She startled awake to the tortuous sound of a ghostly wail. The winds of brine that assailed her howled through the grates of the main deck and whistled through the hold. The gale jerked her body, rattling the brittle chains that bound her. Raw, pink and bloody flesh beneath her manacles tore open once more, wrought by the jagged iron. The physical reminder of the chains around her broken ankles, wrists and wings woke her fully, eliciting an intense groan of pain.

Unbidden through the haze of misery, her memories retold her of the events leading to her current predicament. She’d been abducted in the chaos of battle.

She'd been hiding below-deck when the Eyrie had been boarded. Two full contingents had raided her fathers ship during the clash. She had stayed hidden as long as she could, shying away from the clamour of steel echoing directly above.

As the sounds of battle reverberated, panic set in. In fear of being found by the people fighting overhead, she ran from her hiding place, to hide in one of the many supply crates. She thought that by hiding amongst the storage, she'd be far less likely to be discovered.

She'd been found the moment she moved, a small group of raiders spotting her. She noticed too late that the panic and distorted sounds overhead had tricked her senses.

They had immediately grabbed her, knocking her out before she could react.

She took deep gasping breaths between an onslaught of sobs, brought on by courtesy of her traitorous memory.

She wished that she could have stayed a while in that befuddled state of confusion and fog that slumber usually provides. The steady process of mind relinquishing the comforting blanket of sleep. She began to reminisce that old way of waking, drifting back into a dissociative state, happy to take any distraction from her pain and delve into the dark recesses of her mind.

The wind nudged her wounded body and chains once again, snapping her back into the present through her suffering. Helplessly, she began to think back on her situation. She didn’t understand why she’d been taken.

“Why me?” she had screamed at the world in frustration when they’d first placed her in here. She had never done anything to these people, she’d lived peacefully in the village with her grandparents at the base of the mountains. She’d only ever been restricted in her freedom when the rare Pyrryn Justiciar or Inquisitor patrolled the village. It was only when they began to assault her typically unfrequented, remote 'home' that she had to leave to stay with her father.

Of course, in reality she understood why she'd been taken. Her abduction was a way to impede her father. She didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, this had nothing to do with her. But he was the Arch-Magister of ‘our people’s’ navy and supposedly the foremost commander of the seas, at least according to the fawning deck hands.

The thought made her scoff, the effort exacerbating the splitting headache caused by her pain.

She felt resentment for her father and his people for her circumstances. Her supposed ‘people’ had shunned her for the entirety of her memory. They made paltry attempts at including her when her grandparents were around, but she saw the looks they gave her, the distance they kept for the small twisting horns protruding from her scalp, the silver eyes and her growing silver and red wings. The only similarities were the long and wavy ruby red hair, though with a single white streak, the pointed ears and golden complexion. Similar, but not the same. Never the same. As she was reminded on the daily, through those looks they thought she didn’t notice, and that ever present cold politeness they presented her with.

If she wasn’t her father’s daughter, she wouldn’t be in this situation. She wouldn’t be half his people, half other. She wouldn’t feel so alone.

Most importantly, he wouldn’t have broken his promise to always protect her.

She felt tears well in her sore eyes once more. She thought back to the day he’d told her about her new home, how she was staying with him where he would keep her safe. With strict rules of-course, but at least she’d gotten to know him, to have her father.

“Well, thinking about that won’t help me now," she muttered dejectedly under her breath, slumping in her chains despite the injury it would cause. She wheezed as she began to weep.

In contrast to her relentless pain, the whisper of wind that now slipped through the grates to greet her was soothing. The breeze on her skin was a tender kiss. She felt a pang in that moment, a longing for something she’d never had, but couldn’t help but feel would be the same.

A mother had never been someone she’d had the blessing of knowing. She knew she had one, but her father refused to talk on the subject, no matter how many times she asked or dreamed, no matter how many cute faces she made to extort it out of him in their private moments, chatting away in his cabins. She smiled a fond smile, though fragile, at the resurgent memory of her antics. So long ago it felt in this moment.

Despite their current issues, she was grateful for the change in thoughts her guardian had given her, the gust bringing a comforting balm for the burning ache in her heart, a reminder of the love she had for her farther.

The wind had always been her constant companion. Her guide and protector. If she was leaning on the rails to get a better view of whatever sea creature she had spotted, far from her father’s watchful eye, a gentle but firm gale would keep her from falling. If one of the deck hands looked at her in a peculiar manner, he’d find himself abruptly stumbling. When she felt lonely, the sonorous song of the howling seas would play for her. In every step she made, in every breath she took, in every memory, the wind had been with her.

Her hazy brain rapidly caught up to her in that moment, reminded of exactly what issues she had with her patron. She’d only felt that soothing balm twice in her memory, that calm kindness from the usually flamboyant and boisterous wind, her partner in crime and stalwart protector. Once on the night she first realised she’d never meet her mother, the second being the day she was taken, moments before it had happened. Both times, the balm was the only thing to hold onto in the waves of suffering to come. Once again, she was faced with that soothing premonition. That sickly sweet kindness before the sting. One last touch of mercy before pain and grief strikes.

