Alina snorted for lack of a real answer. What was one to reply to something like this?
Finn's face turned serious; all the jokes vanished. “Not all of us were born with abilities. Some of us just believe in the cause.” He tore his bread, chewed, then looked at her, really looked. “That's what scares the palace, I think. Not the magic—the belief.”
Alina’s shoulders dropped from their defensive arch. “Why did you join?”
Finn's smile faltered. He swallowed, hard. “Because I had a sister. And then I didn't.”
She didn't ask for the details. She didn’t need to—she could fill in the gaps for herself.
Finn slid the breadbasket closer to her. “Eat. You'll need your strength for all the brooding you’re planning.” He kept his tone light, but the shadows lingered around his mouth.
She took the bread, and for the first time since her arrival, she didn't feel watched.
When she finished, Finn stood. “I know you've been told differently, but we're really not the bad guys here. Just open your eyes, Princess, and you will see." He left her then, whistling, the notes bright and odd in the underground hall.
Alina lingered, turning his words over and over. When she finally stood to go, she noticed Seraphina, alone at the end of the table, watching her with a glare sharp enough to strip paint.
Alina met her gaze and held it—long enough to send a message.
When she left the hall, the taste of bread and Finn's stories still lingered on her tongue. She looked around the hall one last time and wondered what tomorrow would bring.
6
There's a Difference
Alina crept along the curve of the corridor, steps muffled by a layer of moss that softened the stone but made her toes itch. The hour was late, late enough that most of the rebel encampment had retreated to their makeshift beds, leaving only the hiss of lanterns and the tired murmurs of guards half asleep at their posts. If anyone asked, she’d say she needed some air, a lie no one would question; after all, the air in the Caves was just this side of a punishment in itself. But so far, nobody had asked, and she doubted that anyone would. Nevertheless, she kept to the shadows, pressing her body to the cool wall, counting her heartbeats with every turn.
In the two weeks she had been here, she’d mapped the stronghold in her mind: the central shaft with its perpetual bonfire used as mess hall and gathering place, connected to it the echoing kitchen with its perpetual aroma of boiled roots and the row of communal sleeping chambers. But there was one passage she had yet to explore, tucked behind a curtain ofstitched hides and guarded not by arms but by an unspoken aura of importance. She’d watched Kael enter it once, trailing a cluster of lieutenants, each carrying stacks of documents and a look of burdened purpose. He had not noticed her—he rarely did, anymore, unless they passed directly in a narrow corridor. He would nod and greet her with a respectful “Princess”; she would reciprocate with a stony “Abductor”, face set in her best courtly arrogance. His stern face showed nothing, but his eyes always seemed to hold a spark. Of what, she could not say. Apart from that, he ignored her completely. She resented how efficiently he could do so, how easily he seemed to move on from their charged encounters, as if she were just another bit of flotsam swept into his current. And she resented even more that she should care about it.
The corridor narrowed, and she crouched low, ears straining for any hint of approach. Nothing. She reached the hide curtain and eased it aside, careful not to let the leather slap against the wall. Beyond, a door stood half-ajar—a door, here in the Caves, was a curiosity in itself, and this one was carved with swirling lines that caught the glint of torchlight and twisted it into unfamiliar runes.
She inched closer, her breath shallow, and hid in the corner behind it. Through the crack between the hinges, she peered into the room.
The council chamber was warmer than the rest of the stronghold, a small blessing of its placement next to a natural steam vent. The air inside shimmered with a faint, moving haze. Through the slit, Alina could make out a wide, battered table at the center of the room. In the space visible to her, it was cluttered with rolled parchments, bits of coal, a map, and something that looked a lot like a half-eaten loaf of bread. It was reasonable to assume that the rest of the table looked the same. There were quite a lot of peoplein the room, probably all gathered around the table. Alina could only see Seraphina and Finn move in and out of her field of vision, but she heard at least six other voices, though none of them Kael’s.
The light in the room was rather dim, only the table properly lit by a swinging lantern that cast moving shadows up and down the bit of wall she could see, dark stone glistening with condensation.
The atmosphere in the room was tense; not one of peaceful discussions, but of battle strategy. Every motion, every word, hung with the weight of consequences.
“—worthless if we can’t eat,” a woman hissed. “The north routes are empty of game, and the villages have long since sent their grain downriver. If we don’t hit the palace outpost, we’ll be gnawing leather for breakfast by dusk.”
A rustling sound, then a deep male voice. “Raid the outpost? Do you want to lead us onto the butcher’s block? Their patrols circle that gate like starving wolves.”
Seraphina’s low voice cut sharper than a blade: “Better to strike at their larder than starve waiting for a miracle. We sneak in under the crescent moon, smash the granary door, grab what we can carry, and vanish before dawn.”
Finn shrugged, idly carving at a slab of cheese. “All well and good, until the garrison rouses. Then what? We haul back sacks of grain with cannon fire chasing us?”
A rasping sigh came from the far end. A man spoke. “We risk too much, and if we fail, we’re little more than prey. But without food, we’re already dead.”
Before anyone could argue, a soft cough sounded from a corner. Alina heard the rustling of clothes, then a few steps. “There’s an old service tunnel beneath the stables,” another man said quietly. “Unguarded by design. It opens into the supply vault corridor. We slip in, fill our packs, slip out.”
The woman who had spoken first snorted. “Suicide, Maven, and you know it. We lack numbers. And last time half of us returned with arrows in places arrows shouldn’t be.”
“This isn’t last time,” Seraphina countered, voice steel. “If we don’t eat, none of us return at all.”
Finn glanced at the lantern’s flickering. “And once we have the grain, where do we go? The marsh folk won’t share after Jorgen turned their sacred fen into a latrine.”
Another man’s gravelly voice growled from the shadows. “Then we take what we need. No choice.”
