Chapter 2 #2
Queen Isabella’s hand, so poised and steady only moments ago, found Alina’s beneath the table. The pressure was gentle, but the tremor in the Queen’s fingers told a different story.
“Stay close,” her mother whispered, the command barely louder than a breath. For a heartbeat, Alina reveled in the expression of motherly care. But the moment broke as thunder rolled overhead, shaking the room and sending a shiver up her arm.
The darkness pressed at the windows, thicker than any night she remembered.
Clouds rolled like bruised silk over the city, blotting out the last traces of sunset.
The candlelight, once warm and flattering, now painted every face with uneasy shadows.
The blue fire of the chandeliers flickered, making the gilded walls seem to pulse.
Alina had still not been given an answer.
Nerves strung, her irritation flared. “Mother, will you not—” she started, only for another tremor, sharper this time, to cut her off, rattling the glassware and making the cutlery jump.
The tablecloth fluttered as if lifted by an unseen wind.
This time even Lord Rowan, ever the statue, betrayed himself in the way he pinched the bridge of his nose, a fleeting gesture of disbelief.
Alina’s heart hammered. The palace was supposed to be impervious. She tried to recall if she’d ever heard of the walls shaking like this, but could not come up with even one memory that came close to this.
She pulled her hand away from her mother’s, the move sharper than she intended. “I want to see,” she said. It was not quite defiance, but not obedience either.
“Alina—” Isabella began, reaching to hold her, but Alina was already out of her chair. “Alina, stop!” the king commanded.
Alina was drawn to the balcony inexplicably by a force she could not resist. She crossed the room in four quick steps, her father standing up, his chair toppling over. “Alina!”
But she did not stop. With everybody’s gaze following, she unlatched the great glass doors to the balcony. Her mother’s plea—“Wait!”—was lost in the shriek of the wind.
The air outside struck her with physical force. Her hair whipped across her eyes, and her dress pressed itself against her legs as if it too were trying to cling to safety. She braced herself against the cold stone balustrade and looked out over the palace grounds.
Two guards came onto the balcony, ordered by the king to take her inside.
In that moment, lightning, cruel and precise, split the darkness.
The world below was transformed: the ornamental lawns now a froth of shadows and silver, the gravel walks turned to rivers by the rain.
In that frozen instant, Alina saw movement where there should have been none: shapes darting between the hedgerows, bending the unnatural light.
She blinked, thinking she’d imagined it.
But the next flash confirmed it, highlighting figures, moving far too fast for any sane explanation.
Their uniforms were wrong for palace guards, and their limbs moved with an animal grace.
They ran low to the ground, skidding on wet flagstones, vanishing and reappearing behind statues and fountains.
The guards hastened back into the room to report what they had seen, their orders to protect the princess forgotten.
Alina pressed closer to the balustrade, heedless of the rain.
At her throat, the amulet warmed, a slow pulse against her skin.
The sensation was new; the crystal, in contrast to the chain that warmed to her skin, usually lay cold, nothing more than a decorative weight.
She touched it, feeling a faint vibration—a warning, or perhaps a summons.
Another flash, so bright it forced her to squint.
The figures were closer now, halfway across the lower courtyard.
One man, taller than the others, paused at the foot of the steps leading to the east wing.
He looked up. For a moment, Alina was certain he saw her.
The face was hidden in the storm’s glare, but she could not shake the feeling that this man was looking right at her.
Her breath fogged in the freezing air. She should have turned back, locked the doors, run to her parents. But she stood transfixed, eyes locked on the advancing shadows.
The guards at the gate finally stirred, raising the alarm. Their shouts were instantly swallowed by the storm, but the glint of swords caught the lightning. They formed a line, bracing for what they must have thought was a handful of trespassers.
The next sequence happened in stuttering fragments: a flash of movement, the clash of metal, the guards thrown aside like dolls.
A figure swept through the line, and men dropped in its wake.
There was no blood, at least not at first—just collapse, silence, and the invaders slipping through the breach as easily as water through a broken dam.
Alina’s knees buckled. She grabbed the stone rail with both hands, the cold leeching through her gloves. The amulet burned now, as if feeding on her panic.
Behind her, glass shattered. She spun to see her mother and Lord Rowan forcing the doors open against the gale. “Alina!” the queen screamed, her composure gone. Rain lashed across the carpet, and candle flames guttered and died.
Alina stumbled backward, all but falling into her mother’s arms. The Queen gripped her shoulders, desperate and wild.
“What did you see?” Isabella demanded.
Alina tried to answer, but her teeth chattered so hard she could barely speak. “They’re—inside,” she managed.
Lord Rowan slammed the doors, then drew the curtains with a violence that ripped the velvet. “We need to move,” he said. “Your Majesty, we should—”
A sound interrupted him, low and inhuman, echoing from the halls beyond.
The dining room had no more protection than any other part of the palace. Whatever was coming, it was already too late.
Queen Isabella turned Alina toward her, both hands on her face. “Whatever happens, do not let go of the amulet. Do you understand?”
Alina nodded, mute.
“Good.” The Queen kissed her forehead—another rare gesture. She must have been beside herself. “We will get through this. Together.”
Outside, the storm showed no sign of ending, and the darkness pressed ever closer.
The far doors exploded inward with a sound like thunder, and the world shattered.
Three figures entered and then several things happened at the same time.
As the figures strode in, their gaits almost measured, the king leapt to the far wall to grab a ceremonial sword hanging there.
He whirled around, swinging the weapon with practiced grace and enormous power.
Decades of training took over. He moved as if the steel were an extension of his body.
Lord Rowan drew a dagger and adopted a protective stance.
The guards formed a wall before the queen and Alina, weapons drawn, the captain shouting orders.
The intruders moved into the room, wholly unimpressed.
They were masked but Alina could now see that it was a man—a rather burly sort with massive hands—and, surprisingly, two women: one with a flaming red mane, carrying a bow and quiver, and one with a sheet of silver hair, moving so gracefully she seemed to almost float above the ground.
They came to a halt, and for a moment, nobody said anything. Then Lord Rowan’s voice filled the room: “Stop this at once! You must know that you cannot succeed! What do you want?”
No answer came.
“Guards, take them!”
At the first move of the guards, the intruders reacted, and the room erupted in chaos.
The soldiers charged and were picked up by an invisible wind that smashed them into the walls.
More guards flooded in from the corridor.
Weapons clashed, flashes of light flared up, men grunted, furniture crashed, fighters thumped to the floor—it was absolute mayhem.
Guards fell left, right, and center. Alina’s thoughts flew scattered through her head, trying to take it all in, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, trying to understand what her parents had said before about rebels…
what rebels? Why? And what did her parents know about them?
Why didn’t she know anything? Alina was very much afraid of these people, with their violence, their ragged clothes, their strange abilities, and their masks.
Her nervous system was on full alert, heart drumming in her ears, sweat breaking out all over her body.
She had no ability at all to decide what to do and how to act.
She was totally frozen. Later, she would remember having grotesque thoughts like how the sound of a fist smashing a face sounded completely different than how she would have expected; how unnatural her father’s eyes looked with his pupils widened to the maximum by the adrenaline that flooded through him and how her eyes must look the same; how the chandeliers’ refracted light added some kind of surrealistic glimmer to the whole scene.
But amid all crazy and random thoughts, one thing became very clear: they did not have a chance.