She turned ice-cold, reverie forgotten as she heard the tell-tale creak and thud of boots upon the worn planks.

As he entered the room, the bones of the ship creaked and groaned onerously. He sweat heavily, his greying red hair matted along the sides of his equally red and rather grim face. “Girl”, the sneering Magister of this ship snarled at me, “you’re going to have to pay the price for your fathers insolence!”, he rasped at me, “seven of his majesties ships destroyed with the help of that wretched wind magic and his fanatics, that’s nearly a quarter of our remaining fleet!”.

His agitated pacing took him back and forth through the darkening beams of storm light from above on the main deck. She shook quietly in her chains, her shoulders caving in on themselves as much as they could to avoid his shouting, to make herself as small as possible.

Anything to get his attention off of her.

“We’ve had to push further out to sea, closer to the storm wall to skirt his remaining armada,” he turned abruptly toward me, “To stop him from finding you! Look at me girl, look me in the eyes!” he shrieked in an approximation of the wailing wind outside, “It’s your father and that bastard Queen’s fault this has all happened! My people are dying! My family died because of your fathers efforts!”, he screamed at me, tears in his eyes,” Why couldn’t you all just rot on your pest-ridden island!”.

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She locked eyes with the man in his rage, face covered in spittle from his tirade, as she wracked her memory to understand what he was alluding too. Her only memories were of the stories of attacks his people had committed on her homeland, the shallow cheeks of rationing village children and hurried whispers of rural folk.

It had gotten far worse in the last few cycles of the four moons. The heavy tributes of food and gold, the raids and patrols. It was the reason she had to leave her grandparents last cycle and live on the ship with her father. The reason she was in this situation now.

He growled suddenly and punched the wall next to him as she shrank down, “I should have taken the risk and just ignored orders”, he whined bitterly, “I could’ve gotten a small ship and sailed with them far from here”. He paused, taking a deep breath and collecting himself for a minute, staring at the wall he’d taken his anger out on. She hesitantly looked back up at him through the tangle of her filthy hair.

“But I’ve got to deal with you”, those words stunned her. The fear beginning to overtake her body. She began to breathe faster and faster, the panic setting in. Spiralling further and further into a full-blown state of mania. She felt the power manifest as if on instinct, a screaming blade of wind shooting at her jailor.

He didn’t even turn, stopping the blade in its tracks. It sat suspended in the air, a hands pace from his neck. The world paused. He sighed, exacerbated by another feeble attempt on his life, “you’ll need a hundred cycles more till you have control anything close to mine, child”. She barely had time to register his words before she heard a new voice join the fray.

“Magister!”, bellowed a deckhand from the stairwell, “The winds are fighting us, the magic is too dense! It’s pushing us closer to the wall of storms!” He paused at the bottom of the steps, a grim expression on his face, “Our masts are strong but they can’t handle a battering like that for long”. Rushing down the steps, a second deckhand slid to a stop next to the first, seemingly chased by the audible tumult of commotion outside. “The Eyrie has been spotted Magister! What are your orders?”.

She whispered a gasp at the sound of that name. That was her father’s ship. He hadn’t forgotten their promise after all.

Hope began to well up inside her fragile heart once more and she started dreaming of her freedom, mustering what strength she had left to start struggling in her chains.

The ship began to lurch back and forth across the waves with a fervour she had seldom felt in all her time aboard the Eyrie. The men above screamed at each other to close hatches and bulk down seals. To grab the rigging and prepare for a fight of survival. “Get up there and help them idiots, let’s get as much distance as we can! Let me know when he’s close! Dismissed!”.

He turned and leant down to her, his face shadowed by storm-light and muttered in her ear,” if the bastard who killed my family is going to catch us anyway, I’ll leave him a scar he won’t soon forget”.

The magister of the ship’s face came into sharp relief as the ship lurched; a sadistic smile resplendent. He pulled his longsword from its sheath and wreathed it in a coat of deep scarlet flames. He grabbed the chains, hoisting the girl up from the floor to the best approximation of a standing position, her kicks, cries and blades of wind offered little resistance. Though from the screams above and the unstable footing of her captor, the wind was doing that job for her. Still she continued to fight his grip, adrenaline pumping through her wrought veins, bleeding limbs rattling in their chains in a last-ditch effort of resistance.

Her father was coming, she couldn’t give in now. She had to believe he’d get here in time.

The Pyryyn Magister growled in exasperation and suddenly slammed the hilt of his sword into her skull. She saw stars as a world of darkness enveloped her.

She came to after what felt simultaneously like an age and a second, spitting blood from her mouth. Now being held aloft by the Magisters grip. He bent down to look the girl in the eye, his rancid breath affronting her senses, “First I’ll clip those wings like our King demands,” he huffed a dark chuckle, “I’ll do us both a favour, half-breed, without the wings you could nearly pass as one of us…” he relished in the terror the momentary pause caused her,” if you survive”. His glower held her transfixed, overwhelmed by terror as he finally released her from his grasp.

