The dragons continue to grow. They are still relatively small, enough that Alcina can cradle each of them in her joined palms, but no longer small enough that she could do so one-handedly. As Orion and Perseus grow in size, so do their personalities, each growing louder and louder inside of Alcina’s head until she has to learn anew how to tune out the dragons’ sensations from her own. Their fire-breathing capabilities, too, become confirmed, as both of them have recently begun to snort out brief jets of fire when they’re agitated.It’s all in harmless fun for now, but Alcina dreads the day they grow more masterful with their flames and isn’t at all sure how she’s going to tackle that particular hurdle when it arrives.Perseus, as of late, has grown particularly attached to Brendan, such that he’s found sidling up to the lord at least half the time, even in Alcina’s own presence.There’s a part of Alcina that wonders with mortification whether it’s a matter of transference, given tha
The night before their wedding day, House Warner throws the grandest, most lavish celebration of all: a masquerade ball.Alcina had never been to one before.In House Clair, everything was about superiority in association with their famed bloodline; anything that would at all conceal their identities would be diametrically opposed to what her parents deemed as the one and only importance of such events.But Brendan had read a book about a masked ball to Alcina once, and since then, Alcina has been fascinated with the idea.And what is Brendan to do but to make the arrangements when he catches Alcina re-reading the passage on the masquerade with wide eyes?For the first time in a long time, however, Alcina enters the grand ballroom alone, as Brendan had been called away to attend to some matters briefly.It makes her strangely nervous, as though attending her first ball in the Western Plains all over again, to do so without Brendan's grounding presence steadily at her side.When Alcina
It is nearing midnight, Alcina breathless after countless rounds along the dance floor, when Brendan begins to guide her to the doors.It is late, but the ball is still in full swing, the music crescendoing louder as the people, too, grow more vibrant and rowdy with the sinking evening.Alcina, cheeks flushed with exertion, glances in confusion between Brendan and the slowly diminishing dance floor, but going willingly nonetheless.“What is it?” she asks but receives no answer in favor of a little, secretive smile.Halfway down the marble hallway, Brendan discards his mask, and Alcina, befuddled, slowly does the same.In silence - though not unbroken by Alcina’s occasional grumbles, something along the lines of acting so mysterious for no reason other than to seem bizarre - the two of them walk along a series of halls until Alcina finds herself being led through a previously unexplored part of the palace.It feels calmer here, as though there aren’t enough people walking through it on
The wedding is a small, intimate affair, given that it has been born more of political necessity than celebratory fanfare. It had intentionally been kept small for the purposes of efficiency. For all of Alcina’s personal emotions on the matter, the stark reality is that there is a looming war on the horizon and that Alcina and Brendan’s betrothal is the next key piece on the board. Even Lady Darla and Lord Arison have agreed not to make an appearance, given the present circumstances involved. Said circumstances being that pesky matter of repeated attempts from mercenaries as numerous as flies flitting around. Alcina had caught a glimpse of the grand hall, which had been transformed into the place of ceremony earlier that morning. Despite the limited time he had, Nordin had - predictably - managed to create a scene, not unlike a fairy tale. Dark, green silks have been hung from the ceilings and down the walls, creating a lush backdrop for the towering, blooming wall of greenery a
Marriage, Alcina finds, is oddly not very different from being engaged.At least in the way that she experiences it.Nothing changes between the two of them, and it’s a constancy that Alcina revels in - this feeling of being settled. Of being wanted and of being kept.Her two brothers depart rather quickly after the wedding, given that they’d already stayed longer than they were really able to.It’s a bit of a tearful goodbye, of course, and Alcina clings to them for longer than propriety might have deemed proper.It helps that they would be seeing one another in only two months’ time. Nordin and Alfred’s wedding, after all - a grand and widespread event that had been in the works for years - would be their next reunion. It also helps that Alcina has Brendan’s hand to clutch onto as she watches her brothers board the carriage that would take them back to the Heartlands.She stands on the front steps of the castle, holding too-tightly onto Brendan’s hand, watching with wet eyes the
Two weeks before their departure for the Heartlands, the dragons have grown too large to reasonably house within their bedroom, even if they try to house one in each of their rooms.The dragons are fortunate that the main doors to the rooms are spacious and double-doored, or else they may have had to find some way to tear down the walls to move them outside.Alcina is in the middle of fretting, hemming, and hawing and trying in vain to come up with any solutions.It is Brendan who, in the end, comes up with the idea.There is an area of the castle, he tells them, that has been unused and untouched for many years. It had once served as a study for one of Brendan’s great-grandfathers. He was an astronomer who liked to look up at the stars through his telescope and measure the movement of the planets.It is located in the furthermost back portion of the castle, the interior virtually a large marble cavern with ceilings that open up to the skies. In the dead of night, through a series of
