She could not have picked the moment when the end finally came, when the tide of her pain receded—and did not return. Consciousness came to Erika slowly, her soul creeping back to the broken husk of her body, as though fearing some trap, a trick by the queen to catch her unawares.
But when Erika finally cracked open her eyes, she found herself alone in the hull of the ship. Pain still rippled through her body when she tried to sit up, aftershocks of the queen’s magic, but for the first time since being taken captive, the raw agony had vanished.
Drawing in a breath of stale air, she sought to pull the scattered fragments of her thoughts together. Memories collided in her mind as she recalled her struggle to convince the Anahera to fight, to resist the Tangatan attack. Never could she have imagined that the noble creatures, proclaimed as Gods over humanity, could have submitted so readily.
In the end, only Farhan had resisted. Cold, uncaring, Farhan. But he had proven his love for his daughter, twisted and controlling as it was. He may have saved Cara from the Old One, but only after coming so close to condemning her, to robbing the Goddess of the wings that gave her life, freedom.
Yet, what did it matter now? Farhan was dead…as was his son Hugo, who had perished by Cara’s hands, at the hands of his own sister. A shudder shook Erika as she recalled that desperate struggle. Through the agony of her broken arm and Cara’s shattered wing, they had fought poor Hugo, Cara’s half-brother, to the death. Driven mad by the Old One, he had fought as though possessed, screaming that he was helping Cara—even as he slammed her skull against the stones.
Now he was dead, drowned in the mountain stream, his body carried away by the currents. And Erika and Cara had found themselves a fresh prison, a new tormentor in the form of the Flumeeren Queen. How Amina had come to take the lands of the Gemaho, Erika could not comprehend, but it hardly seemed to matter now. They had fallen into her clutches, been conquered by her magic. There would be no escape now.
Erika still wasn’t sure why she was even alive. The queen wanted the magic gauntlet Erika wore, but why not prise it from her corpse? Why go through the hassle of torture, of the demands for Erika to remove it? Unless…the magic could not be taken against her will. Erika hadn’t considered that possibility, but now she wondered…
The squeal of hinges drew Erika’s attention to the boards above her head and she flinched as a ray of light swept the gloom beneath the deck, illuminating stairs leading up to a trap door. Feet descended, followed by the queen herself.
Erika’s heart raced as she watched the woman’s approach, but there was nowhere to hide in the hold. She shrank into a corner, as though if only she could make herself small enough, she might avoid the queen’s wrath. But there was little hope of that, and balling her fist, she tried desperately to reach for the power of her gauntlet.
Pain seared through her wrist as the broken bones grated together, still mending from the injury she had taken in the mountains. Despite the pain, a brief flickering of light appeared in the links of her gauntlet, but it quickly died, as Erika’s energies flagged. She couldn’t remember the last meal she’d taken—even before their capture, she and Cara had barely scavenged enough from the land to stave off starvation. Without fresh strength to feed the gauntlet, its power was useless to her.
A smile crossed the queen’s thin lips as she watched Erika’s pathetic attempt at resistance. Then she raised her own gauntleted hand and squeezed it into a fist. Light burst from the metallic links, so bright it was nearly blinding. Erika flinched from the display of power, her own mind withering at the pain it promised, the agony that would follow. A moan drew from the depths of her throat as half-mad, she turned and clawed at the boards of the ship.
Erika herself had once used that same power to dominate friends and enemies alike—to strike down Cara and the Tangata, even Farhan, the leader of the Anahera. Now she found herself on the receiving end…she could barely hold onto her own sanity.
“So my Archivist awakes,” the queen murmured, raising her burning fist.
The woman was dressed for war, with heavy chainmail draped across her lithe frame, a helm with a golden circlet set in the brow carried beneath her free hand. A sword hung from her side, though with the power of the ancient gauntlet, this woman had no need for such a primitive weapon.
Erika shrank farther into her corner at the woman’s voice, tears springing to her eyes. She could already feel the onset of the pain, the return of the madness. Those Erika had tortured with her own gauntlet had perished quickly, their insides torn apart by her magic. But Queen Amina had obviously spent time refining her power, learned such control that she could torture Erika for hours without her victim succumbing to the silent embrace of death.
A sob tore from Erika’s throat as she shook her head, scrunching her eyes closed. Somehow, now she had regained her sanity, had escaped the pain for even a few hours, the thought of its return…
Laughter rasped in her ears and a brilliant light seared at Erika’s eyelids, as though the queen were gathering even more power. But then the light faded and footsteps approached. Another tremor shook Erika as she clenched her fists, struggling to keep from screaming.
“Such bravery,” the queen’s voice whispered from close by.
Cracking open her eyes, Erika found the queen crouched alongside her. The woman’s emerald eyes
