Maven’s eyes flashed, but he said nothing more. He sat, hands folded, but his gaze never left Alina. She knew that while he might have relented for now, he was not done yet.
Kael squeezed her shoulder once, then released. “Let’s focus,” he said, and the meeting resumed, though tension in the air never truly dissipated.
The war room’s torches smoked and popped as the debate grew heated, casting wild shadows that flickered across the maps and the faces bent over them. Every so often, a shout from the training yard bled through the air vents in the stone, but no one so much as twitched. The focus in the chamber was absolute and ruthless; these were people who had learned to ignore distractions and tune out discomfort.
Marcus took the lead, jabbing his thick finger at the map’s ragged edge. “If we split the convoy here, we double the odds that atleast one group makes it. The old pines run thick enough fighters to carry this out.”
“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” Tamsin said, her voice precise as the blade she wore at her hip. “And twice as many people to make a mistake.” She leaned forward, knocking aside a spent mug to draw a line with a stub of charcoal. “The King’s men know what to look for in these woods. If they catch the scent, we’re rerouted and surrounded before we know it.”
Marcus grinned, not unkindly. “So, we let ‘em catch the scent. Decoy squads here and here”—his hand swept out to either flank of the winding road—”same as last autumn, when we pinched two wagons of salt from under Lord Vexley’s nose. Never underestimate the power of a good distraction.”
Tamsin’s lips pressed into a straight line. “And when the decoys are caught? What do you tell the families?”
A mutter of assent rippled around the table. Alina watched, noting which voices joined Tamsin’s side and which remained silent. There was a pattern to it, rivalries and old grudges that were inked deeper than any map. She recognized the choreography from her father’s council: the way every argument was only partly about the facts, and mostly about who would carry the day. Concentrating on the dynamics of the group shifted her own focus away from herself and her fight with Maven. She relaxed a fraction.
Elara, lounging at the table’s edge, broke in with a voice as cold as a falling star. “The city watch rotation is lighter at dusk; two patrols, both bribed through our intermediaries.” Her finger tapped the capital’s western gate. “My sources say the garrison’s been ordered to expect a nighttime move, not a day raid. If we go at first bell, they’ll be hungover and half-blind.”
Kael gave her a nod of acknowledgment but didn’t interrupt the current. He let the ideas clash and settle, only occasionally steering the ship with a well-timed word or gesture. Alina could see why he was leader here; he had the patience to let a plan ferment, rather than forcing it to clarity before it was ready.
Maven Thornheart, silent since his earlier accusation, loomed over the map with barely concealed contempt. Every so often, he marked a spot with his thumb, as if testing for weakness. He would not let go of the idea that Alina was a liability, but for the moment, he hunted for flaws in the proposal rather than in her. Alina kept her face impassive, though the scrutiny scraped at her nerves.
The center table was crowded, the air thick with sweat, rough wool, and something like burned rosemary. Marcus and Tamsin continued to spar, drawing the rest of the room into their orbit. The debate was technical, the tension personal. She caught the way Tamsin’s voice sharpened when Marcus tried to soften the risks, or the way Marcus kept reminding everyone that half the squad owed him a life or a favor. Alina watched the balance of power tilt and recalibrate with every word.
Meanwhile, she took silent measure of the secondary players. The messenger boy who had delivered three notes in one hour, always pausing to listen at the threshold. The two women at the far end, one with a knotted scarf around her head, who traded low-voiced commentary every time the argument reached an impasse. Elara, always a half-step apart, watching the whole performance with a cat’s amused disdain, while her eyes missed nothing.
It was all so familiar, and yet so much rawer than anything she had known at court. There, the stakes were prestige, favor, andwhispers traded in candlelit corridors. Here, every mistake cost blood. It made the air taste metallic.
When the conversation threatened to stall—Marcus having won a concession, Tamsin refusing to retreat—Kael finally intervened. He rapped the table, waited for silence, and said:
“We need a clear plan. Going to the city is too dangerous.” He surveyed the table, then let his eyes rest on Alina, as if he had forgotten she was there until that moment.
She didn’t flinch under his gaze, though she knew every other set of eyes was about to follow.
He seemed to have come to a decision, nodded once, then asked her outright: “You studied at court. If you were in charge of defending a supply train, what would you do?”
Alina hesitated for only a second. “Move in daylight. Use decoys and run two or three empty wagons ahead of the real cargo. Distribute the valuable goods evenly among the real wagons, and make sure the best fighters are distributed to protect the full convoy.”
Kael nodded. “That’s settled, then. We go for the supply train.” He went on to issue the appropriate orders, making sure everybody knew what they had to do. He let the map roll up, signaling the end.
The room emptied quickly, people pairing off or drifting away. Rather casually, Kael moved over to Maven. “Join me for a moment in my chamber, will you?” and left without looking back. Maven lingered, glanced at Alina, and then left with Tamsin, murmuring in low, urgent tones.
Alina felt the chill of Elara’s gaze before she turned. The witch stood in the corner, eyes wide and unblinking, as if she’d been watching not the meeting, but something beyond.
“You did well,” Elara said, and her voice was neither warm nor cold—just even and steady. “But trust is like a knife. It cuts both ways.”
Alina nodded, not trusting herself to answer.
Elara smiled, a twist of the lips. “We’ll see which edge you choose.”
She vanished, leaving only the echo of her words and the faint, not-unpleasant smell of ozone.
Alina lingered, upset by Maven’s hostility. She knew that there were many members of the group who did not approve of her or mistrusted her or were simply unsure about her. But to have someone tell you he would prefer you dead than alive? That was unsettling. At last, the torches sputtered low, prompting her to gather her thoughts and leave.
The Caves were silent, the path to her cell empty and dark.
The silence of her room pressed in on Alina, thicker than the quilt she’d pulled around her shoulders. She sat upright on the edge of the bed, stood, and paced a five-step line across the stone floor and back, again and again. The room was suffocatingly small, the corners shadow-choked and cold even with the dying ember of a candle guttering on the battered washstand. She’d tried lying down, willing herself to slip back into the fragile warmth that the bed had offered, but the effort only made her mind race faster.
She retraced her path until her heel caught on a loose stone, the sudden scrape echoing like a reprimand. The day’s events tangled inside her chest: the ugly, sour memory of Maven’s accusations ofbetrayal, his warning that her presence would lead to the ruin of everyone she cared for. She knew that many people did not want her here; that many mistrusted her and some simply did not know what to make of her. But he radiated a hatred that was hard to take. And yet again, she now measured all the rebels’ actions and attitudes toward her before the backdrop of what she had learned in the safehouse. How could she blame them for distrusting her? For even hating her? She stood for everything that was bad in the world. How could they ever look at her and not see the Crown?
