She drew in a breath. “Then you appeared. Dressed in silk, with your hair kept long, tied back for riding, clean and tidy and elegant…I was entranced.”
Erika felt her cheeks grew warm and she shook her head. “I was an arrogant fool,” she said, recalling the day she’d arrived in Fogmore. “I thought I was better than everyone in that place, even Romaine, a man with ten times my courage.”
“A man who believed in you,” Erika insisted. “You might not be a warrior, but you have just as much courage as Romaine. You’ve proven it every day since we stepped into my mountains, in the way you faced my father and the Anahera, the way you stood against the Old One and her Tangata. Even on the ship with Amina. You are elegant and glorious and strong, Erika, everything your people need.”
“My people are dead,” Erika whispered. “I failed them long ago.”
“Your people are every human who does not wish to be enslaved by Maya or my sister, every man and woman who resists their tyranny. Forget your petty kingdoms—they don’t matter, they have never mattered. Even the differences between human and Tangata and Anahera are nothing. In this world, there are only the free, and the enslaved now, Erika.”
Swallowing, Erika looked at the Goddess, wondering at the change in her friend. Just a short time ago, Cara had been in despair, defeated by her sister, crushed by the death of her brother and father, the enslavement of her people. Something had given her hope, but surely it could not have been Erika?
She shivered, unable to meet the Anahera’s eyes. Looking at her hands again, she clenched her fists, watched the shimmer that lit the gauntlet. It was the artefact’s magic that had gotten her this far, that allowed her to do the impossible things Cara spoke of. She was no leader, no princess as she had once claimed to Romaine. That was why he’d followed her. It was not her own reputation, but her dead father the king that Romaine had believed in. Her father had led Calafe to glory, before betrayal had cast him down.
She could not be that leader, could she?
A shiver shook Erika as she recalled the vow she had sworn the day Romaine had fallen. She had promised to return to Flumeer and help her people, the Calafe refugees that had been condemned by the queen’s cruelty. An impossible task, surely, and yet…
…on her last visit to Mildeth, there had been thousands camped outside the city walls. Her people all, the last remnants of the fallen Calafe. Impoverished and homeless they might be, but they were Calafe still, proud and unbroken, trained as youth to survive, to fend for themselves, even to wield a blade. Could they form the beginnings of a resistance against the mad queen?
A shiver ran down Erika’s spine as she stood suddenly, looking at Cara. A grin spread across the Anahera’s lips as she rose beside her.
“You have a plan?”
Erika swallowed. “The beginnings of one.”
20
The Sovereign
Lukys paced the floor of the royal chamber, his footsteps echoing up through the overlooking rows of empty chairs. The nobles of Mildeth had almost to a man marched south with the queen, while those who remained had been imprisoned once the Perfugian forces had entered the citadel. Zayaan had been helpful in identifying those likely to keep their loyalty to Amina, and those who might be persuaded to the Perfugian cause.
For now though, Lukys had other concerns on his mind.
How many days will it take for your people to reach the city? he asked, glancing at Sophia.
She stood fixed in place while he paced, but Lukys could sense the same fear within her, the same doubts. Everything had changed with the news from the south, and now it seemed the weight of the world fell upon their shoulders. Neither had been prepared for such a burden, not yet. Abruptly he crossed to where Sophia waited and drew her into a hug.
A shudder wracked them as they stood alone on the floor of the giant chamber. Less than a week had passed since their bloodless conquest of the city, and they’d hardly had a moment of peace since. Their time had been consumed organising the city’s defences, with their first act inviting the Calafe refugees into the city.
Zayaan had argued against it, claiming the presence of the so-called barbarians would disturb the fragile peace in Mildeth and turn the people against them, but Lukys had not forgotten his old mentor Romaine. The last warrior of the Calafe had been the only who had believed in him back in Fogmore. No one had heard a word of Romaine in weeks, but Lukys would not abandon the man’s people when the Tangata came.
And come they would.
Word had reached the city in the night, carried on the lips of the first refugees—the Tangata had crossed the Illmoor. Amina’s forces had waged a great battle for the river, but in the end her fleet had been destroyed and they had been forced to retreat. General Curtis, the man who had commanded the southern defensive for nigh on a decade, was said to have fallen defending the walls of Fogmore, and a sizeable chunk of the Flumeeren army with him.
For the first time in living memory, the Tangata had gained a foothold north of the Illmoor. And it did not look like they would stop there.
Somehow, Queen Amina had survived the conflict. Riding a white stallion, she had led a charge against the enemy in a replica of her efforts so many years before. This time though, the charge had failed, faltering as the winged Anahera came against her forces. Witnessing the Gods themselves turn against humanity had sown chaos amongst the Flumeeren ranks, and the last resistance had finally crumbled, turning the battle into a full-blown rout.
The news of the Gods betrayal had turned Lukys’s blood cold,
