Alina

Alina trembled as she walked through the high arched passageway, surrounded by Bernard's guardsmen. Several doors stood at one side, while open balconies overlooked the great hall below. The walk was quite long, which Alina was grateful for. She was in no hurry to meet Bernard.

The guards finally stopped before one of the doors, and Alina realized they had reached Bernard's study. She took in a deep breath as the door opened, before the guards led her inside the chamber.

Bernard was standing in the middle of the messed up room where packs of documents and loose messages lay scattered all over his desk and on the floor. His white wings were spread behind him, and his ice blue eyes sparked with silent rage.

Flames crackled in the fireplace, disturbing the ominous silence, and huge shadows of Bernard's wings danced eerily on the stone walls around them. Alina shuddered and turned to look at Mikal who stood next to Bernard, hoping to find any hint of assurance in his handsome face, but he was not even looking her way. Her heart fell at his unexpected coldness.

For a long moment Bernard did not speak or move from his place, until a young winged guard entered the room, interrupting the growing tension.

"My lord," the guard said, his voice hesitant. "We found the stable boy."

"Fuck the boy!" Bernard growled, and the guard winced. "He can rot to death for all I care. What I need you to find is Achilles!"

"Yes, my lord," the winged guard said before he quickly hurried outside the room.

Bernard stepped towards Alina, and without warning, his huge palm fell with a vicious slap across her face.

Alina gasped out as her head spun. The world went black for a moment, and involuntary tears sprang to her eyes.

"Did you have my permission to fly Achilles?" he hissed.

She didn't answer, too stunned to speak. Bernard grabbed her by the hair, and she cried out.

"You do not leave the castle without my permission," Bernard growled. "And you definitely do not fly with or without my permission. You do not fly at all."

Alina gasped for breath as he released her, only to hear a strange clanking sound came from the other end of the room. Alina quickly turned around, and she found a black clad guardsman holding a heap of long metal chains. Her eyes widened with unspoken fear, and she looked back between Mikal and Bernard. But she did not have enough time to wonder.

"Guard!" Bernard called.

The guardsman stepped forward. The metal chains which he held in his black gloved hands clanked heavily as he walked towards them. Alina's heart sunk in horror. Frozen with shock and disbelief she could neither move nor protest.

"Bernard... what are you going to do?" was all she managed to say, her voice shaking.

"Shut up!" Bernard growled and Alina flinched. She looked up quickly at Mikal in a silent appeal, but his cold citrine eyes were deliberately avoiding hers.

"Bernard please... I will not do this again," she pleaded as the guard came closer.

"I said shut up!"

"No!" she cried as Bernard caught her by both arms, and her heart thumped as she found the guard standing right behind her, holding up the clanking chains to her back. "Stop! You can't do that!"

"Mikal, hold her," Bernard ordered as he pushed her towards Mikal. She stumbled, but Mikal caught her just in time and gently helped her up. Her heart raced. She looked up at Mikal with pleading eyes, and she found him finally looking back at her with the faintest hint of a frown.

"Mikal, please," she whispered, but he only continued to look at her with the same blank expression.

Her chest tightened with frustration, and tears streamed down her face. She couldn't believe that Mikal stood so close before her, holding her so coldly for such a horrible fate.

Alina trembled as the metal clanked louder behind her. Finally finding her strength, she fought against Mikal's hold, struggling to break free. Until the cold steel touched her wings, and she cried out.

"Stay still," Bernard shouted as she spread her wings, flapping them in desperation.

Mikal's grip tightened around her arms, while Bernard grabbed her wings, painfully forcing them down. She continued to cry and writhe, trying to spread her wings in vain against Bernard's strong grasp. Cold steel burned her skin as the metal chains started winding tightly around her wings. She cried harder, still twisting and writhing. But she could not escape as she stood locked in between Mikal and Bernard, while the guard chained her.

"Please stop!" she sobbed. But no one listened to her, until both her wings were painfully confined within the tight metal chains.

She heard a short clinking sound of a metal lock, and the next instant Bernard pulled her out of Mikal's hold, before he pushed her away. She staggered and attempted to spread her wings, forgetting they were trapped inside the restricting chains, only to lose her balance and fall face front to the floor.

"The next time you attempt to fly, I will cut them off," Bernard threatened.

She gave one last pleading look at Mikal, but he stood turning his face away from her again, the cold indifference in his eyes sending her to more tears.

***

Alina struggled to keep her balance as she walked out of Bernard's study, tripping and falling with every step. It felt very unfamiliar to stand and walk without free wings, as if she were learning to walk for the very first time. It was frustrating and painful. And humiliating. Being chained like a slave.

