When they enter the room, they find the remaining royals already waiting.Nordin looks up, and surprise colors his gaze when he finds Alcina present, but it isn’t an unpleasant one. Rather, he and Alfred both give Alcina a warm, approving smile, one that makes her tuck ever so slightly closer to Brendan, abashed. From across the table, Percy wears a small, knowing smile, one that makes the Duke look as though he were enjoying a private joke to which no one else besides Darla is privy.Darla, on the other hand, gives Alcina a devious little grin, eyes sparkling. Alcina realizes, then, that Darla must have heard the entirety of the exchange outside as the lady Darla’s eyes settle pointedly on her and Brendan’s joined hands.It makes Alcina flush red.Brendan, oblivious or uncaring of the surreptitious glances shared between the others at the table, simply leads Alcina to take their seats.The Duchess, as per usual, has neither the time nor the patience for pleasantries.It comes as a s

For the next few days, Alcina’s mother is wholly preoccupied with the rebuilding of the North wing and the preparations for the ball. Nordin, in particular, has been commissioned to help in the planning, and there has never been a sight more terrifying than the unstoppable force that is Duchess Clair and Nordin working together. At some point, Percy mutters under his breath that the war might even be fought and won in a single day if helmed by those two terrifying creatures, and, well. No one had fought it. Alfred, too, is busy with the rebuilding efforts, often called away for large chunks of the day to deliberate with advisors and nobles, and other politically prominent figures from the Heartlands. Most importantly for Alcina: Brendan continues to regain his strength with each passing day. Brendan hardly fatigues now, the way he had so easily done the first day after waking. At the least, he now has the strength to resist completely, without budging when Alcina tries to manha

For a while, Alcina’s attention is captured entirely by Brendan, spinning her in dizzying exhilarating circles around the dance floor.She has only ever spent nights, hidden away in the most unobtrusive corners she could find, in this very ballroom in the Heartlands palace.Alcina had never had the occasion nor the desire, to step out into where others could judge and whisper about her. But Brendan holds her hand as though she were the most precious jewel to have been ever discovered, and gazes down at her as though she were something immeasurably cherished.Treats her, as though she were not something to be hidden away, in the unseen corners of the room; but rather, something that belonged in the center of the universe, around which the rest of the world gravitates. A hand taps Brendan on the shoulder. “May I cut in for this lovely lady’s hand for a dance?”Alcina startles.She stares, wide-eyed, at Darla, who stands beside them, a wicked smile on her lips.Brendan eyes her as thou

Nine a.m. finds Alcina standing across from Darla in the emptied courtyard, Orion and Perseus seated dutifully a few feet away. Alfred had been called to assist his mother with matters around the palace, and Nordin, begrudgingly, had had to depart to his own family’s home to attend to business there. It had left Brendan and Percy, then, as the only spectators, settled as they are under the shade of a tree some meters away.Alcina stands now, feeling stilted and a bit displaced, hands held awkwardly at her sides.Darla, in contrast, stands perfectly, utterly still; and, as always, demonstrates a sense of incredible self-ease, as though it were effortless to simply exist. Alcina envies her for that, more than anything else.“So, you can summon fire on your hands, you said?” Darla says.Diving right into it, then.Alcina shifts. “I- I’m not sure,” she admits.The only time she had summoned fire, had been...Elton.With Brendan, it hadn’t been fire, but- heat.Darla tilts her head. Her e

Back in the Western Plains, a Commander General continues his vigilant observance throughout the night, long after all the castle lights have been extinguished.Alone, he sits, eyes sharp as he assesses each unobtrusive corner of the room.It is none other than Lord Brendan’s own private study, a room that is locked and forbidden to all those aside from the lord himself, and his most trusted advisor: the General who has tasted only the sweetness of victory, each time he has stepped onto the battlefield.Lincoln tilts his head.And then, in a motion too quick for an ordinary man to catch, seizes the dagger laying innocently across the desk, and hurls it across the room.It sinks itself into its target.A gasped expletive fills the air.Lincoln picks up a second dagger, its blade gleaming under the single line of moonlight spilling in through the sliver in the curtains. This, in the next breath, he throws with lethal accuracy.“My, would you look at that,” he says cheerfully, brightly.