(Seven and a half months later)

Vidya caught her breath, rainfall soaking through her wrap-around shirt and flattening her frizzy hair. Four prison guards lay crumpled at her feet. The oldest among them groaned, prompting her to give him an extra kick to the head with the heel of her worn boot.

“Alright, Vidi, you made your point,” said Phrea. “Are you going to fly us out of here or what?”

The other prisoners stood still as stone pillars in the downpour, transfixed by the winged woman who had just pummeled four armed guards into the gravel. Footsteps thundered from inside the prison structure, growing louder as they neared the gates to the yard. Several of the prisoners glanced behind them, biting their lips in anxiety.

Vidya, on the other hand, had never felt so tranquil.

“I didn’t just come for you and Daph.” She picked up a guard’s wooden baton and tossed it to Phrea, then turned to the rest of the women. “You’ve just witnessed a tiny fraction of what a harpy can do.” She kicked another fallen baton over to Daphne to pick up. “I came here today to share that power with you all. But first”—the gates flung open with a groan, and a dozen more guards poured into the yard—“punish the men who abused you here, then we will punish the sirens that put you here.”

Vidya funneled the wind and rain toward the advance with a mighty flap of her wings, knocking the first line of guards into the row behind. Two prisoners grabbed the last two weapons off the ground and took battle stances.

“You heard her, ladies!” Phrea tapped her thick wooden baton against her palm. “You want wings? Fight for them!” With a sidelong grin, she rushed a young male guard attempting to return to his feet. She belted him back down into the gravel and didn’t let up until he ceased to move.

Daphne and the rest of the prisoners swiftly took advantage of the guards’ shock. The inmates’ frenzy exploded into battle cries as they rushed their jailers.

A wave of shaven heads and plain cotton smocks took down the leather-clad guards with such fervor, Vidya worried the skirmish would end too soon. She grazed her fingertips over the bone hilt of the Bloodstone Dagger at her hip. I may have to visit the men’s prison to find a worthy sacrifice. For one man to give rise to over thirty harpies at a time, he needed to be stronger than anyone she’d seen so far.

More prison guards pushed their way through the gates, shoving the women back into the rain. Vidya flapped her wings, tripping the advancing guards with storm winds once again. There were more guards than prisoners in the yard; they needed to free the rest and fast.

“Take it inside,” Vidya roared. She barreled through the line of guards clogging the gates, clearing a path for the women to flood in.

On the top floor, Vidya surveyed the tri-level cell block, searching for the maximum-security area. Rows of guards ran up the spiral staircases, batons at the ready. She thought about taking them out first lest they quell her burgeoning riot. Then, a winged shadow formed at the railing next to her. “You need only free one prisoner, and our harpy revolution can truly begin,” it tittered. Vidya swore she saw the creature smile, an eerie grin that stretched across the entirety of its dark, ethereal face.

“Keys! I have keys!” a prisoner cheered, jingling them above her head for the other ladies to see. She ran to the nearest cell door, casting it open and releasing the four inmates locked within. Vidya smiled, already proud of who these women were becoming. Good, now for what I really came for.

Spreading her wings, Vidya vaulted over the railing and glided down the cylindrical cell block until she found the thick iron doors on the ground level’s south side. She lifted the metal flap of the first door she came upon and looked inside the cell. No, not her. Second: Nope. Third and fourth: Empty. She peered through the shutter of the fifth door. A thin wisp of a woman hunched in the corner, graying black hair hanging in front of her face and pale, yellow wings plastered to her bony back. That’s got to be her.

“Stop where you are!” A man barked, a pistol cocking behind Vidya. “Turn around and slowly.”

She did so, holding her hands at head-level. The warden pointed a flintlock pistol at her face, and he had a second one waiting in the holster at his side.

“Since when do wardens get to carry firearms?” she asked in bewilderment.

“Don’t move.” His unarmed hand fiddled with a ring of keys, which he used to open the fourth cell door. With the pistol still aimed at Vidya, the warden bobbed his head to the side, “Get in . . . now.” He gave her a wide berth to walk past him and into the empty cell, but she was not about to comply.

Vidya stepped forward. “That’s a good girl,” the warden smirked and straightened his back.

She shook with indignation. “Girl?” With a sharp flap of her wings, she shot up to the ceiling. The warden fired, but the round chipped the wall behind her. He fumbled with the pistol in his other holster, giving Vidya ample time to drop down and slam her elbow into his head, knocking him unconscious. “I’m no girl.”

She took his keys and unlocked the iron latch of the fifth door.

The woman inside snapped her head up, glaring as Vidya strode into the grimy cell. Her big eyes, bright and blue, were lined with wrinkles. She looked to be in her seventh decade, but Vidya thought she should be younger than that. Her imprisonment had aged her.

