"You bastard," Sam spits, her voice as sharp as a blade. She turns black eyes on Warren, and Alicia fears what she wants to do to the man, the only thing stopping her is the gun still pointed at Galya's head. "You were going to do this no matter what answers I gave you."
Warren lifts a shoulder, grinning around the cigar in his lips, eyeing Galya as she stares at him. Alicia can only imagine the look she's giving him. "I have my own people to rule, as you royals so aptly put it, Princess."
"You've doomed us all."
Alicia moves when she sees Warren raise his gun, her body lurching towards the wall like she can do anything. He pulls the trigger.
Oliver has a rifle aimed at the man's heart in the next moment as the echo of the shot cracks through the night. But the bullet shoots for the stars, not any of them.
Alicia hesitates, her hands gripping the edge of the wall as she looks at Galya, seeing the gun pressed to her head again and she wonders what cards there are left to play.
"Alicia," Oliver says, "you need to—" The explosion tears through the quiet, Alicia crying out and dropping to the platform. Oliver spins around, and both of them can only widen their gazes as they witness flames clawing at the sky, more explosions rocking the earth as the black powder supply they took from the Keep is set ablaze, ripping through the buildings around it.
Alicia can't breathe, can't think, can't move, can only lay there with her hands over her head as part of the Commons goes up in a wild blaze.
Alicia thought she could play the role of exile and not have to sacrifice. She thought that the duke was the only one who could take her life apart. She was lying to herself. She sees that more clearly now than ever.
Getting to her feet, Alicia watches Oliver begin climbing down the ladder, already barking orders.
"Oliver," she calls, and he looks up at her, the determination in his gaze gives Alicia a sudden spark of confidence. "Good luck."
"Luck isn't real," he replies, flashing his teeth at her in an almost feral smile before dropping to the ground.
Alicia spins around, assessing her situation and the whereabouts of their attackers, but Warren is already gone, Galya with him. Alicia hears Sam yelling, so distracted by Galya's disappearance that she doesn't see Grayson raising a gun towards her.
As chaos blurs around her and fire rages in the corner of her gaze, Alicia is too slow to react as he shoots. The bullet takes Samantha down to the wood, her cry making Alicia act. Swiping up one of the rifles left on the platform for the guards, she aims at Grayson just as he twists around, noticing her sight trained on him. Alicia grits her teeth, willing her years of practice to pay off as she squeezes the trigger. Grayson shouts as the revolver in his hand is torn from his grip, his eyes widening as he looks up at Alicia, but she's already descending the ladder, tossing the strap of the rifle over her shoulder to sprint to where Sam struggles to the ground, gripping her arm.
"Where's Galya?" she's yelling as Alicia reaches her, already tearing a long strip of her shirt away to wrap it around the girl's arm, Sam looking up at her with wide eyes.
"I'm sure Oliver is already on it. But right now we need to get that fire under control before it destroys the wall." Alicia lifts her gaze from her bloody task, looking towards the black smoke. "If it hasn't already."
"Shit," Sam hisses, pulling herself from Alicia's hands to grab the repeater that was dropped from the ledge. "Like we didn't have enough fucking problems." Sam cocks the lever-action weapon, her gaze hardening as Alicia watches. "I'm going to put a bullet in Warren's damn head." She shoves past Alicia, on a path of war that Alicia can't possibly follow.
That's when she turns around, witnessing the full extent of this horror. The black smoke blends in with the inky night, the raging inferno their only light as the smoke smothers the moon and the stars. Alicia sees people running, some towards the flame, some away. It takes her a moment to realise that some of them aren't the people of the Commons. She recognises Warren's men and her lips part as she sees them attacking the people. Innocent people.
Alicia swings the rifle into her hands and rushes forward, the screaming in her ears doing nothing to ease her aching heart.
She sees someone fighting ahead of her, grappling with one of Warren's exiles.
"Sasha!" Alicia calls, raising her gun, aiming it at the attacking man.
But she freezes with her finger on the trigger, her aim sure. She halts. She sees it clearly before her, one of many cold nights alone with her ma after her brothers and pa had been sent to war. She sees the men before her clearly, the knife to her ma's throat, the savage glint in their gazes as they regarded Alicia.
It was the first life she took, and their blood will never fade from her hands.
The shot wakes her up, a crack of lightning. She blinks, looking to her own hand, but she hasn't pulled the trigger.
The attacking exile crumbles, his hands going to his chest awash with blood. Smoke curls from the muzzle of Sasha's gun as she spits at the man's feet, an ugly snarl on her lips.
Alicia lowers her gun, shaking her head, taking a step back, trying to distance herself from this whole ordeal.
Torn in two, being shredded apart by two different lives. Who is Alicia meant to be?
"The wall!" Then Sasha is there, grabbing Alicia's arm and dragging her away from the corpse. "Alicia, the wall has been destroyed." It takes her a moment to gather herself, to realise what Sasha is talking about, but then she sees it. Part of the wall smoulders, a wide fissure torn through it.
