Alicia Zalana knows pain, knows it better than anything else. No matter how much she tries to forget—place a veil over her past—pain will always welcome her back home.

She knows the pangs of hunger. She knows the pain of watching someone destroy themselves. She knows the pain of teeth sinking into her flesh, of knuckles bruising her bones.

But all of that seems minute in comparison to losing what she thought she could never live through losing; her family.

It was all she ever wanted, all she ever fought for when there was nothing but bleak shadows and misery as a child. It was all she fought for when her days became manipulation, and her nights became blood. It was all she fought for when she was to be the next queen of Muovea.

Alicia couldn't have possibly sacrificed more for her family, yet she betrayed them, and they betrayed her.

Jeramiah should have ended her life in that forest.

She can't help but think on all of this as blood crusts beneath her nose, the sharp taste of it on her tongue keeping her conscious when all she wants to do is slip into a place where such thoughts can't consume her.

"Alicia," the whisper is harsh in the quiet. She cringes, the movement hurting, but she thought she was done hearing the Reaper's voice in her ear.

Movement jolts her senses, hands upon the ropes at her ankles.

Alicia blinks as her brother looks up at her, terror shining in those hazel eyes, terror and hope.

She opens her mouth to speak before she convinces herself that this isn't real, that he can't be here. No one knows where she is, and they all have a country to save.

"I'm getting you out of here, but we have to hurry." Kieran moves to the ropes at her wrists when her ankles are free, the skin is red and bloody.

This can't be real.

The ropes fall from around her wrists, and she moves her aching shoulders, reality finally sinking in as Kieran grabs her arm and helps her to her feet, her stance unsteady as her head swims.

"How did you find me?" she asks, keeping her voice quiet, eyes darting to the closed door of the cellar.

"I've had people watching this place for months. Now, hurry up, Sam and Lena are waiting for us." Just hearing Sam's name wakes her up further, reminds her of what she did and what she needs to fix. "Adrian and I used to sneak in here all the time to steal some of Pa's whiskey." Alicia manages a smile at that, remembering the rare moments she would spy them atop a hill absolutely sloshed, grinning like loons. She was rarely home enough to see them happy after the war.

He leads her to a slit of a window, stepping onto a crate and peering into the outside world. He pushes at the window. Alicia wraps her arms around herself, stepping a little closer to him.

"Where's Oliver?"

"I'm not sure. Sam says he left and she hasn't heard from him since. But the herd of Grey Bloods are within sight now from the wall. We need to hurry."

Alicia swallows her tears, terror clawing at her throat. "And the other exiles?"

"Probably still at the farm. Most are already meeting Sam and Lena at the walls though."

It's a small hope to cling to, that no one is at the farm that Alicia sent the duke to. She needs to go there to make sure, but for now she allows herself to feel relief that Kieran is alright.

"Light," he mutters under his breath, pushing harder against the window. "I swear I left it open."

"Do you need help?" she asks even as a tendril of panic unfurls within her chest.

"The old thing gets stuck sometimes. Hold on." He jumps down from the crate to move through the shelves of bottles and barrels, searching. Alicia stays by the window, basking in the slither of sunlight.

She can't enjoy the sun, the hint of freedom, as she feels the sand draining, grain by grain. Each moment that passes is another moment the duke has of getting to Samantha and destroying what chance they have of stopping the herd.

Something crashes to the ground, glass breaking, shattering the silence that has surrounded them. Alicia feels her heart stop, her breath dying as she slowly turns back to Kieran as he stares at the boxes littered at his feet, bottles rolling across the stone floor. He stands utterly still, as though he can take back the noise.

But it's too late.

Alicia runs towards him as the door flies open. The soldier bursts in and his eyes go to Kieran. She screams as he grapples with Kieran, her brother hardly having a moment to react as he's slammed into the shelves, the air whooshing from his lungs.

She leaps on the man, her nails diving for his eyes but he moves before she can blind him, fisting her hair. Her nose crunches as he slams her face into the wood of the shelf, Kieran shouting as she falls to the ground, a moment of blackness consuming her. It's but a heartbeat, a breath between falling and hitting the ground, but at that moment there's nothing. No pain, no regret, no guilt. It's just a blank space, a blip in time.