In another few weeks’ time, it is time to depart for the Heartlands to attend Nordin and Alfred’s wedding.Alcina finds herself, for the most part, overcome with a conflicting mess of emotions as to her return home.“Home,” she’d called it, but it hadn’t been until her arrival to the Western Plains, to Brendan, that she’d realized, perhaps it had never truly been much of a home at all.Alcina thinks of looking up into her parents’ faces - that stone-faced silence from her father and the sharp edge of lingering disappointment that had never left her mother’s - and something curdles in her stomach.But she supposes, for all of her reservations about returning to the House that had thrown her aside, she will be doing so to attend the most sacred and treasured event for the two people who had made it home, nonetheless, for her first twenty-two years.And she will do so with the person who, for the past few months, had been her home; had made Alcina a home, here, giving Alcina the space an
Dimly, Alcina registers a bluster of sounds around her as guards and noble attendees alike react in degrees of retaliation and terror, and outrage. Still, it all feels distant, as though she were witnessing the events from behind a foggy glass wall, the sounds and sensations and visions muffled.Albrecht, as he walks through the gaping doorway, the doors hanging off the broken hinges, wears a devastating smile, a dark, purple-colored haze spilling from his palms to swirl around those in the back rows.Miasma.Cedric Albrecht, Duke of House Albrecht; he who had emerged victorious following a long and bloody, bitter battle between brothers of the same bloodline to seize the throne alongside the sibling who had supported him in slaughtering their own kin. He, who is said to wield the Gift of poison: a lethal, gaseous substance emitted from his hands, the exact nature of which has never been ascertained but which has been confirmed to be fatal in many instances.Alcina watches as a row o
When Alcina manages to trudge her way to her room in the palace, she has hardly made it past the doorway when Brandon is instantly at her side.Brandon grips her by the shoulders, expression blank but eyes almost frantic in the way they run over her frame from head to toe, as though cataloging any possible injuries. And then, at last, Brandon lifts a hand to rest gently along Alcina’s cheek.Alcina shudders and sinks into it, sighing. “I half feared the Duchess may have buried you somewhere in the courtyard, and I would have to go digging for my wife,” Brandon drawls, teasing and insouciant but with genuine worry in his eyes when Alcina peers up at him.Alcina manages to muster a scowl, though she loses the energy for it right after.Drained, Alcina allows Brandon to help her change into her silken pajamas and guide her right to bed, where Alcina sinks gratefully into the pillows. “I really ought to shower,” Alcina murmurs uselessly, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I’m quite disgust
The courtyard is a ruined wasteland.Everywhere the eye can see, the ground is shattered into nothing more than rubble, uneven and dusty and jagged with uneven footing.But there is one woman who maintains perfect balance, even as the ground shakes violently underneath her precarious red heels: the Duchess, hair flawlessly coifed with not a single strand out of place, even four hours into their training session.She lifts her chin, and a massive, tapered boulder, narrowed to a lethal point, separates itself from the ground.And then, it goes shooting forward, soaring through the air to hurtle towards the two figures hovering in the sky. Alcina sees it coming and grits her teeth as Orion dives sideways in a spinning tumble to avoid it.The Duchess straightens up.All of a sudden, the ground falls still.The silence that follows feels oddly deafening in Alcina’s ringing ears, after hours of its cacophonous din. She, too, straightens up, peering down at her mother in confusion. The Duc
“Survive.”It is all the warning Alcina gets before the ground erupts.That is the only word that can be used to describe the way the earth shifts and jagged little spears come hurtling upwards, all around her, tall enough to pierce Orion’s underbelly should she be standing over one.With an enraged shriek, Orion hurries to take to the air, and Alcina has to scramble to hold on as she frantically takes off.When she is airborne, and Orion has steadied herself with measured, powerful flaps of her great wings, the ground finally stops shaking.Again, she finds her mother standing effortlessly even amid the ruins she had created. “You were lucky, before.” When Alcina had recklessly charged into Elton’s stronghold alone, with nothing but an untrained dragon and a flimsy sword. “The soldiers then had been wholly unprepared for the sight of a dragon, and had been too stricken to react.”She lifts her hand once more. “But you will not be so lucky the next time. And you must be prepared, to f