“Healer!”, he bellowed into the distance behind her.

Mind too hazy and disoriented from the punch and blood loss, the events barely played out to her as a young Pyrryn woman hurriedly ran down the stairs, dressed in the geometric red and gold robes of the Pyrryn court. Words were exchanged between them both as she started registering reality once again. The flames of the sword dangling dangerously above her finally awakening her sense of impending doom. “P-please! I’ve done nothing! Nothing! I don’t mean anything!”, she screamed through the ache of her broken and bleeding nose, riding the mania, her power once more building and sending a wave of nausea crashing through her.

The Pyrryn healer winced at the girls continuous shrieking, pulling a disgusted face and sending the Magister a look. Brow creased in concentration, she began the slow process of performing healing magic, a wave of energy passing through the girls entire being. Her nerves lit on fire as the strongest itching sensation she had ever felt passed through her, making her scream even louder, desperate to stop the unsolicited irritant and pain.

Suddenly, a knee slammed into her face. She collapsed backwards to the floor in a haze of pain, twitching and groaning, “Quit screeching child! Let the woman focus, a scar means nothing if it can’t be remembered”.

The Pyrryn Magister flipped her so she lay on her stomach and placed his boot, leveraging his weight, between the gaps at the base of her wings on her back. Holding her down he extended her right wing, eliciting another shriek from the girl, joined by the ghostly crescendo of the howling seas.

All others standing within the hold were unceremoniously launched off the floor at that moment, before slamming back down.

The Magister hastily pulled himself back up and muttered thanks to his God that he had kept a firm grip on his sword. “What in Jydah’s name was that!? We’re supposed to be riding the waves, not sailing through them!”, he shouted up the stairwell. He hurriedly stomped out the flames from his ignited sword that had caught to the hold in the fall, forgetting in that brief moment that he could simply stop his magical fires from spreading with some basic control.

The healer gracefully sat up from her place on the floor, skin glowing gently, not a scratch on her body. “Magister, can't you sense it too?" she spoke with a sense of calm, "the magic in our vicinity is so dense that it’s causing the seas and storms to become erratic. There’s no sailing in this anymore”. The Magister closed his eyes and extended his senses, gauging the magic around him. “By Jydah's Flame your right woman, this ship won’t be sea-worthy much longer if we’re heading through a storm surge!”.

He turned to the broken girl on the floor, her head bleeding heavily, eyes closed. “Heal the child. I’m going to remove the wings now that she’s unconscious," he proclaimed with grim finality, "there’s still a chance that her father will come for her despite the storm surge, and I want him to see this”.

“Magister-,” the healer started only to be backhanded across the face, “Silence!” he bellowed with zeal, “We have no time for your objections, now work!”. And so, with a dark, thunderous expression, she did. The Magister ignited his long sword yet again, using his other hand to stabilise himself as best he could against the walls of the hold, the ship swaying alarmingly from gale-force winds, impacted by the unyielding waves.

The Magister looked down at his unbalanced feet, lacking purchase on the soaking wooden planks, “Now hurry up! Or this is going to be a bloody butcher of a job. She’s supposed to be leverage, not one of the King’s experiments!”.

The Healer hurriedly restarted the long process of healing magic preparation and getting into position before the sword came down on the first wing. The girl had been knocked unconscious from her head being smashing into the ground earlier, so she was already in a very bad state.

His scarlet weapon raced through the air, cleaving through the base of her wing in a haphazard manner due of the increasingly irate wind.

The Magister swore under his breath and grabbed the wing, throwing it across the room. “Hurry!”, he yelled at the healer, the flow of blood from the poorly butchered stump beginning to slow. He paused before he grabbed the second wing, waiting till the blood fully stopped from the previous stump, and extended it to its full height, preparing to swing on the appendage.

The girl began to wake in that moment, groggily coming to consciousness once more. She tried opening her eyes only to find they were glued shut by blood. Finally, the cruel gravity of her situation began to rush back. The panic setting in. The ghost of her left wing.

The pain.

She screamed an ear-piercing wave of sound with her last bit of strength, the moment the sword came down upon her remaining wing. The girls consciousness ran, down into the darkest recesses of oblivion, finally succumbing to the shock. The Healer and the Magister both grabbed their bleeding ears, overcome by nausea and losing their focus.

Raging thunder rumbled from outside, shaking the entire ship. The shockwave of storm-wind that followed steered the vessel towards a ginormous oncoming wave. The Magister and Healer were sent skidding across the floor in their paltry attempt to maintain balance, still reeling from the vocal shockwave that had shattered their ear drums.

The largest warning of the upcoming disaster was the choir of screams echoing from the main deck, which of course, they couldn't hear.

Slamming into a powerful wave, the ship tottered dangerously close to capsizing. Deck hands were thrown overboard if they weren't already, others crushed by the weight of the wave. Everyone in the hull was once again thrown to the sides.

She was left on the dampened planks, wrapped in her chains and still bleeding from the stump of her last amputated wing, unaware of just how close she had come to destruction.