And then the last of the refugees were through.
She let go.
The shield collapsed with a soundless implosion, leaving a vacuum in its wake. Alina dropped to her knees, all the strength gone from her body, her breath ragged and cold. Blood dribbled from her nostrils and pooled, crimson and obscene, against her lips. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, smearing her face like a child with berries.
At first, she thought the sudden silence was just a trick of her own ringing ears. But then she looked up and realized it was real: the woods had gone quiet, both sides frozen in shock. Then Kael, standing at the edge of the now-unprotected ravine, raised his sword and let loose a cry that was pure, bright victory. The soundbroke the spell. The rebels surged forward, fighting as if the Gift had kindled something inside them that no blade could cut.
Within minutes, the Royal Guard’s line broke. Some turned and ran, crashing through the bracken, leaving their dead and wounded behind. The rest fell beneath the onslaught: Marcus and Seraphina at the front, Finn waving his injured arm like a flag of absurd defiance. The rebels gave no quarter, for the grudge was old, and the horror of the slaughter at Hazelwood was raw and open, a fresh travesty fueling something the soldiers did not have: righteous rage. By the time it ended, the ground was slick, and the last blue-uniformed man lay face-down in the mud, his helmet rolling away to reveal a boyish, terrified face.
The woods turned silent again, this time with less awe and more exhaustion. The only movement was the slow, shuddering collapse of the fighters as the adrenaline left their bodies.
Alina still knelt in the cold, her own body now numb to every pain except the one in her head. She made herself look, made herself see it: the refugees, alive, huddled behind the lines of rebels, clutching each other, counting their numbers and finding most of them whole. Some wept openly. A made the signs of their faith or muttered prayers. One, an old man with a beard streaked in blood, simply stared at her, and nodded once, a gesture loaded with more weight than a thousand words.
Finn staggered over, his left arm dangling, right hand pressed to the arrow shaft. “Princess,” he said, and managed a half-bow before toppling onto his backside. “You kept us from getting skewered. I always said you were something special.”
She tried to smile, but her lips would barely move. “You’re bleeding,” she said. It came out as a croak.
“Wouldn’t be a proper scrap if I wasn’t. Sera’s got the rest of the mess under control. You just… stay put, yeah?” He offered her a hand, but she shook her head.
“I’m fine,” she lied, but the world still spun, and her legs wouldn’t obey when she wanted to climb to her feet.
From the edge of the battlefield, Seraphina appeared, her cloak streaked with mud and face set in lines of determination Alina had never seen before. She looked across the distance but did not approach. She looked at Alina for a long moment with thoughtful expression, nodded once, and disappeared.
It took Alina a long time to get her feet under her. The rush of victory and the sudden release of pressure left her hollowed out, like a shell after the tide recedes. But she watched as the other rebels rallied around the new arrivals, tending wounds and sharing canteens, and she felt the first, faint flicker of something she’d nearly forgotten how to feel: pride.
Kael was the last to approach. He was streaked with blood, some of it his own, but he moved with a different energy now—less controlled, more raw. He came to her, crouched down, and looked her in the eyes.
“Are you all right?” he asked, looking her over.
“Yes, I am—I will be.”
He helped her to her feet, gentle despite the gore and the stink of battle. For a moment, she thought he would say more, maybe even touch her face, but he just held her upright until she could balance. Then he stepped back, back into the leader snapping orders, managing the aftermath of the battle.
As she watched him go, Alina felt her despair lighten, piece by piece. She had done something, something that mattered. Even if the world still hated her, even if Maven whispered poison at everyturn, she had this one, real, unassailable moment. She had saved people without harming a soul. She might have wept then if she’d had anything left to spill.
She was still standing there, dazed and bloodstained, when Maven found her.
He didn’t approach with the open hostility of a bully, nor with the triumph of a rival. He sidled in, almost companionable, his face set in a pleasant mask that made her want to punch it.
“Impressive trick,” he said, voice light. “You really had them fooled. For a second, I almost forgot who you were.”
She blinked, not trusting her mouth to form words.
“It’s a shame, really,” Maven continued, his silken tone pitched just for her ears. “You keep saving them, but they won’t stop hating you. In the end, they will stick to what they know. You cannot erase your royal blood. Why don’t you just leave and save us all the trouble of making you go?”
The words hit, but this time they didn’t stick. She was too empty and drained to care.
Around them, the Caves settled back into a battered version of order. Some rebels cheered. Some pointed and muttered. Some looked at Alina with something like respect, others still with fresh suspicion.
It didn’t matter. For now, the war had not swallowed them whole. For now, they had survived.
But Alina knew, with a certainty that burned brighter than any torch, that the hardest battles were yet to come.
Her eyes found Kael. He looked back—between them was everything unspoken, everything unfinished, and the jagged hope that somehow, someday, things would be all right again.
19
Not Even You
