But she only heard the thunder in her ears.
“Say to who?” Katell’s brows lifted in mock confusion. Her gaze flicked over the Achaeans. “You mean those two? Why would I tell them anything?”
Deflecting again.
Alena’s patience frayed, and she clicked her tongue. “I knew you were angry when we left, but I never thought you could be this cruel.”
Katell gave a mirthless laugh and began pacing. “Alena, really. If this is about?—”
“We made a promise!” Alena shouted, jabbing a finger at her. “We swore we’d protect their secret. That we would never betray them.”
Katell stilled.
Something shifted.
Her eyes darkened, shadows blooming from the pupils, bleeding into the whites like ink in water. The light in the room seemed to dim, as if something ancient stirred behind her gaze.
“Don’t shout,” she said, the warning soft but edged with something colder. More dangerous.
When she blinked, the shadows vanished, but the threat lingered.
She resumed pacing, the chain dragging like a warning bell.
Alena’s jaw clenched. She refused to back down.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she said, steel threading her voice. “Not anymore. Not after what you did to them.”
Katell’s eyebrow lifted. “Them?”
“The Freefolk.”
The answer landed like a hammer.
Katell froze mid-step, shock flashing across her face.
“Your Rasennan friends raided the Freefolk Lands,” Alena pressed. “They burned the camps?—”
Katell turned even paler. “No… that’s not?—”
“They took everyone,” Alena interrupted, her voice rising. “Every man, woman, and child. Shackled them, marched them back to Achaea, and enslaved them in the quarries.”
Katell retreated a step, shaking her head. “How do you know?—?”
Alena’s throat tightened. The memory seared behind her eyes. “I came straight from Dodona. A stone quarry, ten days north of here. I went to rescue my friends who’d been taken…” Her breath hitched. “And I found them—our people. Scylas. In chains.”
Katell shook her head, lips parting in disbelief. “No… that’s not true. It can’t be?—”
Her denial only fuelled Alena’s anger. “I saw him with my own eyes. He was skin and bones,” she bit out. “We even spoke.He might have forgiven you for Elder Ignatius, but he’ll never forgive you for this!”
Shock splintered across Katell’s face, her composure cracking like thin ice.
“Do you even understand what you’ve done?” Images of the Freefolk’s gaunt faces flashed through her mind. It broke Alena’s heart to think how they had sought refuge in the steppe lands, only to be dragged back in chains. “You betrayed our people. You destroyed lives!”
Katell flinched. For a heartbeat, guilt flickered. Then it vanished, replaced by suspicion.
“No. Dorias would never betray me like that.” She turned away, pacing faster, as if to outrun the truth. “This is about you, isn’t it? You didn’t get your way last summer, so now you’re telling lies.”
Dorias?The name landed in Alena’s gut like a stone.