Alina was still struggling to walk through the dark passage, when she realized with horror that the only way to reach her chamber now was to use the stairs. She had turned into a slave indeed. Stairs were made especially for the wingless slaves, and it was unheard of, for a winged one to use stairs. Could there be any more humiliation?

Endless tears burned her cheeks as she made her way up the long narrow stairway, which was located at the very back of the keep within the sky tower. She could barely walk with her recently chained wings, let alone climb stairs for the first time in her life. Not to mention the dark and suffocating narrowness of a closed staircase, something winged ones could not tolerate by nature.

Alina cried and shivered as she crawled up, using the help of her shaking hands as well. It seemed to take her the whole evening, and by the time she reached the long hallway that led to the bedchambers, she could no longer breathe.

Gasping for air, she hurried to her room, ignoring the countless falls as she pushed herself forward. It was as if a new promise of life flashed before her eyes when she finally reached the door to her chamber, and as soon as she entered, she sank to her knees and burst into tears.

How was she going to live with chained wings? Flying had been the only thing that gave purpose to her existence, helping her live through her hollow days. How was she going to survive without that now? And worst of all, how was she going to continue her life with someone like Bernard?

Sometimes she wondered what her life would have been like if she had married Mikal instead. But she had just realized today that even Mikal was not any better.

She wept with resentment as she recalled how Mikal held her so coldly as Bernard and his guard chained her wings. But could she even blame him? He was just fulfilling his duty after all, following Bernard's orders.

But what frustrated her even more was the fact that she cared for him at all. Mikal was never going to be hers anyway. She was already married, to his cousin. And Mikal would definitely marry another woman.

She recalled how naïve she had been that day when Mikal and Bernard came to visit at the manor house where she stayed with her uncle, and she had thought that Mikal was going to marry her. She had been greatly excited by their visit, for she would finally get to see Mikal, the most handsome and most desired bachelor in Nordenland. And her excitement turned further to overwhelming joy when she went to greet them, and she found her uncle asking her to meet her fiancé.

She had only ever dreamed to see Mikal. But to find that he was to be her fiancé was beyond her wildest dreams. She thought she must be the happiest girl in Nordenland. But all her dreams were crushed when she realized that her uncle meant Lord Bernard, not Mikal, for Lord Bernard had agreed to send his forces to retrieve her home Akaria from Earl Haagen, the usurper who had attacked Akaria and claimed it for himself.

Alina sniffled and got up to her feet. She headed out to the terrace and leaned over the parapet, looking down towards the endless steepness. The courtyard below was veiled in black, and her tears fell like rain drops disappearing into the nothingness beneath. If she threw herself there now, she would end all that pain. Her chained wings would be useless to save her.

A sudden gust of wind blew against her face, and her long waves whirled around her. The next moment she heard the sound of a sobbing woman coming from above.

Alina wiped away her tears and looked up behind her, her eyes searching the dark walls. There was no one.

She knew for sure it was not the echoes of her own sobs, because her tears were falling silently. And she could still hear the cries coming from above.

"Who's there?" she called out. But there was no answer. Only the continuous sound of heartbroken sobs.

Alina walked with caution to the end of the terrace. She looked up once more from that corner, but she found no one. She walked back to the other end and stretched as much as she could, trying to search for any shadows. But she could see no one. The bitter sobs still continued.

"Who is it? Come out," she called, her eyes carefully scanning the wall behind her once more. But there was no sign of life or movement.

Nothing but a large gargoyle sculpture that decorated the wall on the Southern end. But what form of hideous decoration that was, she had no idea. It looked monstrous and dreadful. Besides, she had heard many terrifying stories about how the gargoyles were in fact the trapped souls of sinful Engelmen.

It was said that hundreds of years ago, sinful winged ones were cursed into gargoyles as a punishment. And it was a punishment more dreadful than death, because their souls remained trapped inside the stone gargoyles for eternity. They would never die, yet they were not alive either.

Alina shuddered at the thought. If that were true, then that sobbing sound was definitely coming from the gargoyle above her.

She shook her head hard, as if trying to shake off those horrendous thoughts. Just a ridiculous myth, she reminded herself. She gave one more reluctant look at the gargoyle above her head.

A big distorted body that was half man and half beast, and a large unsightly head with bulging eyes, and a gaping mouth that showed sharp demonic teeth. The gargoyle was still and silent as the dead, but Alina could swear that the tortured expression in its glaring eyes were more alive than her own...

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