He stopped laughing and looked at her. “Illusion?”
“Yes,” she stated. “We don’t seem real, do we? We’re too good to be true, like all things in Pria. Everything is so perfect, so captivating—like a mirage.”
“Careful how you use that word. It has a different meaning here,” Oliver warned. “Though I think the comparison is quite fitting.” His eyes twinkled. “Maybe that’s what you are. You’re my mirage.”
Alina hugged her legs in the dark, smiling at the memory. Though his presence seemed so long ago, Oliver felt real—the first boy she’d known as a friend and not a father figure. Zaiden was her friend but in a different way.
Is Zaiden my mirage?
She hardly knew him. They’d shared two conversations and one long, intense gaze. Did that make it love?
How would he be as a mortal? Would she still be attracted to him, and would they talk and laugh easily together? Like Oliver, would he flip her ponytail and look for a reason to touch her, and would it feel natural?
Her brain was lucid now, but a thought crept in and cut her. It’s useless to examine my feelings. I’ll never have the chance to choose either of them.
The despair returned, and she allowed her mind to go numb. It was time to surrender. Sampson had won.
She put her face in her knees and started to cry. Carthem had given her the life she always wanted and not because she was immortal. Here, she had family who loved her: Jade finally open and honest, and a father and grandfather who longed to see her. Now they would never meet.
I’ll never feel my father’s embrace, look into his eyes, or see how he resembles me. He’ll never be able to tell me about my mother. I’ll never have a family of my own.
She should’ve killed herself and stopped Sampson when she had the chance. Before Rex rescued her in Gordian, she should’ve cut herself on those sharp instruments, or flung herself into the depths of the laboratories. Rex led her to believe she could go to Carthem and fulfill her mission. Now it was too late.
Sampson won’t come back for me.
Why would he, when this pit was as good as his dungeon? Gerard’s army would destroy Millflower and starve the rest of Carthem while Sampson maintained his control over Pria. Carthem would rebuild slowly, if at all. The survivors wouldn’t know what happened to her. Eventually, they’d doubt she ever existed. She’d become a legend: the lost immortal hero of Carthem. One who could’ve saved the world but fell short.
And she’d live on in this dark hole. Forever.
She may as well go where she wouldn’t suffer. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift—anywhere open, bright, and far from the stone walls that confined her.
“Alina!” a voice called.
Zaiden stood in the Prian fields with a perfect, balanced six-petaled flower, handing it to her with the same smile he’d given her in the school hallway. He said her name again, but his voice echoed as if trapped in something hollow and empty.
“Alina!”
Darkness began to swallow the bright colors, shrinking him to a small circle. He stood in the center, smiling, unaware of the danger around him. Alina screamed and jumped to her feet as the darkness enclosed him. She stretched out her arms and felt the smooth, hard wall in front of her.
“Alina, is that you?” a woman’s voice called.
She blinked her eyes. Someone called for her! She cupped her mouth and answered hoarsely, “I’m here! Who are you?”
She heard nothing and bit her lip. She was losing her mind.
Then she heard the voice again. “I’m lowering a rope. Watch for it.”
A rope! Alina burst into tears. Was the war over? How long had she been in there? Did Sampson send this woman to fetch her? It didn’t seem to matter, as long as she got out.
A distant sound occurred at regular intervals, and after many long minutes, something hit the ground next to her. Reaching out, she felt a thick rope with a frayed end below a knot. She stepped on the knot and gripped the rope.
“I have it!” Alina shouted. “Don’t crank it, I can get there!”
The shaft seemed to run the height of the mountain, but she sailed up the rope, and as she neared the top, a silhouetted figure hunched in the doorway. Alina climbed higher and jumped through the wooden door, embracing the woman as the sun hit her eyes. She pulled away to view her rescuer, then slammed her hand over her mouth.
It was she—the most frightening Sad Case of all, whose sunken eyes had stalked Alina and turned her veins cold.
Alina took a step away from her. “Who are you? Are you—?” The words stopped in her throat.
“Insane?” the woman finished. “My mind is whole, if that’s what you’re wondering. It hasn’t been easy keeping my sanity, though.”
“You’re telling me you lived in Sampson’s dungeon and came out with your mind intact?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. As you probably realized, it’s impossible to keep track of time when you’re locked up. But I was imprisoned before you were born.”
“But that’s over seventeen years!”
“Horrible years. I can’t tell you how glad I am to be out.”
Alina shook her head. “I can’t believe it. I could barely keep my wits in that deep pit, and I was in there for—how long was I in there?”
“Three days.”
“Three days! That’s all?”
“I would’ve come earlier, but I had to wait until nightfall to slip away or the others would’ve tattled on me. Then, I’m embarrassed to say, I got lost. I tried to pay attention when we first left this spot, but I didn’t do a good job. It’s a miracle I got here at all. I was about to give up and let myself die when I recognized the path with the wheel tracks.”
Alina smiled gratefully. “Thank
