The Caves were in an uproar.
Alina trailed Kael through the tangle of corridors and side chambers, the clamor growing as they neared the staging area. Word of the Hazelwood massacre had reached every rebel in mere minutes. Now, squads clustered in armor and oilcloth, teeth bared as they jostled for arms and orders, some shouting, some arguing over tactics. The air hummed with a sense of doom—or maybe it was the sharp, acrid tang of blood already being spilled somewhere just out of sight.
Kael walked at the center, every muscle honed to a line, every word clipped and precise. He didn’t so much command as impose, the way a thundercloud doesn’t ask permission to break. Alina followed just behind, part of her desperate to keep up, part of her wanting nothing more than to disappear.
She caught his sleeve at a turn in the corridor, breathless. “Let me come with you. I can help.”
Kael didn’t look back. “No.”
She dug in, planting her feet. “I’m not a liability. Not unless you let them make me one.” Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears—hard, brittle, unyielding.
He stopped, turned, met her eyes. For an instant, she saw the exhaustion lurking behind the gold: a man splintered in a hundred directions, trying to hold the pieces together by sheer force of will. “I know you didn’t betray anyone,” he said, low and urgent. “But if you’re seen out there, today, it will ruin you. And maybe us.”
“I don’t care about being ruined,” she spat. “I care about not being useless.”
He shook his head. “You are not—” He stopped, the words choking off. “We need you alive. I need you alive. Stay here.” He was gone before she could say another word, swept away by the current of men following him into the fray.
Alina stood alone in the corridor, fists balled so tight her nails bit crescent moons into her palms. The world funneled past her: squads running, shouts for orders, the clatter and thump of a war machine ramping up for slaughter. She wanted to scream, to rip open the walls, to show everyone what she was really made of.
Instead, she watched the flow until the first wave of surviving refugees stumbling in from outside. Children, women, the old and the broken—all of them smeared with mud, faces streaked with tears or worse. Some clutched at each other like drowning sailors, others just wandered, hollowed out and aimless. One boy, no older than eight, limped on a bandaged leg, his entire face so swollen that only one blue eye peeked out. Behind him, a woman collapsed, her hands shaking so violently she couldn’t hold onto the little bundle pressed to her chest.
Alina moved without thinking, crossing to the woman to ease her down against the wall. The bundle mewled—a newborn, impossibly tiny, fists clenched against the sound of the world. The woman looked up, saw Alina, and flinched away.
“It’s all right,” Alina said, voice softer than she’d meant. “You’re safe here.”
The woman’s mouth twisted. “No one’s safe. Not after what happened.”
Alina wanted to ask, but the horror in the woman’s eyes said more than any words could. She stood up, watching as the sad small band of wounded trickled deeper into the Caves, and realized that the war was already here. There was no hiding from it.
She looked for Finn, for anyone she knew, but the faces were blurred by blood and panic. She ran, following the line of refugees back to the tunnel mouth, past the guards and into the open.
As always, the wind slapped her skin, cold and wild. She pelted up the slope toward the ridge, boots skidding on loose rock, her breath a frozen ghost. At the top, she found chaos.
Royal Guard uniforms flashed through the trees, blue and gold in a rolling wave. Rebel fighters met them in a ragged line, yelling, swinging axes, firing crossbows into the press. The clash was allsound and blur—arrows hissing, men screaming, the crunch of metal into bone. In the gully below, a cluster of refugees had bottlenecked, unable to move forward or back. Guards in bright armor picked them off like cattle.
Alina’s hands curled into fists. She called the Gift, felt it stir and flare, the familiar surge that left her lightheaded but alive. She sucked in air, let the world slow around her, and raised her hands.
The first time she had tried to build a shield, it had nearly burned her alive. This time, she focused only on the space she wanted to protect—the gully, the terrified faces, the narrow band of earth between two boulders. She imagined a wall, tall and thick and impenetrable. She forced it into existence, drawing the power up from her gut and out through every nerve in her arms.
It shimmered into being, a band of energy that warped the air, and the next volley of arrows bent and dropped, clattering harmlessly to the ground. With all her might, Alina willed the shield to select friend from foe. She needed it to let in those who needed protection and hold off the enemy and their weapons.
The effort cost her dearly. It was more than a price this time—it was a stripping, a searing, a demand that reached into the core of her and started to burn. As she forced the wall of air and raw will to stay, Alina felt her body shrink to a single point, the trembling node in her chest where the Gift twisted. Her hands, raised and rigid, refused to lower. Her arms locked and quivered. The world around her shrank to two realities: the pressure mounting in her skull and the impossible clarity of watching dozens of lives depend on her for their chance at survival.
She watched as the rebel front, bolstered by the sudden protection, surged forward. The first rank of the king’s soldiers battered at the shield with arrows, then with spears, then withcurses as the volleyed shafts simply warped and fell at their feet. Every time a new projectile struck the shimmering air, it reverberated through her, like a piano key struck somewhere very far away but echoing in her bones all the same.
Her vision blurred. Her limbs tingled, then went cold. Still, she held fast, willing her trembling legs to root her to the ground. A girl on the other side of the field cried out, a high keening wail as an arrow skittered off the invisible wall and landed at her feet, harmless. The girl’s mother saw it, and in that moment their eyes met Alina’s. There was no gratitude, only raw, animal hope. She clung to it with every breath she had left in her, forced it to be her anchor.
In the corner of her view, Kael broke free from the tangle of bodies. She knew his gait instantly—the determination, the inherent predatory grace as familiar as her own heartbeat. He tore down the incline with a child in each arm, barely slowing as he ducked through a crossfire of thrown rocks and more arrows. Blood streamed from a cut on his brow, but his face was absolute focus. He was the storm and the eye of it all at once.
Behind him, Finn staggered. He’d taken a hit—a black-feathered bolt protruding from his upper arm, and even at this distance, Alina didn’t miss the way he cradled it like a stubborn child. He tumbled, righted himself, and with a madman’s grin, lobbed a stone at his nearest pursuer. It went wide, but he made it to the barrier, seized a pair of terrified boys by the collars, and dragged them through the shield’s aperture. The physical contact made the shield ripple, threatening to flicker out, but Alina ground her teeth and pressed harder.
Seraphina’s voice cut through the chaos: “Hold it! Hold it, Princess!” Each syllable was a whip-crack. Alina could barely seeher, but she felt the words like scaffolding, holding her up, even from Seraphina. Maybe the woman would now see that Alina was truly on their side.
The world narrowed to a single moment: the last of the refugees, a group of the old and the broken, limping and dragging each other, crawling and screaming. One woman had lost her shoes and most of her dress; blood streaked her calves. A small boy in a patched coat clung to her side, eyes round and unblinking. Alina squeezed her hands, and the wall held.
The soldiers, realizing their quarry was slipping away, began to push forward in a furious, undisciplined mass. A captain in blue and gold barked orders, and a line of pikemen surged. The shield buckled. Alina’s vision narrowed to pinpricks. The taste of iron filled her mouth.
She held it for one more heartbeat. Then another. Then one final, jaw-clenching second.
