Chapter Seventy
If there’s one group I’ll never trust, it is the phoenixians.
Tabitha Wysteria
Alina did not know how long she had been asleep. It felt as though she had drifted through an entire lifetime of dreams before finally surfacing again.
When her eyes opened, she found herself staring at a familiar ceiling.
The small room she shared with Mareena in the city of Aruna.
For a moment she simply lay there, confused, trying to piece together the fragments of memory that floated through her mind like drifting sand. If she was here… then they had not left. They had not needed to flee the Desert Kingdom upon her dragons, vanishing into the distant skies.
They had stayed.
Relief barely had time to bloom before pain followed.
Her entire body ached, a deep, merciless agony that pulsed through her bones. Her breathing turned ragged as awareness slowly crept over her—an awareness of what was wrong.
Something was missing.
Alina turned her head slightly, and her attention fell upon the empty space beside her.
Her left arm was gone.
A strangled sound caught in her throat as she instinctively reached for it with her remaining hand, fingers brushing against thick bandages where the limb had once been. Her throat felt raw, parched, as though she had not tasted water in days.
‘You’re awake.’
The door creaked open.
Alina turned her head and saw a figure standing beneath the archway. For some reason the image seemed oddly blurred, the edges of the room softened by a strange dimness, as though the world had grown darker while she slept.
Frowning, she lifted her hand and touched her face. Her fingers brushed against cloth. Half of her face had been wrapped in bandages.
‘Stop touching,’ the voice said firmly.
Alina froze.
She would have known that voice anywhere.
Mareena.
‘It’s the medicine,’ Mareena explained gently as she came to sit at the edge of the bed. ‘You’ve been asleep for a few days.’
Alina’s fingers continued to brush uncertainly over the bandages wrapped around her face, but Mareena caught her hand and lowered it firmly.
‘Don’t.’
‘Why is my face bandaged?’ Alina asked.
Mareena sighed softly. ‘Because you were cut.’
‘How badly?’
The silence that followed answered the question long before Mareena spoke.
‘You’ve lost your right eye,’ she said at last.
Alina exhaled slowly.
She expected panic to crash over her like a breaking wave. Expected tears. Rage. Something.
Instead, she felt… calm.
Perhaps it was because she had entered that arena already believing she might not leave it alive.
‘And my left arm,’ she added quietly.
‘Well,’ Mareena said with a faint attempt at gentleness, ‘until the elbow.’
Alina tried to pull a face at that, but discovered the bandages made even that small movement impossible.
‘Kai and Dawn have been visiting,’ Mareena continued, reaching for something beside the bed.
Alina heard the soft clink of a bowl and the faint sound of water being disturbed.
A cloth was rinsed, wrung out, and then Mareena carefully lifted the bandages at the edge of Alina’s face and began to clean the wounds beneath.
‘I suppose I’m no longer the most beautiful drakonian,’ Alina said dryly.
The words were meant as mockery, yet she realised as she spoke them that she did not truly care.
Mareena paused mid-motion, a small frown creasing her brow.
‘Was that ever something important to you?’ she asked.
‘I suppose it was… once.’
‘And now?’
Alina swallowed, but the dryness in her throat made the movement painful. Mareena noticed immediately. She helped Alina sit up slowly, supporting her back before pressing a small clay cup of water into her hand.
‘When can I return to training?’ Alina asked as Mareena took the empty cup from her and resumed cleaning the wounds with careful hands. ‘I still have Hagan to kill.’
Mareena did not answer.
The silence stretched thin between them, and irritation began to coil inside Alina’s chest.
Why wasn’t she answering?
She had only lost an arm and an eye. That was hardly the end of the world. It would not stop her. Nothing would.
‘Now that you are awake, we will prepare to leave soon,’ Mareena said instead.
Alina tried to frown, though the stiff bandages made even that small expression impossible.
‘Where?’ she asked.
‘Kai says we will return to his kingdom,’ Mareena replied. ‘We are only a few hours away by dragon. So tomorrow…’ She paused, letting out a quiet sigh of frustration. ‘We ought to stay longer. I warned him you were in no condition to sit upon a dragon, but…’
‘I can do it,’ Alina said quickly, almost desperately.
The thought of being treated differently clawed at her. Of being handled like something fragile, like the helpless princess she had once been.
She could not return to that life.
It would destroy her.
‘I can,’ she repeated, her voice firmer this time.
Mareena studied her for a long moment, the doubt plain in her crimson eyes.
At last, she gave a small nod, though it was clear she was not entirely convinced.
Without another word, Mareena finished cleaning the wound along Alina’s face and carefully wrapped the bandages back into place, her hands gentle but precise.
‘Do you think it will leave a scar?’ Alina asked sarcastically.
Mareena arched a brow, clearly unimpressed by the question.
Alina avoided looking down at the place where her arm should have been. Instead, she fixed all her attention upon Mareena, studying the phoenixian princess as though that might anchor her.
‘Is she truly dead?’ she asked after a moment.
Mareena nodded.
Alina licked her dry lips, the movement careful and slow. ‘She said she was a…’
‘A god,’ Mareena finished.
Alina nodded faintly. ‘But I don’t understand… how that’s…’
‘Possible?’
Alina gave a small shrug.
For a while Mareena said nothing. She glanced towards the far wall in a thoughtful and distant way.
‘Phoenixians and drakonians have always shared similar beliefs,’ she said at last. ‘We follow the Sun God as our one true god. Many people do not even believe other gods exist. And those who do…’ She paused lightly.
