Her voice, when it came, was tiny and flat: “I have nothing to say.” It sounded thin and bloodless, utterly unconvincing.
Maven’s eyes flickered. “Just as I thought.”
Alina looked at the faces around her, scrambling for the right words, but her mind was as blank as the stone walls. She considered telling them about the battle, about the children, about the fact that she had done nothing but what she believed was right. But the words died in her throat. Nobody here cared about what was right. They wanted to be safe, and she could not offer them that.
She straightened her back—not because she wanted to, but because she would not let Maven see her bow.
The crowd broke, fragments drifting away in clumps and pairs, nobody wanting to linger. The only person who met her eyes was Marcus, whose own were red-rimmed and full of something like apology, but not quite enough to cross the space between them. Seraphina was gone by the time Alina looked, as was Tamsin, only the ghost of their presence left on the scuffed floor and the smell of iron. She hadn’t seen Elara in an age; there was no knowing what she thought.
Kael was nowhere to be seen, his absence a separate pain, standing out far among the others.
Alina stood there, hands still at her sides, heart beating too loud in her ears. She did not know what to do anymore. All she knew was that Maven had drawn the battle lines tighter, and that she was the only one standing on her side of them.
She waited until the last rebel had left the hall to let herself breathe again, slow and deliberate, like she could anchor herself to the air. She wiped her palms on her trousers, surprised to find them wet.
Somewhere down the corridor, Maven’s voice was already at work, laying the next story, planting the next seed. She wouldhave to find Kael. She would have to try, one more time, to make someone believe her.
But not now. For now, she just stood in the center of the empty hall, bracing for the next attack, and wishing with all her heart that she had been born someone else.
She was still standing in the hollowed-out quiet of the main hall when the runner found her. The boy looked half her age, but he had the face of someone who had seen every shade of cruelty the world could offer. His eyes darted away from hers as he delivered the message, the syllables clipped and urgent: “Kael wants you. Now. He said it’s not a request.”
Alina wanted to laugh at the formality of it, as if there were anything left in the world Kael Stormborne couldn’t demand with only a look or a word. She thanked the boy and followed, feeling every new bruise and muscle tremor as she walked. The corridor to the upper levels was brighter than usual, every torch burning high and hot, as if someone believed that extra light could bleach out the stain Maven had just splattered across the camp’s soul.
They passed a knot of rebels standing at the base of the stairs. All of them stopped talking as she approached; one of them, a woman with a split lip, muttered something under her breath and turned her back. Alina climbed, her breath coming harder with every step. By the time she reached the side passage where Kael’s makeshift office was hidden, she was half convinced he would be waiting for her with a blade and a blindfold.
Instead, she found him leaning against a battered desk in a room so narrow the walls pressed in on every side. There was barely space for two people to stand without touching, and Kael’s presence filled every inch of it, radiating the restless heat of a man in the middle of his own private storm.
He looked bad. Not “after a battle” bad, but “haven’t slept in days, haunted by his own choices” bad. His hair was matted to his forehead, and there was a fresh scratch on his cheek, not yet clotted. The whites of his eyes were shot through with red, and the shadow at his jaw was thick enough to bruise.
She braced herself, waiting for the inevitable.
He didn’t look up at first, speaking quietly, almost a shade too calmly. “You could have gotten us all killed. What if you had lost control like during the raid? Did you even think about that for a minute?”
The words were so low, so perfectly measured, they almost sounded like a compliment.
Alina leaned against the closed door, her own knees unsteady. She needed a moment to get over the anger radiating from him. “You wanted me to do nothing while people died?”
Kael’s eyes flicked up, just for a second, and then away again. He picked up a sheet of parchment, stared at it, then set it down with a force that suggested it might burst into flames. “You don’t get to decide what risks are worth it. That’s my job. You made a choice, and now half the camp thinks you’re a liability.”
She barked a laugh, sharper than she meant. “Half? That’s a generous count.”
He glared at her. “This isn’t a joke. You let Maven set the terms of the story. You handed him exactly what he needed.”
Unbelievable. How was she at fault here? Her own anger sparked, and she was glad for it. Anger, she could deal with. Better than sorrow. Better than hopelessness. “And what was that?” She took a step forward, forcing him to meet her gaze. “I held the shield. I kept your people alive. Would you rather I had stood back and watched them die?”
He pushed off the desk, closing the distance between them in a heartbeat. “I would rather you trust me to do my damn job. You think you’re the only one who wants to protect them? The only one who has something to lose?”
He was so close now she could see the rawness at the corners of his mouth, the line of tension that ran from his temples to his jaw.
Alina refused to back up. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see the look in their eyes—the children, the old. There was nothing to protect them, nothing to stop the soldiers from butchering them, picking them off like they were little more than insects. You expect me to watch and do nothing?”
Kael’s voice dropped, but it gained a dangerous, shuddering intensity. “That’s not the point, Alina. You acted outside the plan. You made the decision yourself, and now every idiot in the Caves thinks we’re not on the same side. That’s the risk you took. You undermined me in front of everyone.”
“That’s what you care about? Your image?” This was getting crazier by the minute. How could he not see what she had done for them? Thoughts raced through her mind like a storm, memories of everything that had happened to her over those last days, what was hissed at her, the looks she had received, the hatred she had been bombarded with. Emotions pelted her from the inside out, none of them good. Her heart hammered in her chest, ready to break into a thousand pieces.
He flinched, just slightly, but the wound it left was visible. “My image,” he said, “is the only thing that keeps this from becoming a slaughterhouse. They listen to me because they have to believe in something. You don’t get to cut the legs out from under me and then act surprised when the roof caves in.”
For a moment, the only sound was the rasp of both their breathing. Alina realized her hands were balled into fists, fingernails biting so deep she might bleed.