A metal grating shrouded the bottom half of her face, and a leather mouthpiece smothered her call of surprise.

The woman stood up on bony legs and took hesitant steps toward Vidya, her filthy, bare feet scraping along the floor. Clipped yellow wings, like crumpled papyrus, unfolded, their hollow bones popping. She held out her caged hands, appearing as iron stumps.

Vidya carefully reached around her head to remove the mask, grunting as the latches snapped apart.

The siren lurched forward, gagging on the air and breathing in deep rasps between fits of laughter. She scratched her chin maniacally, her liberated jaw much paler than the rest of her face.

“You’re Cosima, former Mistress of Sciences, is that correct?” Vidya severed the straps around the woman’s biceps, freeing the heavy chains that secured her iron gauntlets.

The woman grinned wide, revealing several brown and cracked teeth. “You’re not like any siren I’ve ever seen before.” She stared into Vidya as if trying to see her through a thick haze with a barely perceptible smile tugging at her scabbed lips.

Vidya scowled at the notion. “I’m a harpy and the daughter of Sarta.” The gauntlets dropped to the cell floor with a clank.

The scientist laughed, a sound like a cat being strangled. “Oh, I know who you are.” She pointed a bony talon-like finger at the ceiling. “A little birdy told me—tweet-tweeting outside my door. All the birds chirp about you. The Republic’s new great mistake.

“How flattering,” Vidya said dryly. “Tell me, why did you attempt to poison the entire Mothers’ Assembly, including the Archon? They say you influenced their breeders, even some of their husbands and sons, to carry it out for you.” Vidya stared into the former councilor’s eyes, gauging her reaction. “What possessed you to abuse the Siren’s power like that?” The first steps in Vidya’s plan to take back Credence from the Council depended on this traitorous and legendary siren. She wondered how close Cosima’s motivations were to her own.

Cosima cocked her head to the side like a buzzard. “The Assembly kept voting her in, over and over, not caring about the unspeakable things she did to get there. They had grown as complacent as the men they touch, blinded by the shimmer of her flaxen wings.”

“You speak of Xenith?” Vidya raised an eyebrow.

“Xenith . . .” She spat the name as if it were a foul thing in her mouth. “Am I to assume she still sits in the Archon’s seat?”

Vidya’s hand danced over the bone grip of her dagger. “Not if I have anything to say about it.” She hoped the shadow harpy would tell her what Xenith had done, but it remained silent, as it always did when it came to the evil deeds of women. It didn’t mean they didn’t deserve punishment all the same.

Cosima displayed her rotting teeth once again. However putrid her breath, it didn’t bother Vidya. After the vermin she had regurgitated in the Spirit Chamber a few weeks back, nothing short of the maltreatment of women disgusted her now.

“Sarta’s eldest is out for blood, I see,” Cosima purred.

“I’m out for more than that. I need an army, and you are going to help me build it, starting today.”

The siren’s features twisted as if in pain. “Oh no. I couldn’t!” In an instant, her previous look melted off to reveal a sudden surprise. “. . . You do know that the Harpy shall never rule Credence again, don’t you?” She poked Vidya in the chest with her gnarled finger, the nails worn to cracked stumps. “That’s her punishment for bringing such suffering to humanity, for reaching beyond what was rightfully hers. Had it not been for the Siren, those urling misogynists would have taken everything from us.”

“One could argue the Harpy deserved her punishment back then.” Vidya heard a bitter scoff from the shadow in the cell’s corner, but she continued, “But now, she must punish the Siren for her cowardice, for selling our island to the serpent who killed my mother and dares to believe men should stand as equals with women.”

Cosima pushed her long greasy hair off her face and scowled. “Xenith is no friend of womankind and never has been.”

“Join me,” said Vidya. “And witness a harpy do what a siren could not.”

The former councilor bit her lip then grinned in such a way that the hairs on the back of Vidya’s neck stood on end. “If it involves dethroning Xenith in the most painful way imaginable, you may use me however you wish.”

With a grim nod, Vidya said, “First, I’ll need you to dust off those vocal cords.”

She turned on her heel and walked back into the rioting cell block with Cosima tip-toeing daintily behind her. Most of the prisoners were out of their cells, creating an all-out war on every level. “Stay here,” Vidya said, then flew into the air.

Hovering in the middle of the cell block, she surveyed the fight all around her. A monstrous guard blocked the second level walkway, his reach so long, no woman in his path could escape his club swing. He will do nicely.

Launching herself toward her target, Vidya dropped onto the guard’s massive shoulders and clasped her hands over his ears. She shouted to the recently freed siren waiting patiently on the ground floor. “Cosima! Now!”

