Chapter 3
Hello, Princess
Another man entered the room.
He strolled in, almost leisurely. His presence seemed to fill the entire room as he crossed the space.
Alina found herself transfixed. The way he moved was so…
graceful, really. Somehow it was immediately clear that he was in command, maybe because of his posture, maybe because of the way the other intruders looked at him.
He was tall, dark-haired, and handsome, as Alina noted with some bewilderment.
How could she pay attention to something so irrelevant in such a situation?
As she watched him approach over the shoulders of the guards before her, she noted a thin, silvery scar along his jaw—and his eyes.
They were gold. Not the gold of rings or coins, but something living—amber caught in sunlight, sharp and almost impossible to look at.
They scanned the room in a single sweep, taking in the carnage, the positions of every player, the trembling arc of the chandeliers, the exact placement of her and her mother behind Rowan’s shield.
And when his gaze landed on Alina, the air in her lungs stopped.
There was a moment, barely longer than a heartbeat, hardly shorter than a breath, when she could feel the line drawn between them, as real as the edge of a blade.
The world shrank to a single point: the amber of his eyes, and the message written there.
Recognition, and something more. Not affection. Not malice. Possession, maybe, or fate.
She could not look away.
The man’s face flicked, not really a smile, but something close to it, as if acknowledging a secret only they shared.
He strode forward, untouched by the melee, and in his wake the very air seemed to bend.
The two remaining guards who stood before Alina and her mother stepped forward, hesitant, uncertain whom to protect—the women or the king.
One tried to raise a pike and found it knocked aside with a flick of his wrist, the wood splintering as if struck by a hammer.
Another guard lunged, blade flashing, and the intruder moved so fast that for a second Alina wondered if she had imagined it. The man fell, unmarked but unconscious.
Queen Isabella shrieked: “Alina! Run!”
But Alina could not move. She was anchored, every muscle locked in place. The closer he came, the more her mind rebelled against her body’s paralysis. Who was he? How was he here? Why was she—?
Her only answer was the pulse in her throat, frantic and deafening.
King Edmund saw him next, and the transformation was immediate. The King’s face, always so disciplined, collapsed into something raw and shocked. “You,” he hissed, the word more curse than greeting. “You’re supposed to be—”
“Supposed to be what?” The man smiled mildly, a sight utterly at odds with the carnage. “Dead?”
He moved again, this time directly toward the king. The other rebels fell back, forming a perimeter. Edmund met the black-clothed figure head-on, his sword singing through the air. Their blades clashed once, twice, sparks flying, but on the third pass he caught the King’s wrist in an iron grip.
“Enough,” he said, voice low.
The King tried to twist free. “You have no right—”
The attacker’s other hand closed over Edmund’s and pried the sword away with humiliating ease. He spun the king in a half-circle and sent him sprawling into the wall, then tossed the ceremonial sword across the room. It clattered at Alina’s feet.
In the silence that followed, Alina could not look away from her mother’s drawn face, more terrified than she had ever seen her before. Queen Isabella reached for her, nails biting into her arm. “Please, Alina,” she whispered. “You must run.”
Lord Rowan stepped forward, placing himself bodily between the women and the intruder. He was still holding his dagger, pointing it at the man. “You will not touch them, Kael Stormborne,” Rowan said, his face a mask of rage and disgust.
Kael tilted his head. “I have no quarrel with you, Ashford. Step aside.”
Rowan did not move. “Never.”
For a split second, the two men faced off. In that instant, Alina thought she saw something—respect, or regret, even—pass between them.
Kael sighed. “As you wish.”
Then he was a blur. Rowan’s dagger flashed, but Kael caught his arm and twisted, using Rowan’s own momentum to send him skidding across the marble. Rowan rolled until he came up on one knee, dagger ready. Kael ignored him.
He walked straight to Alina.
For a moment, nothing happened. He stood just a pace away, golden eyes burning into hers. The sound of the battle faded. Alina realized, with a distant part of her brain, that she was trembling—not with fear, exactly, but with something harder to name.
Kael reached out, slow and deliberate, and took her hand.
At the first touch, a jolt ran up her arm, a spark of sensation so sharp she gasped aloud.
Her entire body went rigid, every nerve lighting up in sequence.
The amulet at her throat pulsed, the crystal blazing hot against her skin.
She had expected a hard grip, but he held her hand gently.
She fleetingly marveled at how it was possible to fight in one second and hold back your power in the next.
Kael’s gaze flicked to the amulet, then back to her face. He smiled, this time without irony.
“Hello, Princess,” he said.
Alina opened her mouth to speak, only for no sound to emerge.
Behind him, the other rebels kept watch on the doors. King Edmund struggled to his feet, murder in his eyes.
“You will not take her!” the king bellowed, voice echoing off the stone.
Kael did not turn. He leaned in, his voice so soft that only Alina could hear: “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t understand, but in that moment, she believed him.
Then he pulled her forward, one arm wrapping around her shoulders. The amulet seared her skin, so bright it left a starburst in her vision. Her mother screamed, the sound distant and underwater.
Kael whispered a single word.
The world went white.
For a moment, there was nothing but the burn of light behind Alina’s eyelids, the howl of wind in her ears, and the scald of Kael’s grip on her arm.
Sensation returned with violence: every nerve in her body shuddered, a thousand hammers pounding on the inside of her skin. The heat of his touch became a line of fire, tracing the length of her limb up to her shoulder, then bursting outward in a latticework of pure sensation.
The amulet at her throat glowed like a coal, the chain burning into her flesh.
