Meljean Brook

" (…)—Non, monsieur. Ce qu’Anglesey a voulu dire, c’est que c’est lui qui a payé pour que nous puissions embarquer sur le Lady Corsaire. On m’a demandé de recourir à tous les moyens possibles pour identifier l’assassin de Haynes et l’appréhender. Dès le début, mes objectifs ont coïncidé avec ceux du duc, et j’ai continué à poursuivre Dame Dents de Scie jusqu’à ce que cela me soit physiquement impossible. Pas un instant je n’ai perdu le contrôle de mon enquête. (…)"

Before Annika had begun her journey, her mother had assured her that the people in the New World weren’t all that different from the women in their village of Hannasvik. Annika’s mother reminded her of how the peoples of Africa and Europe had sailed across the Atlantic four hundred years ago, fleeing from the Mongol Horde that had ridden from the east on the backs of their conquering war machines—just as Hanna and the Englishwomen had escaped the New World slavers and had made their home in Iceland a century before. She’d spoken of the enormous mechanical warriors that the New Worlders had built on their coastlines, sentinels that served a warning to the Horde, should that great empire ever develop a navy and follow them across the sea—just as Hannasvik’s trolls protected their village and intimidated any enemies who might attempt to drive them from their home.

The Horde never followed the New Worlders, however. The sentinels stood for centuries, staring out over the open sea while wars over territory and trade routes were fought behind their backs, and they were slowly stripped of their armaments and engines.

And they were slowly falling apart. Annika glanced up through the drizzling rain and eyed the immense Castilian warrior guarding the gates to the port city of Navarra. In the four years since she’d left Hannasvik and joined Phatéon’s crew, Annika had come to accept the truth of her mother’s words: Individually, the people of the New World weren’t that different from those in her village.

The governments and rulers, however, must have been.