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
Alcina doesn’t remember very well what happens next.She can only recall in blurred snippets of colors and sensations, filling her heart with a blackened char and ice.But what she does remember is this:She remembers running into the fire headfirst.Remembers locating that crumpled, prone form in the center of the inferno and throwing herself at it with a choked, painful sob.Remembers desperately pulling Brendan’s shoulders into her lap, curling over him. The feeling of sorrow, panic, and rage is so strong that it consumes her whole, leaving behind nothing but this dark, black pit in the center of her chest where her heart ought to be.She doesn’t realize, then, that the fire doesn’t burn.That all around her, where the flames lick at her skin, the only sensation she feels is a dull, pleasant warmth.She doesn’t realize, either, that as she cradles Brendan’s unconscious - dead? - body in her arms, the fire slowly ceases to burn him, too.Because all Alcina can focus on, the only th
It has already been half a day since Brendan had been taken.Since Alcina had sat there, in a shocked stupor, crumpled on the ground with no one able to approach her for the snarling, fearsome dragon wrapped protectively around her. Since then, she had sat there, unregistering the coming and going of various individuals as they counted the dead and the living. Her own father was declared in need of critical medical attention.Nearly an hour after the hall had emptied, Alfred and Nordin had managed to coax Alcina gently to her feet and led her to her room, where she sat staring blankly at the wall until she was fetched for the current meeting. But all Alcina can see is the still and unmoving form of Brendan, laying limply in her arms; of Brendan, smelling like soot and ash and cinders rather than his familiar warm, earthy amber scent; of Brendan, his skin covered in harsh burns, with his eyes that wouldn't open to look at Alcina, no matter how much she begged.So, when Alcina's entir
After that, Alcina doesn't bring up the matter of going after Brendan again.But it doesn't matter much, given that she is also not invited to the strategy meetings after that, anyway.* * * * * * * * * * *The following day, Nordin finds Alcina, where she's sitting quietly with Orion out in the courtyard.Alcina had always hated the whispers and stares that used to trail her at home, of the Giftless child who had ruined her family's hallowed legacy.Now, she has a Gift, but she finds she hates the whispers and stares all the more for it.Alcina hears things like 'To think, that dragons have returned- and it is a Clair who is Gifted with them; and Have you heard that the youngest of House Clair does possess a Gift, after all?'Of people staring at her with awe, that's alien, given that it comes from the same eyes that had scorned her in the past.It strikes her how strange it is that she had been an outcast for having no Gift, but now that she has one, she still folds herself away, hi
As always, Alcina paces the floor with near frenetic energy in the hallway outside the meeting room.Duchess Clair had forbidden her from further meetings, citing Alcina's emotional preoccupation to have rendered her unable to participate in the proceedings with the objectivity required of war.There is a part of Alcina that wonders how loathsome it is to be able to speak of objectivity and the greater good.Perhaps Alcina's mother is right, after all, that she is ill-suited to war, given that such concepts are complex for her to grasp. Not when every time she closes her eyes, she can still see Brendan's last, parting smile seared into her mind with a vengeance.It has been two days since Brendan was taken.Since he had been stolen from her.And still, no one moves.Commander Lincoln is tied up in the Western Plains, given the nation has never been more vulnerable than now, when their greatest strength and future king has been taken.Alfred, future Duke as he may be, is nonetheless se
Alcina’s mother, Duchess Clair, raises the suggestion that they do not go after Lord Brendan at all.Given the magnitude of manpower and resources it would take to breach Duke Elton’s castle, particularly given his alliance with Duke Cedric - it is not justifiable, she says, that they should pursue what could very likely be a “fruitless endeavor.”It falls upon the table like a heavy condemnation, though not a single person can claim that the thought had not crossed their minds even briefly.After all, war cannot be fought on emotions and sentiment alone.It must be fought on the battlefield, with human lives and bloodshed, and innocent deaths.War demands of people, then, to quantify qualitative data to use such phrases as the greater good and justifiable risks.It asks of people to set aside that instinctive human nature to value the individual over all else, the kind of impulse that characterizes mankind in his desire to sacrifice hundreds for the life of one beloved person.Each p
