A Court of Light and Fire

Chapter 5

POV:Alina

Not much rolled around in Alina's head on the short flight back to her cottage other than a very long, very repetitive string of curse words. The crippling darkness swallowing her whole, the look he gave her, the gasps from the crowd... The events kept repeating in her mind over and over, making her wish she could crawl inside herself and forget the day ever happened. In all the years she's lived in the Night Court, in Prythian even, she had never come close to slipping up and revealing her lightbringing powers. She had never been so weak. It had always been one of her most preciously guarded secrets – this ability that was so unique and powerful, but could also be so devastatingly deadly if it was found out and taken advantage of. The secrecy was her safety net, her only chance at a somewhat normal life, but she'd burned that away. Her only comfort was that she knew Azriel hadn't followed her out of Windhaven and found where she lived. Yet.

For the rest of that day and several days afterward, fear and paranoia gripped her. Would the Illyrians come after her? Would Cassian or Azriel? Perhaps the smart thing to do is to stay here, in the comfort and seclusion of her home, hiding from the Illyrians until the talk and gossip could settle down. Perhaps she should consider leaving the Illyrian mountains or the Night Court entirely. The thought of leaving behind the glowing starry nights that she'd so thoroughly come to love saddened her. The thought of removing herself from the only people remotely like her, with the ability to fly and taste the skies, as cold and bitter and backwards as they are, killed her. No, she decided one night as she lay on the roof of her house watching the pale green streaks of northern lights dance across the starlit sky. This was her home. She would not hide, and she would not leave.

Alina climbed down from the roof and made her way into her bed, thanking the cauldron that she had one more day to mentally prepare for attending the next training session. She laid there tossing and turning for what felt like hours when she finally fell into a deep, troubled sleep.

She was back on that battlefield, striped with blood and gore and painted with bodies of the fallen soldiers. The lighting was low, and the world seemed to be covered in an eerie blue haze that sent the hairs on her arm standing up straight. She was cold – so, so cold, the kind of cold you felt in your bones, the kind of cold that left you tired and your mind muddled. She was scared, and she didn't know what or who she was looking for, but she knew she didn't have much time.

Frantically she searched, trying not to look too long at the pale, frost bitten faces of the warriors she walked by. If you looked closely enough, you could still see the emotions they wore when they died; some showed sadness, terror, desperation, and even some looked serene and peaceful, as if in their final moments they knew their death was coming to claim them at last, and they were ready. As she searched, the thought dawned on Alina that each of these soldiers had a life like hers. Each of them fought for something they had believed in with every part of their being, something they were willing to give their lives for. She wondered what kind of family they had left behind, waiting for them to come home.

She moved on, grazing her eyes over the battlefield, when one body in particular caught her glance. There, something inside her seemed to say. She felt pulled towards whoever this person was. She creeped closer to him as a gentle snow began to fall, but stopped short when she saw the – no, it can't be. While his clothes were still fully intact, his hands and his wings were covered in fresh burns. In places, the flesh of his wings had been singed off entirely. It was one of the most horrible, grotesque things she'd ever seen, made even more so when she looked upon his face and realized that the soldier laying there was Azriel.

She wanted so badly to look away, but she couldn't – she couldn't rip her eyes away from his face no matter how hard she tried. Tears stung her cheeks, and her breath formed small little puffs in the freezing air as she struggled to turn away. She heard a sizzling noise, and finally was able to look down to where her hands hung at her sides. Her palms were glowing red, and in each she held a glowing ball of bright red, crackling flame.