“I really am getting sick of being called stupid,” Diana snapped. “You can call me Mother. Or you can call me Diana. I’ll take either one.”

Gaia hesitated, stared at Diana, then blinked.

Diana screamed. “Aaaaahh! No, no, no!” She felt the hot knife in her head. The pain was terrible and terrifying, like some desperate animal inside her head trying to rip its way out.

The pain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Maybe it had lasted three seconds, but it had felt much longer.

Had it lasted longer still, Diana would have gone mad. She was on her knees, trembling, fighting the urge to vomit up the nothing in her stomach.

“You don’t make demands,” Gaia said. She came close: just a child, but with a power no child had ever held. Her eyes were blue. Her hair was so dark, it was almost black. She ran her chubby child’s fingers over Diana’s back and neck, probing, feeling, like a cook assessing a piece of steak. “You serve me. You’re a slave. My slave.”

Diana nodded, unable to speak as the sense memory of that pain echoed in her skull.

Light, Chapter 3