The War of Elevens| Book 1 of the Space Thief Chronicles

Chapter 27| Hell

Storm stood in the middle a ring of seven dead Bloom Officials burned to a crisp by his own lightning, right in front of an enchanted magical barrier intended to protect the facility from threats. 

Eleven monsters stood behind him. 

"Find the rip Lydia made," he ordered them. 

Excitement sped up his heartbeat to dangerous, dangerous levels. 

*** 

Lilly swore to herself that if she survived the next fifteen minutes, she'd be as close to respectful as she could manage for the rest of her life.

Sass was her survival instinct, and Stem Sankta warranted a lot of sass. 

Lilly knew the stories. She'd heard them during her time at Elliott Way: Stem Sankta makes the decisions. One veto from Stem Sankta and a war plan or coup against the Acids is a no-go. Sankta gave honors. Sankta was honored, highly established in the Bloom. Civilians bowed to her like a queen (literally) and Bloom Officials kissed her feet (figuratively). Where the Acids were a dictatorship and the humanoid Fae creatures were an evasive, little-known monarchy and every other Shifter World nation worked under a democracy controlled by Bloom Officials, Stem Sankta was the queen of the Shifter World's military. If one directly or indirectly opposed Sankta, they could be sentenced to prison or torture or death or all three. 

Stem Sankta owned an empire. 

She also got on Lilly's last nerve. 

Upon entering the conference room, Lilly knew she had just walked in on something that would have erupted into violence. Sankta wasted no time in grabbing Lilly by the upper arm and hauling her into an empty high-backed chair. Then the woman ordered Amaranth to tie Lilly's wrists to the arms of the chair and Lilly, who thought this was highly unnecessary because she had come to the conference room voluntarily, sat quietly as Amaranth ran dark, steady fingers over Lilly's wrists. Vines sprang from her hands, looped around Lilly's skin and the arms of the chair, and tightened. 

Sankta pulled another chair out from the long conference table, placed it in front of Lilly, and sat in it. She said, "I need some answers to questions before I can carry out your execution." 

Execution. Lilly shivered at the way Sankta said it, so blunt and careless. Sankta could have said "I have blue eyes" with the same tone. 

"Shouldn't we wait for the magistrates of magi-criminal law?" asked Stevia from across the room. 

Sankta snarled, "Not when the girl who could be used to destroy the Shifter World is sitting in front of me." 

"Get on with it," Lilly said, a little breathlessly. If she was going to die, if she was going to get executed by this annoyingly excessive woman, she wanted it to be quick. 

Here was where the excruciating annoyingness came in: 

"You're Lillian Cart Ci, yes?"

"Yes. I thought that would've been obvious considering you all were just talking about me, the space thief, and then I, the space thief, walked in here declaring that I'm me, the space thief."

Sankta let the rude remark slide. She was all angles and no curves: Slit eyes with ice-blue irises shining beneath the lowered lids, a slash of a mouth, triangular cheekbones, bony hands that were clasped together so tightly the veins in her knuckles popped out. Angles, angles, angles. "Do you know anyone else who can steal from space?" 

"No." 

"Do you know anyone else who has non-elemental magic that isn't a Fae or a psychic?" 

"No."