For an instant, she saw her own hands, veins illuminated in blue-white, the delicate skin gone nearly translucent.
Her heart stuttered and seized, the beat of it too fast, too strong, as if trying to tear itself free.
The world spun, but her feet remained rooted to the marble, and the only thing holding her upright was Kael’s arm around her.
She gasped, the sound torn from her lungs. Her mouth filled with the taste of copper, sharp and bright. A vision overtook her: mirrors, an infinite series of her own face, each one refracting the pain and the fear and the wild, impossible joy of being alive, alive, alive.
She tried to pull away, but Kael’s hold was immovable. He leaned in, his mouth at her ear, and the words he spoke were not a whisper, but a command written in the marrow of her bones.
“Hold on.”
The air around them shimmered. The chandeliers overhead erupted in a corona of sparks as every glass on the table shattered at once, a rain of crystal shrapnel that caught the lightning and flung it across the room.
For a fraction of a heartbeat, Alina saw everything in perfect clarity: the king lunging for her, his face twisted in a snarl of grief and rage; her mother, arms outstretched, fingers bleeding where the glass had sliced them; Lord Rowan, on his knees, mouth forming a word she could not hear.
Then the world folded.
It was like being thrown into a river, the current dragging her under, tumbling her head over heels through a tunnel of light and sound.
She clung to Kael because there was nothing else, because he was the only thing that existed in this impossible, screaming void.
There was no up, no down, no left or right—only the relentless pulse of energy driving them forward.
When they landed, it was with a jolt that nearly knocked the breath from her lungs. The silence was total, so abrupt it felt like the world itself had stopped listening.
She opened her eyes.
They were standing in the dark and empty grounds of the palace.
The air was cool and fresh, moist with the storm’s rain.
She looked down. Her shoes were gone, blasted away; her feet were bare, toes curled into the cool grass.
The hem of her dress was singed, the fabric still smoking.
Her hands shook, but she could not let go of Kael.
He was breathing hard, his body tense, eyes alight with something not entirely human. For the first time, she noticed the way he looked at her—not just as an adversary, or a prize, but as if she were an answer to a question he’d been asking all his life.
He released her arm slowly, careful as if she might shatter.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, voice rough.
Alina tried to answer, but her jaw was locked. She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
Kael’s eyes darted to the amulet, now dim and cold. He reached for it, paused, then thought better of it. “That shouldn’t have been so hard,” he said, mostly to himself.
She stared at him. “What did you do?”
He looked at her and a smile appeared briefly, small and sad. “Saved you. Or tried to.”
Before she could process his words, more fighters jogged up to them, breathless with exertion.
“Who are you?” Alina asked. Nobody reacted. The fighters formed a tight knot, deep in urgent discussion. Standing there in the cold, the spell between her and Kael broken by the arrival of the others, she started to feel like herself again.
“What do you want? Again: Who are you?” she asked once more, only to be ignored again. Nobody even turned to look at her. Anger started to bubble up. “Will any of you have the grace to explain to me what in the Gods’ name is going on?” she demanded, voice becoming louder every instant.
The silver-haired woman, who had fought in the dining room, flicked her eyes to her and back to Kael. “We should move.”
“Damn it, I have had enough!” Alina shouted.
Her fear had been replaced by white-hot fury, and she exploded.
“I will not stand here any second longer! I do not know what is going on, or who you are or what you think you can achieve with all of this”—she gesticulated wildly to encompass the palace and the grounds—“but I will not be a part of it! So, farewell or whatever one is to say in such circumstances, but I will go back to my family now!” and with that, she started to march off in the direction of the palace entrance.
She had made it about three paces when a strong arm came around her waist and picked her up from the ground.
“I think not,” Kael said, and started to move in the other direction.
“Let me go! Let me down, I say!” She struggled and squirmed and tried to get down. “I said—”
“I heard you loud and clear the first time. Not going to happen. Now, you can either walk, or I will carry you, but you are coming with us. What’s your choice, Princess?”
Not wanting to comply, but also not wanting to be touched by him any longer, she grudgingly conceded.
How very strange his touch was to her, intense and oddly familiar and yet exciting and simply overwhelming.
They started off at a hearty pace, half jogging in the direction of the woods beyond the palace grounds.
After several minutes, they reached the seam of the wood.
In the shelter of the first trees, some horses were hobbled and peacefully grazing.
Their heads went up, ears pricked, when they heard the group approaching.
They were still saddled and so it was a matter of but a few moments to get mounted and take off.
The still darkness of nightfall was in sharp contrast to the chaos left behind at the palace.
The smell of pine and moss filled the cool air, undercut by moldy leaves, warm horsehair, and the sweat of Alina’s unlikely compatriots.
The horses’ saddles and harnesses creaked and jingled.
Together with the animals’ breathing, huffs, and grunts, it made for a rich tapestry of sound.
Occasionally, a member of the group would say a few words to a fellow rider, but in general the people were quiet, the mood calm but alert.
Alina was the exception, caught in a maelstrom of emotion.
Physically and mentally drained from the panic, bewildered by the abruptness of the whole affair, confused by what she heard and saw, furious because of her helplessness, baffled by being ignored—she had a thousand questions and felt as if she had been brained with a hammer.
Having half-run for several minutes, and then been heaved onto a horse in front of Kael and set off at a harrowing pace, she was more than exhausted.
She was shivering from cold and the aftermath of the events, and she increasingly felt her mind slip away.
The movements of the horse were rocky, Kael’s grip around her waist was made of steel and the woods were a dark green blur.
Alina felt her lips go numb and her head go woozy, and she let herself slip away into blissful, gray oblivion.