Chapter 71

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