Alina kept her tone neutral, though her pulse jumped. “Just wanted some quiet before everyone shows up.” She set the practice blade on the rack, careful not to let it clang.
Seraphina moved closer, tightening her circle until the yard felt claustrophobic. “You know what's truly special?” she said. “The way someone you trust can fight beside you, share your water, even save your life—and then sell you out the minute it's convenient.”
Alina stared, genuinely confused. “What? I haven’t—”
Seraphina sliced the air with her hand. “Save it for someone who hasn't heard better lies from six-year-olds. I vouched for you. Told Kael, ‘No, she's different from her father.’ And here you are, making me look like the village idiot at the royal parade.”
The accusation landed like a kick to the ribs. Alina shook her head, bewildered. “What are you even talking about?”
Seraphina snorted. “Playing the confused princess? That’s rich. You froze during the raid—I saw it, Marcus saw it, even Kael saw it. You've been collecting intel like a squirrel before winter, asking about routes, leaders, plans. And those cozy little chats with Finn?” She said his name like it tasted of spoiled milk.
Alina tried to respond, but Seraphina closed in, near enough that Alina could count her eyelashes and see where her scar puckered slightly at the edge. “Maven heard your escape plot. Your little promise to warn daddy dearest about our hideout. Want to try denying that to my face?”
It was so ridiculous Alina almost laughed, but something in Seraphina's eyes—a dangerous, brittle fury—stopped her cold. She groped for words through the shock. “That's completely wrong. Finn and I were just talking about home—about missing it. I was homesick, that's all.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she hated the weakness.
Seraphina's smile was sharp enough to draw blood. “Sure you are. Haven’t you been telling us sad stories of the poor little princess in the gilded cage? And now you’re suddenly homesick. You can’t have it both ways—either it was a terrible fate to be locked in the golden palace, then you should be glad to be out of it. Or it was not, then being homesick makes actually sense. Do you really think I can't spot a traitor? I've lived this life longer than you can imagine. You need to step up your game a little if you wanna convince me.” She prowled around Alina, keeping her constantly in sight. “You're not even a halfway decent liar, Princess.”
The word dropped between them like a guillotine.
Alina felt heat rush to her face, humiliation and anger warring in her chest. “You’re wrong,” she said, but it sounded weak even to her own ears.
Seraphina shook her head, slow and sad. “Save your breath. I don’t want to hear another story about how it’s all a big misunderstanding. I’ve watched you. You want to belong, but you can’t help thinking you’re better than the rest of us. You never stopped being a princess, no matter how much mud you roll in.”
She let that sink in, then turned and strode toward the yard’s exit, the heel of her boot catching in a patch of frozen mud. She paused at the threshold, not looking back. “Kael’s too soft on you. The rest of us aren’t.”
Then she was gone, leaving Alina in the empty yard. The practice dummies gaped at her with their painted-on faces, the cold settling in her bones until she felt like she might never thaw again.
She stood there for a long time, staring at the spot where Seraphina had vanished, feeling the weight of suspicion press down until her knees buckled. She sank onto the frozen earth, hands curled into fists and tried to breathe.
How could they twist everything she said and did so badly? Why weren’t they glad that she wasn’t on the Crown’s side? Why did they paint her as that very thing they claimed to hate? Even such a beautiful thing like Finn giving her hope and strength when she had been utterly vulnerable—how could they twist it into something bad? And… how did they even know about that? And why did they invent things that had not been spoken? Like Alina talking to her father…it didn’t make sense. A coldness that had nothing to do with the frozen ground she was sitting on claimed her belly. They were following her. They had followed her to the glade and hidden and listened in to Finn and her. And now they were making things up that made her look like a traitor.
She stayed in the cold dirt for a long time, trying to make sense of everything. She failed.
Alina’s ears rang with Seraphina’s accusations as she fled the yard. The loss of Seraphina’s—well, if not friendship, then at least camaraderie—burned in her chest, sharp as a knife. She hardly remembered passing through the heavy wooden doors, or the spatter of sleet that needled her skin as she crossed the muddypatchwork of the courtyard. She only knew that she had to find Kael, to make him see that everything was spiraling out of control, to beg him—if she had to—to believe in her, just one more time. She knew he doubted her, and she was pretty sure that he regretted their romantic endeavor, but she knew that he was still a friend.
The stone corridors of the stronghold felt tighter than ever, the damp air clinging to her face like a mask. Her boots slapped wetly against the floor, and her breath sawed in and out, a visible vapor in the torchlit gloom. The walls sweated, beads of water catching the dim light, turning every rough surface into a string of glistening scars.
Every rebel she passed tracked her with their eyes. Most simply watched, silent and unsmiling, but a few stepped aside, making just enough space for her to squeeze past—a gap measured with military precision, as if she were already contagious. Once, a boy in a patched green jacket pressed himself to the wall and made a quick gesture of thumb to chin, fingers flared—one of the old superstitions meant to ward off evil. She caught the movement and felt her teeth grind. She almost wanted to laugh, but all she managed was a broken sound in the back of her throat.
Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She flexed her fingers, tried to will them into stillness, but the tremor only got worse. Sweat prickled along her brow, cold despite the heat in her cheeks.
Kael’s room was at the end of a winding passage, through a set of iron-bound doors and up a narrow flight of stairs that felt like they’d been carved for someone with twice her stride. She took the steps two at a time, not caring that her boots slipped on the slick edges. She needed him to tell her it was going to be all right. She needed him to touch her, even if only for a moment, just to remind her that she was still real.
She nearly collided with the door at the top, only barely catching herself on the lintel. She sucked in a breath, knocked once, then—hearing nothing—pushed the door open, just enough to peer inside.
The room was dim, lit by a single candle that guttered in the draft. Kael stood with his back to her, hunched over the battered desk in the far corner, his head bent low. Beside him, so close their shoulders brushed, was Elara. The silver in her hair caught the candlelight, scattering it in spectral gleams across the walls. Alina had always viewed her as a sorceress but with a clarity that surprised her, she now saw that Elara was a beautiful woman. She was murmuring something into Kael’s ear, her hand resting lightly on his forearm, the other turning pages in a massive, leather-bound book that looked older than the stronghold itself.
Alina watched, frozen in the doorway. She’d seen them like this before, deep in discussion and lost to the world around them, but now, every inch between them radiated something she couldn’t name. Elara leaned closer, her lips grazing the shell of Kael’s ear. Kael nodded, the movement slow and deliberate, his hand reaching out to steady the book as if it might shatter from the weight of their secrets.
Alina’s vision tunneled, the world narrowing to just that singular point of contact of Elara’s hand on Kael’s skin. His focus was on the book, yet he was open and relaxed toward the woman beside him. There was an intimacy between them, a sense of closeness that radiated from them.
A spike of something truly ugly shot through Alina: jealousy, so hot, so fierce, so stabbing, she couldn’t breathe. For a second she almost cried out, almost rushed in to demand an explanation. But she couldn’t move, frozen in place. All she could do was watch asElara whispered something else, and Kael laughed, low and rough, yet almost gentle.
Alina turned away, the world spinning.
She stumbled back down the stairs, barely managing not to fall. She hit the corridor and started walking at speed, not caring where she was going. She needed air, needed distance, needed to be anywhere that wasn’t inside her own skull.
The words from the mess hall came back, burning into her chest:
