The Weight of a Choice
The night hadn't calmed. Smoke still curled from the scorched courtyard, the scent of burnt stone and iron thick in the air. The moon hung fractured above them, silver light slicing through drifting ash.
Alina stood there—no longer a disguised old warrior, but in her true form. Her silver-white hair glimmered faintly under the moonlight, long and wild around her shoulders. Her pink eyes burned like two quiet embers, sharp and unreadable as they fixed on Leon. Her armor, still scarred and smudged from battle, couldn't hide the tension rippling beneath her calm surface.
She exhaled softly, voice low but laced with edge.
"So," she said, "are you happy now? You got what you wanted. Now tell me—how did you see beyond it? How did you know? That fool King Garry never trespassed this far. He never saw me. So how did you?"