Then the blood gushes, splattering against the stone pressed against her cheek, icy against her inflamed flesh.

"Kieran," her voice is but a whisper, scraping past her cracked lips.

Blurry shapes move before her, melding together in swirls of shadows. She can't seem to focus on them, only on the cold spreading through her limbs.

She hears Kieran struggling, his shout of pain, and that's the only thing that has her clawing through her anguish at that moment.

She'll never give up on her family, she'll never stop trying to piece the fragments back together, even if the Reaper tells her that it's a mistake.

Without her family, who is she? A shell of a person because she's lost everything else that once would have had her fighting.

She crawls, digging her nails into the stone, blood dripping from her face, leaving a trail as she goes to Kieran. Her fingers curl around something jagged that cuts into her palm, and she keeps going.

He's not a fighter, not really. He may have been a soldier, but he was too smart for that, a man of numbers and smiles. Adrian would have protected him during the war and Alicia would have too if she'd been there. It's her turn now, her turn to look out for her siblings.

She stumbles to her feet, managing to right herself with the barrels of wine. Everything spins around her, the shapes of her brother and the soldier shifting around her, the room tilting.

But Alicia keeps going, hearing the sound of fists against flesh, her stomach churning with the noise.

She can't lose anyone else. Not after all she sacrificed getting them out of the slums, giving her brothers a home to return to and be proud of after the war. She won't accept anything else. She can't.

Alicia blinks hard, trying to clear her gaze, trying to discard the cobwebs from her eyes.

She takes too long to recover, someone grabs her before she can even think about taking her next step.

"Enough bullshit," the man hisses at her, his face a smudge of angles. He shakes her violently, her head lolling, unable to hold the weight anymore, her bones seeming to melt. "Muovea was at peace before people like you began to develop ideas."

Ideas. She never had any. Always following, always listening, the sheep eager to trail, to startle when told to, run when herded, accept the slaughterhouse like it wouldn't hurt.

The palace was her slaughterhouse. She never had ideas until she stepped foot in those halls and didn't feel her mother's gaze on her back.

He's shaking her again, yelling at her. But she can hardly hold her head up, the pain a numbing thing.

Alicia collected every piece of information she could. About the duke, about the king, about the queen. She became a spy for no one but herself, something within her knowing that the war was only just the beginning. She didn't walk into that palace blind, deaf, and dumb, she walked in there with a goal and a silver tongue that won her the heart of the prince.

Alicia Zalana never dreamed of being a queen, that was her mother's dream, but when the reality of it presented itself, she began to realise how much she could change in Muovea, how many people she could save, how many children in the slums she could feed.

"Alicia," the man is still shouting, and she comes to the realisation that he's shoved her back into her chair.

He hasn't tied her up.

She remembers then through her numbness, through the blanket of her mind, that her hand is slick with blood. Glass still cuts into her palm, sharpening her senses as the man raises a fist to begin beating her again.

She suddenly sees the blood splattered across his knuckles.

Kieran.

Alicia shoves the glass up, and the man screams as she finally blinds him. He stumbles back, his hands going to his face as blood pours from his eye. His wail reaches a new height as he bumps the glass lodged into his skull.

Alicia lurches away from him, reaching for the mass of shadows that make up Kieran. He lay slumped on the ground, something about him not quite right.

Falling to his side, she ignores the screams of the soldier, managing to push through the cloud of her mind and lean over her brother, cupping his face in bloodied hands.

She doesn't recognise him, and at first she blames it on her own head. Then it begins to register. The cuts along his face, his eyes having swelled shut.

"Kieran," Alicia says softly, pressing a hand to his neck.

She remembers her father then, bloody and still, dead in her arms, still warm and stable, still her pa, the man who always had time for his little girl, even when his sight was clouded with whiskey.

And Kieran, who used to put her on his shoulders so she would feel bigger than the kids who would bully her, so she could feel strong and capable, if only for a few moments.

"Kieran," she says again, but now her voice breaks, shuddering past her lips. She stops speaking, stops thinking about death and carnage and blood and war.

Instead, Alicia rests her ear against her brother's chest and stays there even though his heart is silent.