She managed a weak, crooked smile. “Thank you,” she said. “For the talking. The not making it worse.”
Finn’s grin returned, wider now. “You’re welcome, Princess.” He twirled the handkerchief between two fingers. “Thank you for your trust.”
She let that truth settle. Yes, she did trust Finn. There was far more to him that he let on, with his permanent joking and his airof chaos. It was his mask, his shield to protect what lay behind it. He was her friend, she realized.
The heavy burden of her loneliness lifted a little.
The fog had evaporated, and the sun sliced through the trees in hopeful, golden blades. Alina tried to picture a future in which she wasn’t defined by what she’d lost, or what she’d done. Surprisingly, the vision didn’t slip out of reach.
She heard a laugh escape her—quiet, like a secret she hadn't meant to share. “If philosopher doesn't work out, you could always start dispensing wisdom for a living. ‘Finn's Fixes for the Fatally Flawed.’”
Finn waggled his eyebrows. “Terrible business model. I'd give away all my wisdom for free.” He strummed a single, dramatic chord. “Besides, Maven would have me writing manifestos by sunrise. ‘How to Overthrow Tyranny While Maintaining Your Sense of Humor: Volume One.’”
Alina snorted and looked down, suddenly self-conscious about the ease between them. It felt like they had crossed a threshold today.
She stared at her hands, skin still raw and reddened from the raid. “I'm scared, Finn,” she admitted. “I have no idea how to keep doing this.”
Finn leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his voice dropping the performance for something real. “You’ll figure it out. I promise. And you’re not alone in this.”
She studied him—his worn boots, the battered guitar, the way he'd folded himself into this moment without demanding anything in return. She was struck by the urge to ask him not to leave her, not yet, but feared the words would come out feeble ordesperate. Instead, she let herself hope that just sitting here could be enough.
Finn plucked idly at the guitar, barely enough force to make the strings hum. “Want to hear something else?” he asked, voice low. “It's called ‘The Ballad of People Who Thought They Knew What They Were Doing But Really Didn't.’ It’s a working title.”
She nodded, and he began to play. This time the song was unfamiliar—a skittering, restless tune, like footsteps on gravel or rain splattering against a window. The melody was jagged and a little wild, and Alina found herself drawn to it, letting the music anchor her in the present, away from the blood and memory.
When the song ended, Finn looked up, meeting her eyes. “Sometimes you just need to listen, not think so much.” He grinned, and the old Finn re-emerged, bright and careless. “That's my secret. Well, that and knowing which guard posts have the best snacks to steal.”
17
You're Wrong
The mess hall was ordinarily a vault for secrets and noise, but this morning both clung to the corners with claws out. Alina hovered at the entrance, the chill from the stone archway bleeding through her shirt and along her spine. Once, she would have walked into a haze of roasting roots and laughter thick enough to choke on, Finn standing on a bench reciting scandalous versions of the royal anthem while even the most miserable rebel managed a crooked smile.
Now, every table was its own island, ringed with hunched shoulders and hungry eyes that flicked away the instant she tried to meet them.
She pushed into the room, feeling as if she were walking into an inquisition stark naked.
It was all wrong. The walls seemed closer than before, the torchlight a sickly yellow that exaggerated every bruise on her skin and every shadow under her eyes. The benches, worn to a greasy polish, felt hostile and cold, the surface of each one scoredwith cuts deep enough to draw blood. The rebels themselves had changed, too: instead of the usual jostling and banter, they sat in tight clusters, heads bent close enough to knot their hair together, voices dropped to a cadence that only grew louder when Alina was not within earshot.
But as soon as she entered their radius, those voices fell silent. It was louder than any shout could be.
She collected her breakfast from the battered line of cauldrons near the door. The porridge was thinner than usual, the ladle handled by an old woman with a scar across her face who, instead of meeting Alina’s gaze, kept her eyes glued to the floor. Alina waited a heartbeat, hoping for the half-smile the woman had given her yesterday.
The only response was a tremor in the hand and a sudden, deliberate turning away.
She carried her bowl to the nearest empty spot, feeling every stare as a physical weight against her ribs.
The room’s sound crept back, but it was a different song than before: a kind of whispering tide, ebbing and flowing, words slithering just below the threshold of recognition. Here and there, she caught fragments, barbed and sharp:
“…saw her yesterday with him—”
“…loyalty’s to her father, not us…”
“…should never have let her stay, not after what happened at Fenbridge…”
The words stung, but it was the venom in the delivery that did the real damage. Where once she’d felt the hostility as a distant, impersonal thing, today it was aimed directly at her, knives drawn and ready.
She tried to focus on the food, though her stomach had already knotted itself into a fist. The porridge had gone cold in the time it took her to cross the room. She raised the spoon, hands steady by force of will, and forced down a mouthful. It tasted of ash and salt and nothing else.
