Page 11 of Our Lady of War

“Stop!” she shouted. “I’ll do it! Just leave him alone!”

“Athania?” It was barely a whisper, coming from somewhere off to the side, but she’d know that voice anywhere. Her head whipped around to find him. Igor. Her lips parted, and her stomach lurched again when she saw him, hands bound behind his back and a canvas bag over his head, soaked in blood where his nose and mouth should be, and a stain crawling outward from where the side of his head was concealed.

Before she could register how to make her body move or her mouth form words, the commander was upon her. “I told you I’d bring you to him, wolf.” He clasped his hand around her amulet. “It is a shame you are my wolf now.”

Athania let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a scream. Using the men holding her as a catapult to lift her legs, she kicked at the commander’s chest so hard he stumbled backward a step, her amulet breaking off into his hand and the chain slicing the back of her neck. The commander righted himself and launched forward, slapping her so hard that her vision became a series of star bursts. “Enough!” he growled.

“What are you doing to her!” Igor shouted, struggling against his bindings. “Leave her alone!”

The Hawthrin commander had lost all semblance of sanity. A shroud of pure, unadulterated malevolence passed over his face as he stared at Athania. She saw in his eyes what he would do half an instant before he spun. There was no time to shout. There was no time to warn.

The commander’s long sword sliced clean through Igor’s neck, his head tumbling from his shoulders, still wrapped in a sack that was quickly turning more red than tan.

Athania screamed, and everything went dark.

Chapter

Four

When she awoke, Athania was bound and sitting in a scratchy pile of hay. Her stomach was horribly queasy, and it was too dark to see much of anything. She could just make out a few other forms in the space. Calming her mind, she listened, making out the sound of waves crashing against a hull right next to her head and the soft cry of a woman, as well as distant shouts and stomping above her. She was in the cargo hold of a Hawthrin ship with what she could only assume were other Orfordian prisoners.

Frustration clawed at her insides. This would be the prime time to learn how to wield the witch magic Asteria had bartered for her. She had no quill, either. It would probably be lost to history if she did not find a way to return and retrieve it. But all that would have to come later.

She would not panic. Mortal in most ways or not, she had been a goddess.

By any means necessary, she would escape Hawthrin’s hold and find—

The memory of Igor’s head toppling from his shoulders, the blood soaking into his tunic before his lifeless body crumpled to the floor… It all crashed into her like the waves against the ship, a torrent of remembrance that unconsciousness had almost erased.

Athania retched into the hay.

She felt a hand come to her back, rubbing a small circle, the touch cold through the fabric of her tattered gown. “Are you all right?” a small voice said, and Athania’s heart sank further.

“Millicent?” She turned, wiping vomit from her mouth with her sleeve. “No…”

The young woman attempted a smile, her face smudged by the darkness of the compartment. Still, Athania thought she could make out the marring of cuts and bruises there as well. “How many did they take?” she asked the sweet maid.

“I’ve no idea. There were at least a dozen ships.”

And they had all most likely taken prisoners aboard.

“Y–you’re to be taken out of this compartment soon,” Millicent whispered. “I heard them speaking earlier. I haven’t heard their tongue since I was a very little girl with my grandmother, but I believe they said you’re to be taken to the commander’s cabin.”

Athania’s stomach roiled anew, remembering more of the unfolding events. Igor was gone, and she was to be owned by his murderer.

No.

She was no mouse. She was the Wolf of War.

Athania rose to her feet, attempting to keep her balance when the ship lurched to one side. Chin high, she forced her shoulders back and pulled her young friend up. “Millicent, listen to me very carefully. Do not let them break you.” The maid’s lip began to wobble as she set to wringing her hands. “We likely have many days on this ship that we must endure by any means necessary. Once we are in Hawthrin, we will find a way to escape.”

Millicent nodded, but broken sobs began hiccuping out of her. Athania’s eyes had finally adjusted to the dark, and she watched the girl with something akin to envy. Grief was a luxury not afforded to those accustomed to leadership—a life she thought she’d left behind.

Athania opened her mouth to comfort the girl, but keys rattled outside the compartment’s door. Rusty hinges creaked, and watery light filtered in. An overcast sky backlit the two men into nothing more than bulky shadows looking down on the battered women.

“We’re here for the commander’s wolf,” one of them barked in broken Orfordian.

In that instant, something slick and foul slithered up Athania’s spine, and she nearly smiled. The commander’s wolf. Let the prophet be heard, she thought to herself and walked toward the ladder. One of the men bent to help haul her up, but she smacked his hand away, and they both snickered, one muttering something about no wonder the commander wanted you.