Read Online Regeneration by Stephanie Saulter - Free Book Online Page A

and her temper, an odd fragility that Aryel had never seen in her before. Maybe it was just the grinding-down of illness and the stark reality of age, the soul-crushing bitterness of defeat and incarceration, but perhaps there was something else as well.
    She thought back through the conversation, replaying bits of it in her head, and something Zavcka had said at the beginning came back to her. “‘After all this time,’” she quoted. “Does that bother you, Zavcka? I did ask to visit, when you were first sent here. You wouldn’t allow it then.”
    “I’d had enough of you at the trial. I couldn’t imagine what else you wanted, except to gloat.”
    “You know that’s not my style.”
    Zavcka shifted uncomfortably. “Whatever. I didn’t want to, and it’s not like you kept on asking.”
    “You’d made your feelings clear, and I had other things to deal with. But send a message if you ever want me to come again.”
    “You’re too kind.”
    “Sneering really doesn’t become you, you know. And I didn’t say it was a kindness. It is what it is.” Aryel pushed herself to her feet. “Eli would also like to talk to you, by the way. When you get out.”
    “Oh, would he?”
    She ignored the sarcasm. “He’s mapping attitudinal changes in the post-Syndrome era and you’ve been alive for most of it. Your recollections would be very helpful for his research.” The corner of her mouth kinked up in a wry smile. “He’s not confident you’ll say yes.”
    “Very wise of him.”
    “But he’s going to put the request in anyway.” Aryel went to the door and rapped her knuckles against it sharply. “Maybe you’ll change your mind. It’d give you something to do, since you’ll be so idle.”
    Zavcka Klist sat for a time after Aryel left. A keen observer might have noticed that she began again to play with her hands: rubbing the fingers together, worrying at the nails, as if distractedly delaying for as long as possible the moment when she would have to get up and quit the bare little interview room for a space even less inviting. They would have thought no more of it than that.
    In fact she was noticing the network of tiny lines that she was sure had not been there a few years ago: the topography of veins and tendons on once-smooth skin, a faint scattering of spots, knuckles that looked more prominent than before. Her hands, like her face, like her voice and every other part of her, were beginning to show their age.
    This is happening. It’s really happening, and there is nothing I can do.
    Despair and fear washed over her, along with an old, worn-out anger. She thought of Ellyn and the hope that had once resided there; of the child she had never seen. She would have given anything for a picture—just a glimpse—to tell her whether the image in her mind’s eye reflected reality. Her eyes were hot and swollen with unshed tears.
    The need to know was so intense that she found herself paralyzed by it, unable to catch her breath as though it were a physical pain. She’d anticipated this moment when the request for the meeting had come through; had almost refused it out of hand. She hadn’t been sure she could bear the presence of Aryel Morningstar, ascendant,serene and self-possessed. The absence of spite, the lack of acrimony, was almost the most infuriating thing about her, second only to the resolve that Zavcka knew no threat, bribe, or promise could shake.
    Aryel was never going to tell her anything; she would never offer her a crumb of comfort. She would never understand, or pretend to sympathize—and yet Aryel had come to her, and had offered to come again.
    What was the fucking point?
    Zavcka’s rage crested and broke on the thought, then receded, revealing a landscape that she had, in her anger and self-pity, failed to notice. She felt her own sharp intake of breath, an easing of the tightness in her chest as she began to pick out the shapes and shadows of a bigger picture.
    Aryel Morningstar did