‘They imagine them as lesser beings, creatures created by the Sun God to carry out his will.’
Her crimson eyes returned to Alina, bright and unwavering.
‘The truth is, it does not really matter what people believe,’ Mareena continued. ‘What matters is that there are gods moving their pieces across this world and some of them wish to see it destroyed.’ She folded the cloth in her hands. ‘And we must stop them.’
‘But how?’ Alina asked.
Mareena did not answer. Instead she began tidying the basin and cloths beside the bed.
‘The king has proclaimed you the victor,’ she said after a moment. ‘You have been exonerated. As a token of his gratitude, his son, Zaydan, will travel with us.’
‘His son?’ Alina echoed.
Mareena nodded. ‘Isla and Arena will come with us as well.’
Alina hesitated. ‘But the king won’t give me an army?’
Mareena paused, the bandages held loosely in her hands.
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘He will not. Not for now. He has sent his son to inform him if the menace is real. If it is, they will back us up.’
‘It will be too late by then.’
‘It will.’
Alina gave a slow nod and turned to look at the opposite wall.
Fine.
She had come this far without an army. She did not need one now.
Her purpose was simple.
She would find Hagan.
And she would kill him.
Everything else… did not truly matter.
‘Before Saren… or whoever she truly was, died…’ Alina cleared her throat, the words catching awkwardly. ‘She said something about Isla and Arena.’
Mareena had risen to tidy the room, gathering bowls and cloths with quiet efficiency. But at Alina’s words she stilled, turning back towards the bed.
‘What did she say?’
‘That they aren’t…’ Alina hesitated, searching for the right words.
‘That they aren’t Dunayans. That they are messengers of the Sun God.
That their names are Razia and Gabriela.
’ She gave a short snort. ‘And she said the Sun God gave my mother his blood. That there’s divine blood in me, that’s why I didn’t die when I fell from the mountain. ’
The absurdity of it struck her all at once.
Alina chuckled under her breath. ‘It’s ridiculous.’
But the laughter faded the moment she noticed Mareena’s expression.
‘You cannot possibly believe that,’ Alina said. ‘Why would the Sun God give my mother his blood? For what purpose?’
‘I am not entirely sure,’ Mareena admitted slowly. ‘But I believe Isla and Arena will have some explaining to do.’ Her voice softened slightly. ‘For now, do not trouble yourself with such things. You must rest.’
Alina sighed, leaning back against the pillows.
‘Has Kai told you how long until I can start training again?’ she asked once more.
More than anything she wished to resume her lessons with Dawn—those brutal attempts to learn how to counter blood magic.
She had not succeeded once. Every attempt had ended the same way: Alina collapsing into darkness while Dawn dragged her back to consciousness.
‘Rest,’ Mareena repeated firmly.
There was no arguing with that tone.
Alina watched as the phoenixian princess finished gathering the things in the room and quietly left.
The door closed behind her with a soft click.
Alina waited.
Part of her expected Hessa to appear beside the bed as she always had—the familiar phantom of warm brown skin and bright white eyes, smiling gently at her stubbornness.
But the hours stretched on in silence.
Hessa did not come.
Nor did Kai. Nor Dawn.
At last, Alina found the courage to look properly at her arm, at what little remained of it.
The sight struck her like a blow to the chest. For a moment it felt as though the air had been driven from her lungs entirely.
She needed to breathe.
Slowly, she pushed herself out of the bed, the room tilting faintly as her feet met the floor. Her legs trembled beneath her weight, but she steadied herself against the wall.
Across the room hung a small mirror.
It was hardly more than a shard of polished glass framed in wood, but it would serve.
Alina approached it cautiously, her heart beating faster with each step. She hesitated before it, her hand hovering over the bandages Mareena had so carefully wrapped around her face.
This might be a terrible idea.
Mareena had only just cleaned the wound. Only just bound it again. But it didn’t matter.
She needed to see.
It proved far more difficult than she expected. With only one hand, peeling the bandages away was slow and clumsy work. The cloth clung stubbornly to the dried blood beneath, and more than once she had to pause and steady her breathing before continuing.
But eventually the last strip fell away.
Alina lifted her gaze to the mirror.
The wound was long.
Ugly.
Raw flesh stretched across her face where skin had once been smooth—carved from the ruined socket of her right eye, slicing over the bridge of her nose and down across the curve of her left cheek.
And her eye…
White.
Sightless.
Useless.
She glanced upward to what remained of her horns, those that Hagan had severed long ago. Now Saren had taken even more from her.
It was difficult to keep looking.
Difficult to recognise the creature staring back.
Once, she had been the most beautiful drakonian alive.
Now…
Now she did not know what she was.
Certainly not beautiful.
Something inside her chest cracked then, and a terrible sorrow surged through her, spreading from her heart to her throat, tightening until she could scarcely breathe.
A grief for everything that had been taken.
For everything she would never reclaim.
For all the pain she had endured.
And for what?
Revenge.
Yes.
That was the only thing that had kept her rising each morning. The only thing that had kept breath in her lungs.
She had killed Saren.
Now it was Hagan’s turn.
Alina sank against the wall and sobbed.
She wept until there were no tears left to give, until the well of grief inside her ran dry and her body could do nothing more.
And when the last tremor faded, she welcomed the numbness that followed.
Cold.
Hard.
Unbreakable.
It wrapped around her like armour once more.
Alina wiped the last dampness from her cheek.
‘I’m coming for you, Hagan,’ she whispered.