In the Midst of Battle, 9 Autumn 218
The Hull of the Long Winter
Booming, rattling — the splintering of wood, the shouting of guards as they rush away to the top deck. There is a brief, nerve-wracking lull in the sound of cannon fire before the hull violently shakes with a round of new fire, and there is cracking of wood before a sharp whine of metal wrenching as the corner of Danica’s cell bends from the damage.
Danica slams back into the wall of her cell with a cry as the ship pitches violently, falling to her knees to keep from sprawling across the floor.
She quickly tries to right herself, sucking in several painful, bracing breaths through clenched teeth. Long tresses of blonde hair hang limp across her face, clinging to the sweat on her brow above darkened eyes.
Yet with each inhale the chaos about her seems to still.
She closes her eyes and furrows her brow, focusing all of her attention as she draws the energy of her magic through the fog of golden tincture.
She shudders at the strain, pulling fruitlessly at faint, ephemeral traces of her magic as each slips frustratingly from her grasp.
Tears streak through the dirt on her face, and for a moment she hangs her head, gasping for an unburdened breath, before steeling herself and beginning anew.
Slowly… impossibly… The ropes of her binding begin to smoke and smolder, and the layers of her glamour begin to flake and peel away as though ashes from a fire, as shimmering sunset hair shines about her face and shoulders
as moonlight skin beams into the musty darkness of her cell, golden constellations shining across her back, her shoulder, her hand, her forehead…
and when she opens her eyes, one gleams golden… and the other is a void of star-filled darkness with a simmering silver iris, pale as the shattered moon,
yet each eye burns with determination as she looks to the warped and bent corner of her cell and sees only… opportunity.
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