Chapter Five
Curious, isn’t it, how grief can tip the mind into madness?
We seldom speak of it, rarely pause to consider just how dangerous sorrow can be to the soul.
We convince ourselves that time will tame it, that with patience, grief will still, soften, settle into silence.
But silence is not absence. Just because we do not name our grief, do not speak of the ache wrapped tightly around our hearts, does not mean it has faded.
No. The trouble with grief is that it festers in the dark.
It spreads like rot. And when it finally reaches the mind… that is when the true danger begins.
You begin to hear its voice. You see their face again. What once were fleeting dreams, desperate attempts to glimpse a lost loved one, twist into something else. Something darker. A distortion of reality. You begin to forget where the dream ends and waking begins.
Such is the peril of grief.
For in losing someone you love, you don’t simply lose them.
You lose a part of yourself too.
Tabitha Wysteria.
‘Faster.’
Alina tightened her grip on the staff, adjusting her stance with precision. Before her stood two warriors, poised and waiting. The moment they moved, she launched forward, striking first and giving them no chance to breathe.
Though the floor beneath her was not sand, she had long since taught herself to move with the same speed and agility regardless of the terrain. The ground no longer mattered. Only the rhythm of combat.
Her staff cracked against one warrior’s skull, a clean strike to the phoenixian’s temple, but the second slipped past her guard, swept her legs from beneath her, and drove her to the floor. A blade kissed the hollow of her throat.
She swore, low and vicious.
A single clap echoed from across the chamber, sharp as flint. Alina turned her head, ignoring the two warriors who immediately retreated, falling back into disciplined stillness along the far wall.
With a sigh, Alina rose, brushing dust from her clothes. She returned her staff to the rack, movements clipped, controlled.
‘You’ve grown strong,’ Mareena Noor said, stepping into the room wrapped in flowing white silk, gold chains shimmering at her throat. ‘The last time you stood in this palace, you could barely lift your arms without wincing.’
Alina’s back stiffened at the memory. She turned away, studying the weapons lined neatly on the wall. Her hand hovered before selecting a set of short blades, perfect for throwing.
‘You ought to rest,’ Mareena said gently, worry threading through her voice. ‘You’ve been here nearly a week, and all you do is train.’
Alina didn’t answer. She stepped into the centre of the training chamber, blades in hand.
The room was vast and sunlit, built for the Phanax—the elite phoenixian warriors tasked with guarding the realm.
To her right, a series of towering columns cast long shadows across the stone.
Weapons gleamed from wall-mounted racks, and behind the columns, a wide pool lay still and inviting, waiting for warriors to cool their battle-warmed bodies once training had ended.
But Alina didn’t look at the water.
She only saw the space before her, and the blades in her hands.
Alina positioned herself, took aim, and released the first blade. It whistled through the air before striking a small circle on the far wall with a satisfying thunk.
‘Alina.’
‘What?’ she snapped, turning sharply to face the phoenixian princess.
It was difficult not to be drawn in by the vision before her.
Mareena Noor, in all her quiet splendour, was perhaps the most beautiful mortal Alina had ever seen, with skin the warm hue of sunlit bronze, hair like silk swept from midnight, and eyes the colour of blood.
But Alina’s heart was far too fractured to care. The only fire that still stirred within her was the fire of vengeance.
Something flashed in Mareena’s expression. Hurt perhaps, but she quickly buried it, stepping back with grace.
‘Nothing,’ she said softly. ‘I only hoped you might join my family for dinner this evening.’
Alina said nothing, simply threw another blade.
She glanced at the third, rolling it between her fingers until its tip pricked her skin. A bead of blood bloomed, sharp, red, and alive, but she felt nothing.
She wasn’t sure she could feel anything anymore.
‘Thank you,’ she said suddenly, the words dry in her mouth. ‘For the invitation. And for... opening the doors of your home to me. I won’t remain here long.’
‘You may stay as long as you wish, Alina Acheron.’
Alina turned to her, frowning.
‘That is not my name.’
Surprise passed fleetingly over Mareena’s features, though she quickly masked it behind the calm veneer of royalty. But Alina had seen the falter, the blink.
‘I don’t understand,’ Mareena said quietly.
‘Names have power,’ Alina replied. ‘And that is something I no longer possess.’
Mareena gave a slow nod, her expression thoughtful. ‘Then what should I call you?’
Alina turned her back on her, focusing once more on the blades. She lifted her hand and let the third blade fly. It struck the mark, clean and certain, just as the others had.
She didn’t tell anyone that each time her blade found its target, she imagined Hagan’s face in its place.
And now, Saren’s too.
A slow, wicked smile curved Alina’s lips, something dark and sharp that did not belong to a girl grieving, but to something far more dangerous.
‘Call me nothing,’ she said, voice low and cold. ‘Nothing at all.’
…
Alina took quiet pleasure in becoming a shadow, a slip of silence that moved unnoticed through the winding streets.
Perhaps it wasn’t her stealth that concealed her so much as the apathy of the crowd.
Few spared a second glance for a lone girl clad in desert robes, weaving through alleyways or scaling rooftops with silent ease.
The phoenixian city of Kairus was, without question, the most magnificent place Alina had ever seen.
It sprawled endlessly in every direction, a living labyrinth of stone and sun.
The buildings rose in square-cut tiers, crafted from sand-hued stone, with arched doors and windows carved into their walls like ancient poetry.
Here, their god loomed not just in legend, but in form.
Colossal statues of the same sun-bleached stone stood watch across the city, silent sentinels that seemed to watch eternally upon their people.
Rivers wound through the streets like silver ribbons, some meant for ritual cleansing, to wash feet and hands before entering sacred spaces whilst others were crafted purely for beauty, filled with vibrant, darting fish in every shade of jewel and flame.
