Chapter 19 Not Even You #3
The corridor was empty, but Alina’s steps were loud as hammers.
The echoes followed her down the winding passage, through the torch-lit turns and past single rebels.
As one of them made a snide comment, she knocked him out her way with a heartfelt “Fuck off,” and marched on until she reached the battered door of her room—a joke, really, as the lock had been broken for weeks and the hinges were so loose even the wind could shoulder its way in.
She shut it behind her anyway. It was a motion she’d practiced every night for months, and she found comfort in the repetition, even if it was a comfort built on habit rather than hope.
The room was cold. It always was, but tonight the chill seemed to seep up deeper into her than ever before.
Alina leaned her forehead against the door, letting it press the pounding in her head into something smaller, something she could contain.
For a minute, she stood like that, eyes squeezed shut, refusing to look at the cot, or the tiny table, or the remnants of her life in exile.
She waited until her insides stopped churning.
But memory had teeth, and it bit hard.
You undermined me in front of everyone.
You’re a liability.
Not even you.
She wanted to scream, to break something, but all she could do was breathe in and out, in and out, waiting for the shaking in her hands to stop.
Bit by bit her life had completely unraveled, spiraling faster and faster in the last few days.
After getting over the shock of her abduction and learning the truth about her parents’ reign, there was this moment when she actually believed she could find a home here, cold and dark and damp as it was.
But the Caves were not what she had been looking at.
She had looked past the stone to the people who wrangled a life from it.
And she had longed, had wished, had dreamed of becoming a part of them.
Had dared to hope to finally find a family. Connections. Somewhere to belong.
Now there was nothing left but resignation.
Not even you.
She stared at her bag—a battered satchel that had been old when she first got it—and began to fill it. Not with the desperation of someone running for their life, but with the deliberate, precise movements of a woman who had finally accepted that there was nothing left to lose.
She packed her spare shirt, the half-empty flask of water, and a chunk of hard bread wrapped in waxed cloth.
She folded her only other set of trousers, the knees already patched twice and tucked them in on top.
She grabbed the small, curved knife Finn had once given her “for sentimental assassinations,” and slid it into the hidden pocket she’d sewn into the lining.
Last, she reached for the amulet. She’d stopped wearing it ages ago.
But now, as her fingers closed around the cold metal, she felt the tiny flare of comfort, the old promise that maybe she could hold herself together long enough to make a difference somewhere else.
She put it in her bag with the rest of her things and closed it.
She sat on the cot, bag in her lap, and forced herself to look around.
The room was nearly bare, having never bothered to decorate, never thought she’d stay long enough for it to matter.
The blanket was still rumpled from last night’s sleep.
The candle by the bed was burned down to a nub.
On the table were some old notes she had kept, paper being a rare luxury.
The pen was almost dry. She wrote anyway.
Kael,
I’m sorry I was a disappointment. I will no longer be a burden.
I wish you only the best. Truly.
—A
She folded the note, left it on the cot, and stood. She straightened the bed and folded the blanket with now-steady hands. She shrugged on her jacket, slung the bag over her shoulder, and reached for the latch.
Before she left, she allowed herself one last look.
One last brush of her fingertips over the rough stone walls, this place that had almost felt like home.
The walls did not give back anything, least of all warmth, but she traced her name into the dust on the small shelf, a mark no one would probably ever see but her.
She opened the door and slipped into the hall, moving silently as a ghost. The world outside was already blue with the promise of the coming morning. She would be gone before anyone woke, before Kael could call her back, before she could change her mind.
She moved through the Caves with practiced ease, passing the mess hall, the training yard, the place where she had nearly died and the place where she had first learned what it meant to be truly alive.
The air was cold, but the night was clear, and the stars looked down with an indifference that felt like mercy.
Alina did not look back. She walked out of the place, and into whatever waited for her beyond the stone, leaving behind her hopes, her dreams, her love—him.
She was done waiting for someone else to tell her who she was.
She would decide for herself, even if it meant being alone.