The Queen's Admiral

Chapter 50: The Second Limitation

Something snapped within me at the horror of what I just witnessed. I could speak no words at the anguish I felt but Admiral Westergard more than spoke for both of us as he roared something in a foreign language which I could tell was the native tongue of Gormund. For the first time in my life I wanted to kill someone and that someone was that arrogant Prince who had no qualms wasting life over something as petty as his hurt pride.

The crunch of ice on my feet told me my powers were slowly returning. I willed it to reach my target and cover him in ice.

The ice however, barely crawled a meter from my feet before I felt a blow at the back of my head and everything went black...

The smell of stale air and the feel of hard wood on my back were the first things I became aware of. For a long time I couldn't open my eyes. When I did I was slow to focus and even slower to realize I was staring at the low ceiling of a damp dark cell. The constant familiar movement clued me in that I was on a ship out at sea.

Was it just all a nightmare? Maybe I was still on the Alexandra bound for home? Or maybe we were still on the way to Corona and everything that happened during the conference was just a dream. Oh please Lord, let it all be just a dream.

I tried to sit up but had to lie back down as a terrible headache came upon me. What surprised me was that I couldn't get my hands to cradle my head. I stared down at my hands and found them encased in hard iron shackles attached to chains that bound me to the wall.

It was not a dream! The fear gripped at me so hard that it took me a moment to calm down. Finally, I managed to sit up and I began to assess my surroundings. I was indeed on the floor of a tiny cell—most likely located at the bottom of the ship. A few feet near me lay a man unconscious. I recognized him immediately as Admiral Westergard based on his built and uniform.

I moved as far as the chained manacles allowed me towards him and I found his face bruised and his chin dirtied with caked up blood. I could guess he had further bruises underneath his clothes which were all wrinkled, stained and smelled of a combination of gun powder and blood. I was relieved to see however, that he still breathed.

"Admiral?" I said softly.

He uttered a groan and his face scrunched to express sudden pain from the possible same blow to the head that I also encountered. But slowly he came into consciousness and when he did he cried out:

"BRIGITTA!"

He must have moved too quickly for he immediately collapsed down again and clutched at his injured torso.

"Easy, Sir, easy," I said. I wanted to comfort him somehow but the manacles on my hands constricted my movement.

Admiral Westergard took deep breathes and shook his head to clear it for several minutes.

"Where are we Fredrik?" he asked, when he finally cleared his head.

"A ship, I think," I replied. "Moving on open waters by the feel of it. I don't know how long. I only just woke up too."

He fell silent as he digested what that meant. We could have been out for hours and we had no idea where we were or if Prince Karl had indeed let go of our people as he said. Even if he did, we couldn't be sure how many of them would survive for long unaided in a ship dead in the water, half destroyed and housing several wounded. Worse, there was no telling if Brigitta had survived at all.

I felt warm tears fall down my cheeks. That's when I started to feel the gravity of grief. I collapsed on my knees, curled up in a ball and cried openly.