Alina often climbed a building on the city’s edge, one that granted her an unbroken view of the desert beyond. There, she would sit in solitude, watching as the sun dipped low and spilt fire across the dunes.
There was little to see in the distance, only shifting sands and wind-worn hills, but it soothed something deep within her to look out at the world that had once belonged so wholly to Hessa.
She suspected the Phanax—the phoenixian elite guard—knew precisely where she perched each evening, but none had ever spoken a word, not while Mareena’s protection lingered over her like a silent vow.
Settling more comfortably against the warm stone, Alina drew down the cloth around her mouth—the karash—and pulled a small red fruit from her sleeve.
With a flick of her blade, she sliced off a piece.
Its sweetness burst across her tongue, so rich and tender it transported her briefly back to her homeland, to the taste of sugared pears dipped in honey, the kind served during the warmest summer moons.
Alina could still remember the day the phoenix had swept across the skies, its piercing cry alerting the Phanax to her presence.
She had followed its blazing form for as long as her body allowed, stumbling beneath the weight of heat and exhaustion until, at last, she collapsed.
She had awoken in the palace, drenched in sweat and dust, with Mareena seated beside her, eyes filled with a silent, unanswered question.
For two full days, Alina had refused to speak. No matter how gently or insistently they asked, her lips remained sealed. But on the third day, with tears slipping down her cheeks as she lay crumpled in the vast, unfamiliar bed, she told Mareena everything.
Now, she wasn’t quite sure what path she was walking.
She had no army. No homeland. No people to call her own.
She was a lone figure carved from grief and vengeance, with a heart hollowed by loss.
Yet she knew she needed to become more. Faster, stronger, sharper and deep down, she understood that learning from the Phanax would offer her an edge she could not afford to ignore.
She took another bite of the red fruit, letting its sweetness melt on her tongue, and turned her eyes back to the desert. The endless sea of sand soothed her. The way the wind swept across it, reshaping it with each breath, calmed the storm in her chest.
‘You need to eat more, amira,’ said the voice beside her. ‘You’ve lost too much weight. You can’t fight like this.’
Alina smiled faintly at the phantom with Hessa’s face.
She knew there was no spirit there, nothing but desert air and fractured memory. Yet her mind conjured her all the same, over and over again.
And no matter how fiercely Alina tried to push the image away, she could not.
‘I know,’ she murmured. ‘I will be strong.’
Hessa’s smile, even imagined, lit up the fading day. ‘You have always been strong, amira.’
Alina looked away, unable to bear the ache. ‘I’ve never been strong,’ she whispered. ‘But I’ll learn to be. For you. For Ash.’
Hessa sighed, the same familiar sound of exasperation that used to make Alina roll her eyes. Even in death, it seemed, she could still be annoyed by her.
‘Salla nanaha.’
Alina snorted, taking another bite. ‘I’m not a silly girl.’
Without thinking, she held out a piece of fruit only to curse herself under her breath.
‘I need to be better than Saren. A better warrior. So I can kill her.’
‘Karafa, amira,’ Hessa chided, shaking her head and spitting into the sand. Careful.
Alina said nothing. She let her focus drift back to the dunes, letting the silence settle like dust around her.
She hadn’t dared tell anyone she still saw Hessa as vividly as if she’d never died.
They would worry. They would whisper.
They would think she’d lost her mind.
And she couldn’t afford to lose anything more.
‘I miss you,’ she whispered, her voice no louder than the wind, soft enough that no mortal ear could have caught it. But the presence beside her was no mortal. It was merely the shadow of something, someone, who had once been heartbreakingly real.
Alina turned to look, but the ghost had already vanished, leaving only the silence behind. With a sigh, she cut another slice of fruit and chewed it with irritation.
The sun began its descent, spilling hues of burnt orange and crimson across the sky. For a moment, the blaze of light blinded her and when her vision cleared, her breath caught.
Two figures were sprinting towards the city gates.
She recognised the clothing instantly, as well as the way their feet kissed the sand like dancers, every step fluid, familiar.
Dunayans.
Without pause, she dropped the fruit and reached for her hidden throwing knives. Her hand moved on instinct, swift and sure, prepared to strike before the strangers could come any closer. Surely they had followed her trail, sent to kill her for what they believed. For Hessa’s death.
Alina pressed herself low against the rooftop, blending into shadow, her eyes sharp and unreadable. Her breath slowed. She waited.
She closed her eyes, as Hessa had once taught her. Not out of fear, but discipline. She remembered the way they had crouched together in the dunes, unmoving, silent, waiting for hours. She breathed in, then out, counting heartbeats in her head.
There wasn’t much time before the guards spotted them, but Alina remained still. Measured. Patient.
Then she opened her eyes and raised the blade, ready to end it with one clean throw, a dagger embedded between those white eyes.
But she didn’t let go.
Because she recognised them.
Her body froze, the knife trembling ever so slightly in her hand. She knew those faces, those shapes, those movements as if they were her own.
Slowly, she lowered the blade and sat up, her breath caught somewhere between disbelief and wonder.
Below, the two girls ran faster, waving up at her as they spotted her perched high on the wall, watching.
‘Can I trust them?’ she asked the ghost that had returned to her side.
Hessa nodded, her voice as soft as it had always been. ‘Yes, you can, amira.’
Alina didn’t know whether it was the truth.
But she did know one thing. She could always trust Hessa.
Her brown eyes settled on the girls now reaching the gates, their white eyes wide and bright with hope at the sight of her.
She had thought she would never see them again.
And yet, here they were.
Isla and Arena.
Alina smiled, truly smiled, for the very first time.