Alina tried to concentrate on her food, but the knot in her stomach had only tightened. She realized then that her hands were drumming a nervous pattern on the linen, and stilled them, folding them tightly in her lap.
Queen Isabella reached over, fingers cool and dry on Alina’s wrist. “You’re shivering,” she murmured.
“I’m fine,” Alina whispered back, though she wasn’t sure if she was. There was a weight pressing down on the room, some expectation or warning just out of reach. Was it just her or did the others feel it, too?
A third peal of thunder, this time so close it rattled the chandeliers. The King’s voice cut through: “Enough. Rowan, dismiss the servants. Lady Marlowe, see to the council’s security. I want no one in or out until the storm passes.”
The order was absolute. The servants filed out with barely a sound, relieved and anxious in turn. Marlowe signaled to Blackwood and Fairchild; the three rose as one, moving to the sidechamber with visible haste. Blackwood almost took the table linen with him as he struggled to heave his considerable belly up and away.
Only the royal family and Rowan remained at the table, the storm beating against the windows. For the first time that Alina could remember, the King’s usually unshakeable confidence seemed thinner, stretched to transparency.
Alina looked from her father to her mother, and then to Rowan, whose face was unreadable.
The silence was worse than the noise.
It was the queen who finally broke it. “Do you think it’s them?” she asked, so softly Alina almost missed it.
Alina’s head swiveled to her mother. “Who?”
Rowan’s jaw flexed. “If you mean the rebels, no. I doubt they have the means to conjure storms. I wouldn’t be too worried, Your Majesty.”
“What rebels?” Alina insisted, but was ignored again. What in the name of the Gods was going on here?
The King’s fingers resumed their drumming, but slower, each beat measured and ominous. “We will not give in to superstition,” he said. “This is the Realm. We are its rulers.”
Lightning split the sky again, so bright it burned afterimages onto Alina’s retinas, the following thunder rattling the whole palace. She looked from one person to the next and for the first time, she saw her family not as rulers, but as people—tired, uncertain, vulnerable people. The thought made her feel strangely braver.
The silence returned, heavy as wet velvet, and outside the wind howled like a beast denied.
Queen Isabella’s hand, so poised and steady only moments ago, found Alina’s beneath the table. The pressure was gentle, but the tremor in the Queen’s fingers told a different story.
“Stay close,” her mother whispered, the command barely louder than a breath. For a heartbeat, Alina reveled in the expression of motherly care. But the moment broke as thunder rolled overhead, shaking the room and sending a shiver up her arm.
The darkness pressed at the windows, thicker than any night she remembered. Clouds rolled like bruised silk over the city, blotting out the last traces of sunset. The candlelight, once warm and flattering, now painted every face with uneasy shadows. The blue fire of the chandeliers flickered, making the gilded walls seem to pulse.
Alina had still not been given an answer. Nerves strung, her irritation flared. “Mother, will you not—” she started, only for another tremor, sharper this time, to cut her off, rattling the glassware and making the cutlery jump. The tablecloth fluttered as if lifted by an unseen wind. This time even Lord Rowan, ever the statue, betrayed himself in the way he pinched the bridge of his nose, a fleeting gesture of disbelief.
Alina’s heart hammered. The palace was supposed to be impervious. She tried to recall if she’d ever heard of the walls shaking like this, but could not come up with even one memory that came close to this.
She pulled her hand away from her mother’s, the move sharper than she intended. “I want to see,” she said. It was not quite defiance, but not obedience either.
“Alina—” Isabella began, reaching to hold her, but Alina was already out of her chair. “Alina, stop!” the king commanded.
Alina was drawn to the balcony inexplicably by a force she could not resist. She crossed the room in four quick steps, her father standing up, his chair toppling over. “Alina!”
But she did not stop. With everybody’s gaze following, she unlatched the great glass doors to the balcony. Her mother’s plea—“Wait!”—was lost in the shriek of the wind.
The air outside struck her with physical force. Her hair whipped across her eyes, and her dress pressed itself against her legs as if it too were trying to cling to safety. She braced herself against the cold stone balustrade and looked out over the palace grounds.
Two guards came onto the balcony, ordered by the king to take her inside. In that moment, lightning, cruel and precise, split the darkness. The world below was transformed: the ornamental lawns now a froth of shadows and silver, the gravel walks turned to rivers by the rain. In that frozen instant, Alina saw movement where there should have been none: shapes darting between the hedgerows, bending the unnatural light.
She blinked, thinking she’d imagined it. But the next flash confirmed it, highlighting figures, moving far too fast for any sane explanation. Their uniforms were wrong for palace guards, and their limbs moved with an animal grace. They ran low to the ground, skidding on wet flagstones, vanishing and reappearing behind statues and fountains.
The guards hastened back into the room to report what they had seen, their orders to protect the princess forgotten. Alina pressed closer to the balustrade, heedless of the rain. At her throat, the amulet warmed, a slow pulse against her skin. The sensation was new; the crystal, in contrast to the chain that warmed toher skin, usually lay cold, nothing more than a decorative weight. She touched it, feeling a faint vibration—a warning, or perhaps a summons.
Another flash, so bright it forced her to squint. The figures were closer now, halfway across the lower courtyard. One man, taller than the others, paused at the foot of the steps leading to the east wing. He looked up. For a moment, Alina was certain he saw her. The face was hidden in the storm’s glare, but she could not shake the feeling that this man was looking right at her.
Her breath fogged in the freezing air. She should have turned back, locked the doors, run to her parents. But she stood transfixed, eyes locked on the advancing shadows.