Somewhere far, far below the grounds of the Western Plains, is an elaborate passageway of holding cells, built of heavy metal bars and lit only by the sparse torches.The dungeons, though no one quite likes to use the word.The dungeons have long been empty for years, having only been used once in recent times. And only briefly, too, given that the inhabitant had been quickly disposed of, once all the information had been extracted from his mind with Lord Alfred’s Gift.Today, the unused torches in the dungeons have been lit once more, for a new guest.It is a young woman, hardly older than twenty, her features lovely and delicate in violent contrast to the grimy holding cell she has been chained to. Everything about her seems like a sacrilege, here, in the dank walls of a dirty underground prison; as though she is something that does not belong in a place so dirty and murky.Even the color of her hair - pale pink locks, vibrant even in the darkness of the cell - stands at odds with t
Alcina watches wordlessly as the Gifted medic heals Brendan’s palm. She stares intently at the white glow emanating from the woman’s hand, as she hovers it over Brendan’s burned palm. Slowly, the reddish hue of the burn recedes, until Brendan’s palm has returned to its normal state.Alcina wishes she could have been born with a Gift like hers, something that would allow her to chase away the bruises and ailments and scars on Brendan’s skin; not something that would hurt him. Human nature, she realizes, is greedy beyond all belief. How many years had she yearned for a Gift, any Gift, she remembers wishing desperately in these very halls? And now that she has been graced with one, she yearns for something more, still.With a respectful bow, the healer excuses herself, leaving just the two of them in the otherwise empty room. Alcina doesn’t move from her perch, sitting ramrod straight in her chair. Stares at Brendan’s hand, every fiber of her being longing to reach out for it so that
Alcina sips dutifully at the glass of water Brendan had forced upon her, eyes doleful as she peeks up at him from underneath her lashes.Brendan stands over her, arms crossed, not unlike an ominous guard watching with keen eyes as if to ensure Alcina truly is drinking the water. They had hardly made it to the closest parlor room from the courtyard entrance when Brendan had promptly sat her down on a chair and ordered a terrified attendant to fetch a pitcher of water.Alcina sips obediently at her second glass now, shoulders slumped both in exhaustion and misery as she glances up at Brendan through her drenched bangs.“Why do you look as though someone has slaughtered your childhood pet?” Brendan demands.Alcina recognizes the terseness of Brendan’s awkward attempts at caring for someone, but cannot help the slight grimace all the same. “You were watching, weren’t you?” she says sullenly, mouthing at the rim of her cup. “I was terrible-”“You were not terrible,” Brendan begins to say,
Two hours in and Alcina is already exhausted.It is midday, now, and the sun beats harshly down on her back, thoroughly drenched with sweat. The wind whipping at her face and limbs from Orion’s movements as she darts through the air does little to cool her down, perspiration dotting her temples and her hair matted to her forehead and neck.Alcina can barely hold on to her sword as it is, while still maintaining her tenuous hold on one of Orion’s spikes to steady herself on her back.A pair of arrows whistle as they just barely miss her cheek, her hair whipping upwards from the projectiles spinning past her just a millimeter away from her skin. “Pay attention,” Percy says from the ground, where he stands, perfectly relaxed with his hands tucked into his pockets - not at all unlike the form he’d assumed, that day of the ruinous wedding.Darla, seated beside him still in her panther’s form, licks her lips in a manner that sends a shiver down Alcina’s back.She yelps, then, as Orion jerk
Back in the Western Plains, a Commander General continues his vigilant observance throughout the night, long after all the castle lights have been extinguished.Alone, he sits, eyes sharp as he assesses each unobtrusive corner of the room.It is none other than Lord Brendan’s own private study, a room that is locked and forbidden to all those aside from the lord himself, and his most trusted advisor: the General who has tasted only the sweetness of victory, each time he has stepped onto the battlefield.Lincoln tilts his head.And then, in a motion too quick for an ordinary man to catch, seizes the dagger laying innocently across the desk, and hurls it across the room.It sinks itself into its target.A gasped expletive fills the air.Lincoln picks up a second dagger, its blade gleaming under the single line of moonlight spilling in through the sliver in the curtains. This, in the next breath, he throws with lethal accuracy.“My, would you look at that,” he says cheerfully, brightly.
“No.”Alcina fumbles with the straps currently adorning Perseus’s broad back the contraption that, she claims, is meant to strap a person in. Brendan stares at it with an unmoving expression.Alcina pouts.Brendan remains firm. “You do realize,” he drawls. “That I am, technically, still in recovery, yes?”Alcina winces.“I don’t know about you, but I’m rather certain that falling hundreds of feet to my death is not what the healers advised for a speedy recovery-”Alcina whines at him. Stomps her foot, even, in a way that Brendan resolutely does not find at all endearing.“You won’t fall,” she says. “I have been practicing very hard this entire week, at flying with Perseus!”Brendan raises a solemn brow. “You mean to say that this is a newly acquired skill that you are attempting to pass off on me, then?”Alcina flushes. “Brendan,” she wheedles. Brendan briefly spares a moment of appreciation, anew, for the two older brothers who have raised this petulant little thing, all these years