In the throne room, Cedric pulls his blade free from Brendan’s abdomen with a sickening, wet, slick blood spattering immediately onto the marble floor to join the growing pool of red.Brendan’s head lolls on his shoulders, his vision blinking in and out from a haze of whites and duplicates, pallor drained almost entirely of color.His hands and legs are bound in a metal chain. There is a metal collar on his neck, which bit into his skin as the blood trips down from there. His hand is covered with black fur, which is sticking together as the blood-soaked and dried on it.His fingers turned into claws, and his razor-sharp nails are fallen at his clawed feet. Cedric took his sweet time cutting them all out. Brendan doesn’t have the energy or a will to summon his magic or power, but a faint black shadow still surrounds him. Trying to protect him from the torcher, from the agony but-The shadows are barely visible to the naked eye as it gets lost in the black fur adorning his body. But it
Alcina climbs down from Orion’s back, landing with a quiet thump.Alcina lifts her chin, eyes flitting over the battalion of soldiers, over Elton, standing in the center of it all, gazing at them with a hungry, manic gleam in her eyes, and her jaw clenches.“I am here,” Alcina says, and it echoes off the walls. “For my husband.”The soldiers react first.They surge forward as though to attack. In an instant, Orion reacts, rearing her head and letting out a deafening, angry roar, enough to make most of them pause.Elton’s hand flies up, halting the remaining soldiers in their tracks.Orion curls protectively over Alcina’s head, and her wings spread with overwhelming menace.“Lady Alcina,” Elton says, a strange wonder in his voice, as though he is hearing and tasting the name for the first time. He takes another step closer, and Orion growls.Elton stills. “Of House Clair.”Elton’s eyes are blown wide as they take in the young lady and her dragon. “It is you,” he breathes. “-who command
That afternoon, Alcina takes off for the Heartlands with Perseus to inform her family of House Warners’s decision, while Brandon remains behind to see Percy and Darla off.When Brandon makes his intentions known to the soon-departing lords of the Ranges, there’s hardly a pause before Percy shrugs.“Very well, then.”Brandon raises a brow. “Is that all?”Darla grins, razor-sharp and vicious. “I’ve wanted to gut those pathetic vermin for a while now,” she says as she stretches her neck, languid and incredibly dangerous.Conversational. “Ever since they reared their stupid heads and tried to act like lions instead of the prey that they are.”Ever since they managed to escape unscathed from the massacre of the wedding at the Heartlands, Darla’s been unsettled. Like a shark that smelt blood in the water, only to have lost its prey.Darla has the kind of bloodlust that won’t settle until she’s standing above the carcasses of her chosen prey.Percy merely smiles, as warm as an indulgent love
They say that Captain Lincoln of the Western Plains’ military is a man unmatched, for he carries with him the favor of the goddess of victory, herself.Stella thinks they might be mistaken.For watching him now - watching the way he leaps into battle with nothing but a sword and his gleaming armor, having stepped down from his steed because he does not wish to risk harm to his horse makes Stella think-He is the god.Stella wishes to never fight another day in her life and has loathed fighting and everything it means and entails, but even she cannot deny that Captain Lincoln in battle is nothing short of mesmerizing.What a frightening man, to make something that Stella loathes like no other, into something- strangely beautiful.Even as the other men under Lincoln’s command have charged in to engage the others in combat, Lincoln remains at the front lines of the conflict, a dancing hurricane flitting across the ground to leave devastation in its wake.He takes on two, three, five, eve
A figure has come to stand beside her, tall and broad and armor gleaming under the moonlight, white teeth sparkling in a roguish grin-“Commander?”It cannot be.But it is.Commander Lincoln stands before her with all the casual grace of a man out for a stroll, confidence is as alien as it is captivating on the shoulders of a person who stands on a battlefield and yet still somehow manages to look as though he is at home.Stella gapes at him.Lincoln smiles.“What- wh- what are, what are you-““The cavalry has arrived,” Lincoln announces grandly, cheerfully. Always so bloody incomprehensibly cheerful, how-“What?”Lincoln’s smile turns just an edge softer, for just a moment. He tilts his head backwards, and Stella swivels her head, only to choke at the sight of- of soldiers, several hundred of them, bearing the glorious banner of the Western Plains-Stella’s wide eyes must betray her stupor, for Lincoln drops gracefully to a single knee beside her.Stella’s stupor turns into a stilted
“And where were you, when this intruder managed to slip past our defenses?” Brandon drawls.“Sinking the edge of my blade into his stomach, my lord,” Lincoln replies.They share a grim smile.“I only regret that I could not do so sooner, before he had killed the serving girl,” Lincoln sighs. At that, Brandon’s expression darkens.Alcina had been near catatonic with grief.Ridiculous, in some ways, that a princess should have grown so attached to her servant that she’d mourn Mary’s death like so. But that ridiculous heart is Brandon’s.They’ve hurt what belongs to the Shadowed Beast, and penance will be forcibly wrenched by payment in blood.“They’d likely been searching for Alcina,” Lincoln says. “Or at least, any viable intelligence on her command of the dragons.”“Yes.” Brandon has been made all too well aware of Duke Albrecht’s interest in the dragons. An interest that had spanned years before Alcina’s ever came into the world, if that dilapidated fortress were any indicator.For h