There's no chance that they'll be able to fix it before hundreds of Grey Bloods are upon them.
The street is bathed in the glow of fire, people rushing past them, the pop of gunfire rising above the roar of the flames. Alicia doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know how to fix this.
Someone runs at her, a man with wild eyes, clothing torn and dishevelled. That gun burns in her hand, begging her to do something even as every voice that has damned her to the Reaper's den rages for her to drop it, to lay down and never get back up.
Sasha raises her revolver and shoots, the bullet tearing through the man's chest, taking him to the ground as Alicia closes her eyes and forgets how to breathe.
Alicia feels her world narrow down to a few mere points. The Commons are lost. Galya is missing. Warren's men are spilling into the town, and the people are shouting. Everything else is just chaos running through her mind.
"Alicia, let's go," Sasha says, grabbing her hand once again and taking her from the bloody sight. "We need to get out of this place." Alicia shakes her head, refusing to do that, refusing to abandon this place that she was only just beginning to call her own.
Alicia pulls her hand from Sasha's. "Wait," she says between breaths, turning around. "There's something I need to get." Then she's running, Sasha calling for her, but Alicia stops caring beyond her simple goals, needing to focus on something within this mounting chaos.
Alicia runs into Oliver's home and crashes into her room, glancing around briefly to get her bearings before diving towards her bed. She grabs Kathryn's sword and slings it over her shoulder before throwing on her satchel, the precious book and map within. She looks around the room one last time—the small space has been the only home she's had in the previous month—and says her final goodbyes before running back.
Except her steps take her up, not back out into the confusion. She takes the stairs two at a time and stumbles down the hall until she bursts into Oliver's room. Heading straight for the mantle, Alicia already knows what she needs to grab.
She understands too well what it's like to lose family, and she knows she clings to the pieces she still has of them when the world around her is dark and cold and lonely.
Grabbing the pictures off the mantle, Alicia shoves them into her satchel before running downstairs.
Back into the light of the fire, Alicia is lost. She doesn't see any familiar faces, shadows flitting in and out of her vision as people begin escaping the spreading fire.
In that orange light, Alicia sees Galya, her hair the colour of the sunset in this mix of shadow and light. She starts towards her, shocked to see the girl, but then Warren is there, grabbing Galya by her shirt and tossing her like she weighs nothing. Alicia chokes on her breath, rushing towards them.
Alicia shouts as Galya is thrown through a window amongst a glistening shower of glass, Warren following after her with a sadistic grimace twisting his features.
Alicia runs after them, forgetting about everything else as Galya's cry reaches her. She leaps through the shattered window, hardly taking in her dark surroundings as she moves for the figures.
All Alicia sees in the darkness is shifting shadows. They grapple with each other, throwing fists and elbows, but Alicia can't discern who is who in the low light, squinting as she tries to find Warren's taller frame.
Alicia pulls Kathryn's blade from the sheath and rushes forward, narrowing her eyes to find the larger man in the dark.
Galya struggles with him as he presses her against the wall, his hands around her throat. Blood shines down the side of Galya's face, dripping from her jaw.
Warren doesn't notice Alicia as she drives the sword through the man's leg. Warren cries out, letting go of Galya and stumbling away, blood pouring from his thigh. Alicia brings the sword down again, slashing through his other thigh. Warren falls, bloodied hands gripping his wounds
"You bitch!" he screams.
"I won't kill you." Alicia steps closer, the blade whispering against the soft skin of his neck. "I leave you in the hands of the gods. May they have mercy on your soul."
Warren watches her, his blue eyes pools of rage, his bloody hands gripping his thigh. Alicia turns away from him, sheaths the blade and goes to Galya, putting the girl's arm around her shoulders to help her stand before she carefully walks them through the glass of the shattered window
"Why did you let him go?" she asks, gritting her teeth.
Alicia presses her lips together. "I've killed enough of my enemies to know they never really die."
Galya raises her green gaze to Alicia, her eyes fierce. "I see all of them in my dreams too."
"Alicia!" The call has her raising her head, Oliver leaping down from a cart and rushing to her. "Are you alright?"
Alicia can only nod, looking towards the cart to see the sick and injured seated within, Yeong with them.
"We need to leave."
"We figured," Galya mutters, straightening and pulling away from Alicia. "Where's Sam?"
"Here." Sam walks towards them, her face streaked with blood and soot, her hands trembling where she holds the rifle. "The Commons are lost to us, and we'll never survive the coming herd out here."
"What do you suggest?" Galya asks, grimacing as she shifts, pressing a hand to her side. Sam looks away from them, her gaze far away.
"We go to the walls," she says, Alicia's gut lurching. "We go to the walls of the capital, and we find a way through that doesn't require blowing it to the Reaper's den."