty loam. Underground? Like a cairn.
  
  Disoriented, she tried to get out of the trunk, and stumbled over the lip of it. Crashed onto the floor.
  
  "What's this? Oh!" A voice. Footsteps, soft.
  
  "The fuck?" she muttered, trying to raise her head.
  
  "Hush now," a soft, airy voice.
  
  Fuzzy images: a smear of red cloth, a distorted face. The dim orange flickering of flame flies.
  
  "How did you wake me up?"
  
  "I didn't. You were a box of bones."
  
  "A what?"
  
  "You were not awakened. You were recreated. That's what she told me, anyhow. And it appears it was true."
  
  "Sounds complicated."
  
  "It was."
  
  "What's the catch?"
  
  The fuzzy image resolved itself as the figure leaned over her, showed its teeth. A little old woman with sagging jowls and loose, bare skin on her arms that hinted she had once been much more substantial. Puffy white hair crowned the skull, shot through with moss and tiny branches. Perhaps a spider. Probably lice.
  
  "The catch," the old woman said, "well, there is one, I think. You are bound to her."
  
  "Who is her?"
  
  "She isn't here. They exiled her."
  
  "I've already died a few times. Who's to say I want to live?"
  
  "Oh, I think you want to live."
  
  "Who the fuck are you?"
  
  "I am Emlee."
  
  Her sternum ached again. She gasped. Rubbed at the raised mark again; not a mark, no – there was definitely something just under her skin, inside of her, pressing against her guts. She had a sudden urge to get above ground and go… there. That direction, behind her, whatever compass direction that was. Why? But the compulsion lingered. The thing in her chest burned coldly.
  
  "You have any clothes, Emlee?"
  
  "Yes, one moment. You feel something?"
  
  "Yeah, cold."
  
  Emlee brought her trousers and tunic, all very plain and musty, full of moth holes. Her body began to ache in earnest, a painful ache, like a scratch that needed itching. There was some place she needed to be.
  
  "I have to go," she said. "Thanks."
  
  "Shoes?"
  
  She looked at her feet. Good looking feet. Clean nails. Good skin. For the first time she truly regarded her hands. Smooth skin there, too. No scars. No blemishes. That wasn't right. There was something about her hands that she could not remember… this wasn't right.
  
  "What the fuck happened to me, really?" she said.
  
  "I don't know. You'll have to ask Lilia."
  
  "Why do I know that name?"
  
  Emlee shook her head. "I don't know. She didn't tell me."
  
  Her stomach ached. "I have to go. I need to go." She ran past Emlee, following the desperate urge of her body.
  
  She sprinted past startled children and skinny, malnourished Dhai faces. What had happened here? Where the fuck was she?
  
  Up a ladder. Across a clearing. Over a narrow thorn fence. She burst into a sprint. Her body worked beneath her, free and tireless. The damp ground thumped under her bare feet and it felt good, so good, to feel the cool air against her skin, and the breath heaving through her fresh lungs. I'm alive, I'm alive! she thought. But why is that strange? Why is it so strange to be alive, as if she would be anything else?
  
  She ran and ran, compelled to go north, following a little stream. This deep in the woods, there was little light from the moons or the satellites, but she found that she could see fairly clearly. She continued on, hungry to find what compelled her, but still not tired.
  
  As she came to the edge of a milky white clearing, the itching ache across her skin and deep in her sternum began to subside. She gazed across the clearing and realized it glowed white because it was full of bones. And there, hanging from the great bony limbs of a twisted bone tree, was a body.
  
  She stepped confidently across the clearing. When the tree reached for her, she simply snapped off the branch, easily as snapping a twig. Her hand did not even hurt. It tried again. She snapped it off. Again, and again. She grinned. It was a fun game.
  
  She broke off every branch of the tree but those that held the body. Then stepped back to regard it. A lone bird sat atop the tree, just above the body, eyeing her as if she would steal its meal.
  
  "You alive?" she asked. The girl was very familiar. Twisted foot, a soft new left hand, and a forgettable face covered in shiny little scars. Was this Lilia?
  
  The body's eyes opened.
  
  "You Lilia?" she asked.
  
  The girl gave a sluggish nod. "Yes. You…" Her eyes widened. "You aren't… No."
  
  "What have you done to me?"
  
  "I don't… know?"
  
  "I was in a fucking box!"
  
  Lilia huffed and gagged. She thought the girl was having convulsions, a stroke, but no, she was laughing.
  
  "The box… it was you in the box…" Lilia said. "Oh, Oma, you think you're so funny."
  
  "Why is it…" She stopped. A thunderous understanding came over her. A tree. A mirror. This girl's scarred face. She sank to her knees. "Oh no," she said.
  
  "I didn't know," Lilia said. "I didn't know it was you in the box. You were supposed to be some great warrior."
  
  "I hope you didn't overpay."
  
  Lilia wheezed again. "Please get me down. This tree is killing me."
  
  "Why should I, after what you've done?"
  
  "Because we're bound, that's what Kalinda said. If I die, you die."
  
  "Maybe I want to die."
  
  "Do you?" Lilia huffed. Closed her eyes. "How many times do you really want to die, Zezili Hasaria?"
  
  Zezili pressed a hand to her own throbbing shoulder. A searing pain began to work its way into her back. The same places Lilia bore injuries.
  
  "I chose to die," Zezili said. "But it was under false pretenses."
  
  "So get revenge," Lilia said. "That's what I am going to do."
  
  "If I get you down from there, what's next?"
  
  "I have no idea."
  
  "What if I just want to murder everyone who wronged me?"
  
  Lilia huffed and snorted. "I can help you with that."