Brandon emerges from their shared bedroom with keen intent in every step, cloak swirling behind him. Alcina remains in their room, curled along the window seat, Orion’s quiet rumbles bringing her whatever semblance of peace is possible.He pins a standing guard with a raised brow. “And where, pray tell,” he says. “Is Commander Lincoln?”The answer makes Brandon’s brow curve higher and higher on his forehead.* * * * * * * * * *Long before he becomes Commander Lincoln, the man they whisper to be graced by the goddess of victory, the man who leads the greatest military force in all the land to nothing but absolute triumph and glory, Lincoln was just a Lin, a penniless street urchin who’d grow up in an orphanage that had too many mouths to feed and too few beds.It’s been a long time since Lincoln was that skinny, trembling boy in rags with dirt smeared across his cheeks and an aching in his belly; a long time since he’s tasted anything but the sweet, euphoric taste of victory and iron
With a bloodthirsty vengeance perched on her shoulder in glittering hues of ruby red, Lady Alcina arrives back at the Western Plains to find the castle sunk deep in discord.Although nothing looks to be amiss, it is undeniable in the very tension that permeates the air, that something is wrong.As the two of them enter through the main doors, Alcina can see the flicker of trepidation in the gazes of every guard and attendant who welcomes them back home.Something has happened.“Brandon,” Alcina murmurs, and feels the weight of her husband’s hand pressed against her back in response.“I know,” Brandon says. He too has sensed the unease.Even Lincoln - who ordinarily would be the first to greet Brandon upon his return from any excursion - is glaringly absent.The party has long ended and the lavishly dressed throngs of attendees have long since waltzed out of the castle doors to their own homes. It isn’t odd, then, for the castle to be so quiet, given the circumstances.What is odd, how
The iron shackles laying at their feet, massive and heavy and bolted to the floor with chains so great that even in their rusted state, have not deteriorated in strength, were clearly once used to contain a beast of unimaginable size and power.A beast terrible - and fearsome - enough, to have warranted such an egregious means of constraint.Alcina’s hands - those gentle, kind things, soft to the touch for how few hardships they’d ever seen, so tender that they’d blistered and bled when she first began to take up swordplay, unused as they were to adversity - curl into fists, still resting against the ivory.Brandon watches as they curl so tightly that he fears Alcina’s nails may draw blood on her own palms, shaking - not with fear, but anger.That is when something new catches Brandon’s eye.Something that catches one of the scant few rays of light, flitting in from the broken doorway.Something that looks like a massive jewel, curved vaguely in the shape of an egg.Something nestled
Mary catches them just as Perseus dips his head low for Alcina to climb aboard.From beside him, Orion paws at the ground with an irritated snort, displeased at being left behind. But with Perseus’s darker scales, Alcina had thought it would grant them a far better chance at going unnoticed at all, in the inky blackness of the night.“My Lady!”Alcina turns, just in time to see Mary run up to her, her breaths visible in foggy clouds in the night chill. In her arms is a dark bundle, revealed to be one of Alcina’s warm cloaks, lined with fur. Mary heaves for air as Alcina turns to fully face her, having evidently run the entire way from the palace.“My Lady,” Mary says breathlessly, expression lined with worry as she holds up the cloak. “You cannot simply take off into the night without even a cloak,” she says, edging close to a reprimand.Even as that pull pounds with a vengeance in Alcina’s chest still, ever stronger now that she’s recognized the call for what it is, Alcina can’t help
Alcina catches Nordin's eye from across the room, and though her brothers are unable to extricate themselves from the political small talk they are caught in, they send her a warm smile nonetheless.She beams back, and something in Nordin's smile softens, ever so slightly, at the sight of the sheer happiness the Lord of House Warner has managed to put on their sister's lips.When Brandon had suddenly declared a ball at the week's end, he and Alfred had shared a momentarily skeptical look. But then, Alfred's eyes had dawned with recognition, and he'd stifled a quiet laugh into his hand. Had, as Nordin demanded what was so funny, explained-It would seem that the great beast is entirely bewitched by our willful little sister.And Nordin had felt his own lips twitch into a helpless smile in turn, at the frankly ridiculous lengths it would seem the Lord was willing to go to if it would bring a smile on their little sister's lips in such dire times.Brandon leans down to ask if Alcina woul