The siren took a deep breath and belted a note so coarse and out of tune, everyone recoiled, halting the riot for a brief moment. Vidya’s heart sank. The large man beneath her tried to shake her off, but she held on fast.

“Apologies,” Cosima said with a cough. “A little rusty.” Clearing her throat, she walked forward and lifted her hand to the rioters like they were an audience at her theatrical debut. Her lungs expanded with a great heap of air, and she opened her mouth. Through the gravel, emerged a siren’s song like no other. It wafted effortlessly over all three levels. No man could escape, except the guard whose ears Vidya’s grasped. She needed him to be in his right mind for what she wanted to do.

The male guards released their struggling captives, dropped their weapons at their feet, some even fell to their knees in awe of the most dangerous siren in Credence. The female guards stood maligned in shock, wholly outnumbered with no choice but to submit.

Once the song ended, Vidya lifted the giant guard and flew him down to the ground floor in the center of the cell block. “Gather round, inmates and guards. I present to you this fine warrior who has volunteered to prove his worth to the Harpy.”

The man’s giant lips molded into an immovable grimace and he cracked his knuckles in his palm. Vidya beckoned him toward her with a wave of her fingers. “May she guide your fists.”

He tightened his scraggly hairtail and snapped a punch straight at Vidya’s head. She backed away just in time, blinking at the sheer force whistling past her face.

She pivoted around him, dodging his strikes. His nostrils flared in frustration.

With his next attack, she planted her feet, letting the hit land. After all, he needed to prove he was worthy. A gigantic fist hammered her into the cold stone floor, her shoulder buckled by the impact, and she bit back a grin.

He was on her in an instant, the back of his hand colliding with her cheek and sending her flailing to the side. She spat out blood from her bitten tongue then turned over, baring her bloody teeth for her female audience. Now that’s a hit worthy of a Harplite!

Women gasped as they watched the giant guard grab Vidya by the wing and drag her across the floor. She twirled around on the ground and kicked him away, but he kicked her right back down. His pillar of a foot on her chest pressed her into the unrelenting stone. Enough was enough. Vidya grabbed the guard’s massive leather boot and muttered through her blood-stained teeth, “The Harpy thanks you for your sacrifice.”

The man scrunched his prominent brow ridge in confusion and Vidya used the strength of three men to lift his foot from her chest and roll out from beneath it.

Growling, he tried to stomp on her again, but she caught his tree trunk calf, breaking the bone with a palm strike. The man’s bellows echoed across all three levels, matched only by the thunder vibrating the cell block’s rock walls. He faltered to one knee, panting in rasping gulps.

Vidya clutched his breastplate, unsheathed the Bloodstone Dagger, and lodged it into the bulk between his neck and shoulder. She slowly rose to her feet as the tiny red spots in the green stone expanded, soaking up his blood and multiplying it a hundredfold. The giant man made a weak attempt to yank her arm off him, but Vidya snatched his fingers and bent them back until they snapped.

As the dagger continued to drain him, his arms dropped to his sides, and he slumped back on his heels. His eyes rolled into his skull; flashes of lightning through the barred windows casting his skin with a pale gray hue.

Satisfied that she had enough blood for her demonstration, she kicked the hulking guard down on his back, the dagger ripping from his neck and spraying blood over the nearest onlookers.

She held up the now red dagger for all to see. Over a hundred women’s faces stared down at her, mouths agape. “It takes three men to create one harpy,” she shouted, her face breaking into a wild grin, “or it used to anyway.”

Daphne’s aqua doe eyes glistened with awe from the second level staircase. “How?” she mouthed.

Vidya pointed to the large guard bleeding out on the ground. “Because of the dagger I hold, this man’s blood, along with two others like him, will create one hundred harpies.”

Holding the dagger point down, she squeezed the stone grip, allowing the blood to spill from the magic stone and splatter on the floor at her feet. Prisoners on the ground floor edged closer, morbidly entranced by the continuous stream of blood pouring from the knife’s tip.

Phrea rushed down the stairs. “Don’t waste it. We need that!”

Vidya twirled the dagger right side up, halting the flow. “Not to worry, my future sisters. There’s plenty for everyone.”

She took to one knee and stabbed the dead guard’s heart to take what was left. The prisoners clambered down to the ground floor, adding to the amassing crowd. Phrea and Daphne pushed their way through them so they could stand at Vidya’s side. “Those siren cunts are going down,” said Phrea.

Cosima, the lone siren with her cloud of mesmerized guards congregating around her, gleefully clapped her bony hands while giggling through her cracked, discolored teeth.

As the large man’s heart drained into the dagger in Vidya’s hand, her own swelled with sweet anticipation for all the punishments she’d soon inflict.

Continue to the next chapter here or learn more about the full book here

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