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
Orion lets out an unholy screech as the wave of soldiers threatens to pull her under, and a spear manages to pierce the soft underside of the tip of her wing.The panic in Alcina rises higher, and she feels as though she cannot breathe.The soldiers continue to advance, unminding the dead bodies that litter the floor. It seems as though there is an endless supply of them, pouring in from the double doors, new ones replacing each one that Orion manages to befell. This, Alcina thinks in her bleak despair, is why her mother told her that she is unfit for battle. She was not wrong.Alcina’s hands curl around the chains in her hands, ignoring the stinging pain of her torn skin, and her eyes clench shut when a massive, thundering roar cuts through it all.Alcina’s heart pounds in her chest, this time, not with panic, but with a vengeance.Over the balcony, a huge, looming shadow appears.The soldiers freeze in their advance.And with another ear-splitting, heart-shaking roar of fury, Perse