A Servant Lost (Alys Book #1)

Chapter 7

Alys was barely conscious when the guards dragged her back to her room, and shoved her inside the door.  Alys lay where they had left her, her face against the cold stone of the floor.

"Alys!" Esme was curled up in a ball on the other side of the room, but she crawled towards Alys as soon as the guards closed the door and left, leaving them in complete darkness.

Alys said nothing.  Esme reached her friend in the dark, and put a hand on her back.

Alys moaned, a hollow, dead sound.

Esme quickly lifted her hand, sticky and warm with Alys's blood.

"Oh God," Esme started to cry again, "What did they do to you, Alys?" 

Alys could not reply.  She took laboured breaths and tried to lay as still as she could.  It hurt to talk.  It hurt to breathe.  It hurt to move at all.

"Alys, what do I do?" Esme whimpered, "Please, I don't know what to do!"

"Dress-" Alys managed to choke out a few words, "-off."

Esme nodded in the darkness, "Okay," she slowly stood and found the flint they kept to light the torches.  In a minute, the room was filled with light from the flickering torch. 

Esme took a deep breath before looking down at Alys's back. 

The entire back of Alys's dress- or what was left of it, was soaked in blood.  Esme carefully peeled away the fabric, trying not to take off pieces of mangled skin with it.  Alys bit into her arm to stifle her cries of pain. 

"Oh God, I'm so sorry Alys. I'm so sorry. This shouldn't have happened to you."

When Esme was done removing the cloth from Alys's back, the damage could be seen much more clearly.  Ten deep gashes slit across her back, from her shoulders down to her lower back.  Esme did not have the slightest clue with how to deal with this kind of injury, and getting a healer was out of the question.

"What do I do now?" She asked Alys softly, watching Alys breath slowly.

"I just-" Alys stuttered, "-sleep."

"I know. Go to sleep. You'll feel better," Esme sighed, "I'll try to wash off some of the blood while you sleep."

Alys slowly managed to crawl into her bed, biting through the pain, and with a lot of help from Esme. 

Once she was satisfied that Alys was asleep, Esme tore off a cleaner piece of the now ruined dress and dipped it into cool water before gently placing it against Alys's damaged skin.

Alys twitched, and her face distorted into pain a bit, but she did not wake.  Esme continued to bathe the skin late into the night, until most of gashes were done bleeding, and the blood had been wiped away from the remaining skin.

Alys knew before she was fully awake that she did not want to get up.  Esme was already up and about, carefully tying up her hair as Alys looked around the room.  Alys tried to twist onto her side, and was greeted with an enormous wave of pain that swept through her entire body.  She groaned, and the night before came rushing back into her mind.

"How bad is it?"

Esme looked over, and frowned, "It's... pretty bad. Here, I'll help you get dressed."

Esme brought Alys's extra servant dress over and placed it on the bed.  Gently, she helped Alys into a sitting position.  Alys tried to lift her arms over her head to put the dress on, but any movement was unbearably painful.  It turned out to be quite the challenge getting dressed without using her arms, but the two girls managed.