Memories flooded her, sharp as glass: the palace library, winter sun streaming across the floor in fractured diamonds. She’s small, ten or eleven, maybe, and Lord Rowan’s there, standing over her with a book in one hand and a pointer in the other. “No true leader ever wavers, Alina,” he says, eyes steady on her face. “Hesitation is the wedge the world will use to pry you open.” She’d hated him then, for the severity, the refusal to ever let her win. But she had also loved him, in that childish, desperate way reserved for adults who are never quite parents but always inescapable.
Another flash: she’s older, sixteen, sitting at the long table in the council room while Rowan and her mother debate tax reform in the provinces. Rowan’s voice is like silk over steel—patient, measured, never quite mocking but always a little amused at how much she still doesn’t know. When he lets her win an argument, it’s never because she deserves it, but because he wants her to think she has, so the real lesson can come later. “Good,” he’d say, tappinghis knuckle on the table. “You’re learning. But you should learn more quickly.”
Other flashes followed: her parents, scolding, correcting, reminding her of duties. Freedoms denied, desires ignored.
His steely voice cut through her thoughts. “This is over now. You’re coming with me and I will deliver you safely home, where you belong.”
“Like hell you will.” Kael moved forward, his posture straight and face open, eyes blazing dangerously.
“You,” the Lord said, fixing a look of utter disgust on Kael. “I had a feeling I would see you again.”
“Indeed. So, now that you have, you can fuck off, before you can’t anymore. Give my best to the King and Queen.”
Nobody moved.
Lord Rowan stared at Kael, then at Alina and back at Kael, an expression of dawning realization on his face. “Ah, like that, is it?” He shook his head again in disapproval. “Well, I’m not surprised you’re taking advantage of her.” He dragged his gaze from Kael to Alina. “Alina, come here this instant. This farce has been going on for far too long!”
Still, nobody moved. Everybody held their breath, poised to strike, ready to run, the tension in the air tangible.
Alina was still frozen to her core, paralyzed like a rabbit by the snake. It was not so much that she wavered in her loyalty—she knew where she belonged. Whom she belonged to. She was with Kael, she was with the rebels, she could never go back to a life full of artifice and built on lies. But Lord Rowan had a grip on her that was ingrained since earliest childhood. As much as her mind reeled, her body had shut down.
“Guards, take her.”
In an explosion, everybody moved at once. Kael took Alina by the arm and drew her to him; with his other hand he held his sword raised high. Seraphina let the first arrow fly, already nocking the next. Guards circled Lord Rowan, who continued to issue commands. Two guards surged forward and tried to grab Alina—Marcus, having seen the first indication of movement, jumped in front of Alina to guard her.
“Brace yourself, I am getting you out of here,” Kael muttered into her ear, but in that moment a crossbow arrow came out of nowhere and buried itself in Marcus’ shoulder. He went down with a heartfelt “Shit!” and crouched on the ground, breathing heavily.
Alina looked from him to a smiling Lord Rowan, and her world went utterly still.
For one impossible moment, time went elastic. Alina stood at its center, arms stretched skyward, every cell burning with light. The force that exploded from her was not like anything she’d imagined her Gift could be. This was not the careful, controlled channeling Elara had tried to teach her. This was a dam bursting, a whole life of fear and hope, of yearning and fury boiling out in a single, blinding wave.
It radiated from her in bands of energy so bright the world bleached out. Everything—earth, air, the ragged line of wagons, even the living—became silhouettes against the white-hot wall of her power. Trees bent away from her, leaves shredded in the fierce,rioting wind. A ring of concussive force swept out, flattening the grass for yards and scattering loose stones like birdshot.
The first pulse knocked everyone to their knees. Kael, already braced, managed to stay up using his own Gift, but even he flinched from the brilliance. Marcus, still crouching on the ground, fell over with a surprised grunt. Seraphina was thrown flat, her bow spinning away in the undergrowth. The guards—not in the slightest prepared for anything like this—dropped as one, weapons clattering from suddenly nerveless hands. Lord Rowan was thrown off his horse, which scampered into the woods, panicking.
The second pulse shattered what remained of the supply train. Horses screamed, reared, and broke free, careening into the woods in wild-eyed terror. The wagons groaned, wood popping, wheels spinning off axles. One guard tried to stand, but the force hit him in the chest, lifting him off his feet and sending him crashing into a tree. He didn’t move again.
Alina couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything except the roar inside her own head. It was the sound of a hundred voices, all her failures and doubts and tiny, unclaimed joys, tangled together in a single, endless scream. The world faded to white, then to nothing, then to the slow, aching black of coming down.
When her eyes cleared, she was still standing, somehow, though the strength in her legs was gone. The woods around her smoldered with strips of white ash where the blast had burned through bark and leaf. Every living thing in the clearing was on the ground, stunned, dazed, or dead.
Except for Kael.
He staggered to her, blinking hard, his own body outlined in the static of her power. “Alina!” he yelled, though his voicesounded far away, as if he were speaking through a thick wall of ice. He caught her before she fell, his hands hot and shaking on her arms.
In the ruined glade, she saw Rowan Ashford, the once-immovable man, on one knee, sword planted like a gravestone before him. His face, usually so composed, was a map of disbelief and awe. For the first time in Alina’s memory, he had lost his composure, utterly shocked at what she had become.
The thought gave her a savage, exhausted satisfaction.
Kael shook her, gently but urgently. “We have to move,” he insisted. “Now. More coming. I don’t have the power to translocate anymore, much less you. Please, Alina, we need to go now. Now!”
Alina nodded, though she couldn’t feel her own body. Kael slung her arm over his shoulder and half-dragged, half-carried her into the cover of the woods. Behind them, Marcus was up and limping, a new gash on his brow, and blood dripping from his nose and the arrow wound. He grabbed Seraphina, still dazed, and pulled her along. Finn and Maven were limping along.
They stumbled through the trees, not caring about noise or direction. Behind them, voices began to rise; commands barked in the King’s accent, boots crunching through shattered branches. Alina tried to focus, to summon enough strength for another shield, but her Gift was empty, spent like a blown-out candle.
Kael drove them deeper into the woods with a purpose that left no room for doubt or mercy. Alina could barely keep her feet under her; she felt as if her bones had been hollowed out and filled with the cold air of the forest. Each time she stumbled, Kael’s hand caught her elbow and yanked her forward with the mechanical persistence of someone long past exhaustion, operating on instinctalone. Every few strides he’d halt, turn, scan the frosted brush behind them for shadows and movement, then whisper a hoarse command—”Move”—and push them on.
Marcus was flagging, grimacing at every step. Blood had soaked through the rough shirt at his shoulder to trickle steadily down his arm, painting the forest floor with drops that would surely be easy to track. He made no sound except for the ragged hiss of his breath and the occasional guttural curse, more animal than man. Seraphina limped on a twisted ankle, her teeth bared against the pain. One arm cradled her ribs where a guard’s boot had landed. The only sign of her usual pride was the way she kept her head up, refusing to let the others see the tears that streaked the dirt on her face. Where the others were, Alina didn’t know and she was too out of breath to ask. With all her heart she hoped that they had escaped; even Maven. She couldn’t begin to imagine how she could cope if any of them had been killed or taken.
