[ alicent abandons the scar to cup alina’s pulse in her neck, thumb soothing unmarred skin. her eyes flit over alina’s features, taking in every shift and pinch. if it becomes too great, she’ll draw away. the thought of losing alina — of both her and rhaneyra being taken —roils inside here. she’ll not forget how alina looked that first morning, bled and bruised to the edge of death. ]

A fair point. [ quiet and thoughtful, a conflicted look crossing her face. ] He is a recent arrival, unlikely to be allied with others.

[ she swallows hard, then. for the first time since she entered the room, her eyes drift from alina, fixing elsewhere. ]

There is another, of course. [ spoken from faraway, in the depths of her memory or the halls of her grief. ] Hawkins Fuller has kept the details of Embry's death to himself until this day. [ a hesitant look back. ] He believes Danny Johnson to be responsible, the same man Ash named. The circumstances of his death were — [ she falters, features crumpling at the thought of embry laid out in the chapel as alina was in the maze. ] Similar to your attack.

[ an almost pleading look in her eyes. do not make me speak the violence into reality again. ]