Queen Celene – Optimus Unit Prison, Cell Level C

      I stared at the wall, trying, once more, to use my power.

      Nothing. I’d been too long from the citadel, the bond grown too weak to use as I once had.

      The last time I’d truly used my gift, it had saved my life. It had often felt like yesterday when I’d had to flee, but now… it felt like a lifetime ago.

      I needed to return to the citadel. Reconnect. Become strong, as I was long ago. My daughters needed me. Alera needed their queen. First, I needed to escape.

      The cleric bitch who’d threatened my daughters was gone. Had been for days. I had no idea if she were dead or alive. I’d been well-treated since then, strangely so considering the misery when I’d first been taken. Not that it mattered. I had to get out of here. Time was ticking in my mind like the countdown on a bomb.

      Something had changed, something significant. The moment that cleric had murdered the guard I thought of as Scarface, everything had shifted.

      My clothes were warmer.

      There had been no more beatings. Before that even, if I thought about it, but it was as if I’d gone from a cruel gulag to the Four Seasons, by comparison.

      I had shoes and thick socks to keep my feet warm and an extra blanket on my bed.

      I wasn’t hungry, either. I’d given in and eaten everything they brought me, which had been not only delicious, but nutritious as well. Fattening me up for the slaughter, perhaps? No. If they wanted to kill me with poison, it would have happened long ago. Besides, they didn’t need to resort to such devious means to commit murder. If they wanted me dead, they could slit my throat and dump my body in the Western Sea. It was only a few hours away by EV, and the creatures that lurked beneath the waves on Alera were much more aggressive than the peaceful sharks on Earth. They were true predators. Piranha-like monsters the size of small boats, some of them with teeth longer than my arms.

      Dead or alive, I’d be fish food in a matter of minutes. Seconds, even.

      I’d been moved three times in the last two days, so when the door opened and I saw the two young guards holding handcuffs, I wasn’t surprised. Their words, however, shocked me.

      “Greetings,