It took all her willpower to keep her hands closed, and all her strength to stop the spiked foot. Yet despite everything she could do, it kept pressing down, coming closer and closer to Bel’s forehead and the Charter mark there, as if that was the spot where the young man’s skull was thinnest.

‘You are strong,’ said the voice inside Clariel’s head. ‘But not strong enough.’

The thing leaned into its stomp, yet still Clariel managed to keep the spike a bare fingerbreadth above Bel’s forehead. Every muscle in her body was quivering, her head was burning with the effort of resisting the creature’s will. Blood began to trickle from her nose, and she knew the creature was too strong, the spike would smash into Bel’s head and kill him and then it would kill her. She just wasn’t strong enough …

Not by herself.

She needed the fury. Yet all her life Clariel had kept the anger in check, rather than trying to call it up. Now she was far more full of fear than anger and the berserk rage felt impossibly far away.

‘Not strong enough,’ mocked the voice in her head. ‘But good enough to keep as a slave.’

Clariel gripped even tighter, working her hands against the sharp edges of unnatural bone. The spike slipped down, so close that its very tip broke the skin on Bel’s forehead and brought a bead of blood to the surface. Just one drop, like some hideous sweat. But Clariel stopped the spike from spearing through more skin and the bone beneath, even though her palms were sliced open and pain was shooting through her, and a terrible pressure in her head plucked at nerves, muscles all over her body twitching and rippling as the creature slowly gained control over Clariel’s arms and hands.

The pain helped combat that invader in her mind. Clariel welcomed the hurt, and bit her lip as well, hard as she could, so that the blood filled her mouth. With the salt tang of blood fresh on her tongue, she finally felt the fury. She could sense its source deep inside her, a banked fire that just needed fuel and air to rise up. Clariel welcomed it, summoned it, fed it with pain and fear and the necessity of action. It rose like a tide on the flood in answer.

She screamed again, but this time the scream was not one of fear, but of incandescent rage.