A young rebel—Freckle, she’d been referring to him as, because his face was a constellation of sunmarks—usually met her eyes every morning. Today, as she looked up, he slid his gaze away quickly, unable to look at her. She watched the color rise in his cheeks as he pretended to find something on the table infinitely fascinating. He hunched closer to the girl at his side, and Alina felt a pang so sharp she wanted to snap her spoon in half.
She forced herself to eat. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her break.
Across the hall, Maven leaned in close to Seraphina, his voice pitched just loud enough to carry without being obvious. Alina tracked the pattern of his words, the way his fingers drummed the side of his cup as he spoke. Seraphina nodded, slow and deliberate, her eyes never leaving the battered tabletop. Alina remembered the night of the raid—the way Seraphina had looked at her, half-camaraderie, half-contempt.
Now the contempt was winning.
Someone snorted near her shoulder, a muffled sound that made Alina’s skin prickle. She turned to see two men, old enough to be her father’s age, their eyes yellowed from too much sleeplessness, passing a chunk of bread between them. One leaned over, not bothering to keep his words from her:
“Surprised she has the guts to eat with us. Must be used to poison by now.”
The other laughed, a dry cackle. “Maybe she’s immune.”
Alina considered hurling the bowl at them, but instead she let the comment slide off, pretending to find the blank wall across the room the most fascinating sight in the world. That was what her tutors had taught her: never let your enemies see the wound. Never give them the leverage.
She scanned the hall for Finn, hoping for a friendly face or even a distraction, but he was nowhere. Not among the tables, nor by the kitchen. His absence stung, a raw spot on the inside of her chest. She wondered if he was avoiding her too, or if he’d simply found it safer to keep his distance.
Another absence hurt even more, like a thorn embedded deeply in her heart. She hadn’t seen Kael since they had come back from the raid, when he had said goodbye to her with a face full of worry and calculation and had never turned up since. What had happened between them? The hours spent together felt unreal to her now, as if she had just dreamed them up. Why was he so distant? How could he act like that, as though she meant nothing to him? His behavior then and now simply didn’t add up. It was almost as if there were two wholly different Kaels, one of whom she didn’t like very much.
Now, the rumors had found her before she’d even had a chance to hear them. She wondered what Maven had told them. That she’d tried to escape? That she’d passed information to the palace? That she’d killed one of their own? The lie almost didn’t matter—the shape of the suspicion was enough to redraw every friendship in the room.
She poked at her porridge, appetite gone.
The next table over, someone muttered, “…spoke with someone from the palace, I heard it myself…”
Another voice, softer: “Kael should have known better than to trust her. She’s a snake, just like her father.”
Alina flinched at that one. It wasn’t the insult—she’d heard worse, and from people who mattered more—but the sense that, somewhere in this hall, her fate was already being written in someone else’s hand.
The walls seemed to close in further, the cold seeping from the stone straight into her bones.
She finished what she could and stood, scraping the bench back so hard it squealed across the floor. Every head snapped up at once, and for a moment the only sound in the mess hall was the drip of water from the ceiling and the thud of her own heartbeat. She stood her ground, refusing to shrink. If they were going to hate her, they could do it to her face.
A few rebel voices continued murmuring, but most watched her openly now, the suspicion thick as mud.
She set her bowl on the slop shelf near the door. The old woman there looked up, and for a second her eyes softened. “Eat,” she whispered, voice barely audible. “You’ll need your strength.”
Alina nodded, unable to muster a reply. She pushed out into the corridor, the air heavier out here than it was inside, hands shaking in a way she couldn’t hide.
Why wasn't she able to make people like her? To establish friendships? What was it about her that made everyone—maybe with the exception of Finn—reject her?
Once again, she was on her own. An outsiderfor life.
The air in the outdoor training yard was sharper than a knife, the wind off the mountain cutting through every layer Alina wore until it found bare skin. She ducked her head, arms folded tight, and tried to remember what it had ever felt like to be warm. The yard was empty—no clatter of sword on shield, no Finn mimicking the fencing instructor with a broomstick, no Marcus showing off his strength at the weight rack. Just rows of battered dummies and the ghosts of old pain, the kind that clung to the stone long after the blood had been scrubbed away.
She had come here because she thought the emptiness would be a comfort, or maybe a shield. But it only made the echoes louder.
She picked up a practice blade and swung it in the air, testing the balance. The hilt was slick with someone else’s sweat, but it fit her hand perfectly. She set her feet, raised the sword, and ran through the drills—strike, parry, recover, again—trying to lose herself in the rhythm. After a few passes, her shoulders loosened, and her breath evened out.
She was halfway through a sequence when a shadow flickered at the edge of her vision.
Seraphina stood at the mouth of the yard, boots planted in a fighter’s stance, red hair drawn back so tight it looked painted on. Her hand rested on the hilt of her dagger, thumb tapping a rapid beat against the worn leather. She didn’t bother to announce herself, didn’t even blink. She just watched, eyes narrow and predatory.
Alina felt her grip tighten on the blade, but she forced herself to finish the drill nonetheless. She would not give Seraphina the satisfaction of seeing her rattled.
When she finally stopped, Seraphina stalked forward with the casual menace of a cat who'd cornered something small andbreakable. She circled the practice dummies until she stood a few feet away, blocking the only exit.
“Sunrise training? How dedicated,” she said, voice dripping with fake sweetness. “Couldn’t wait to practice your backstabbing form?”
