She controlled these men. The only power they held was over the people of Millflower. But it was enough.
The next morning the men were on edge, obeying Gerard promptly and refraining from their usual crude banter. Alina held her head high, more confident than she’d ever felt, but as they hiked farther up the mountain, she grew worried. Baylor hadn’t come for her. Should she go along with them all the way back to Pria? Was it better to risk Millflower than herself? She didn’t know what to do.
After several hours of hiking, Gerard turned up a neglected trail with prickly weeds and old tire tracks. Alina wrinkled her brow. Why did they take this steep route over the mountain? From her memory of the guidebook map, it didn’t lead to the Blue Forest at all. She became more puzzled when Gerard stopped to tie her wrists.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “You know it can’t hold me.” He glared at her, nostrils flaring, and said nothing.
Up they climbed, the men panting, the Sad Cases trudging through thorns without flinching but keeping their eyes fixed on Gerard.
Alina stopped mid-stride and tilted her head. The trail ended at a rotted wooden shack built into the mountain wall. She looked around for the path to continue, and glimpsed Gerard nodding to someone behind her.
Three men snatched her and stood close, their dirty whiskers catching strands of her hair. Gerard watched her startled face with a smug grin.
“We made it, pretty girl,” he sneered.
Alina’s eyes darted around them. “This can’t be the Blue Forest.”
“Who said we’re going to the Blue Forest? That’s an old plan. Sampson’s adaptable. He thought the situation here needed a more aggressive approach.” Gerard flashed his yellow teeth. “There’s a rebellion to crush, after all, and you’re the fire behind it. You must be extinguished.”
He cracked open the door of the shack, and as the men yanked Alina toward it, she screamed, digging her heels into the dirt.
“No!” she shrieked. “What do you need? I’ll go to the Blue Forest, I won’t struggle, I’ve been good so far—”
“We don’t need you anymore!” Gerard yelled back. “You’re a stupid girl to fight against Sampson. Stormport is almost wiped out by disease, and now it’s Millflower’s turn.” He smiled at her stunned face. “Well, of course we planned to attack them all along! Finish them off, just like Stormport. Then Jaden is all that’s left. We’ll starve them for a while to weaken them, and the rest will be easy. Wipe Jaden out, and Carthem is clean. And only then will someone come back for you, if at all. See if you can keep your wits that long.”
With one hard shove the men tossed her into the empty air and her panicked scream echoed down the long, dark shaft.
She fell for a long time, somersaulting through the darkness until her feet met the hard ground. She fell to her knees, sobbing, and yanked at the rope around her wrists until it snapped. She hadn’t seen this coming. Nor had Baylor or anyone, or they would’ve tried something else. Any desperate plan would’ve been better than this.
She hastened to free herself, then stood up and put out her hands, walking until she met the wall. Her eyes adjusted slightly but not enough to see. She ran her fingers up the wall as high as she could reach, then all the way to the ground. The stone was smooth and slippery; years of movement up and down the shaft had polished all of its rough edges.
She followed the wall horizontally until it opened up, then yelled into the darkness. Her voice seemed to echo for miles. She took a few steps, then froze and backed up. If she fell farther, she would be lost forever.
She looked up to the distant, pinpoint light at the top of the shaft—her only hope of escape. She jumped as high as she could along the wall, searching for a ledge, but her hands slid on the smooth rock back to the ground. She crumpled to her knees.
Gerard was on his way back to Millflower. She cradled her head and screamed, the sound vibrating around her. Oliver and Maxwell’s family. Rex, Jade, and Baylor. Trinee and Zaiden in Stormport. Her scream turned into an anguished wail.
They would all die, and she’d be left behind. Gerard and his men would become Prian citizens, and the Sad Cases would die carrying out Gerard’s orders. If they did survive, they’d roam an empty Carthem until they starved or were killed by wild creatures. Sampson would never take them back.
She felt no pain or fatigue; she couldn’t die and yet could do nothing to free herself. Nature’s laws held her. She screamed again, pounding the walls and biting her knuckles.
I don’t know how to fight the despair. I will go mad before long.
She huddled on the ground, wishing for sleep—anything to escape the mental anguish. Maybe with enough focus she could enter a trance. But the thought frightened her. That diversion must be how immortals went insane. They stayed in a hypnotic state until their minds were so far gone, they couldn’t return.
I won’t run away. I’ll focus on the pain, on the memories of those I love to keep my brain alive.
She reminisced on her favorite memories of Oliver—when they first met in the empty cafe; when they sang and danced in the granary, and the night they said goodbye. She ached for his presence, for the ease she felt with him. She needed him now to make her laugh, to reassure her that somehow things would turn out okay. Despite claiming to be a realist, Oliver seemed to think anything was possible.
One evening, while walking to Maxwell’s home together, he accused her of flaunting her looks. He demonstrated by swinging his hips and flipping imaginary hair.
She punched his shoulder and laughed. “I do not!” she
