( alina's imagination has always been an overactive thing. to her benefit, mostly, under ana kuya's strict watch — marching her pencil across the page, so that she might only ever imagine the brutality of the frontlines, a soldier more valuable for her maps than her trigger-finger. she can't say it's to her advantage, now, as it fills in every horrific, grotesque detail alicent can't bear to share, like the very taste of it in her throat might open it.

as alina's had. as embry's must have. her mind fills in the details of a blank canvas for her, in shades of gore and viscera — embry, shattered like a stained glass window. embry, bleeding into the basin of an altar. embry, made into a sacrilegious carving, at home in the vicious pages of the book of saints. her throat bobs, choking on nothing but air and frothy bile. scoffs through it, like the saliva clogging her mouth doesn't taste like sputtering up blood, the unforgettable stain of copper on her teeth, on her tongue, on the knife that kissed her that night. )

And I thought Nikolai held the title for most seasoned liar I've met.

( for days, the blood in her veins has coagulated into thick sludge. now, she can hear the rush of it in her ears, feel new rage revive the clamminess of her pulse. it kicks to life beneath the trap of alicent's thumb, thundering like a drum. it's hardly the first time a man has set her on fire to keep himself warm — revolting, still, is the reminder that this is all she'll ever be. the lamb you lead to the altar in offering to please an angry god. the sacrifice that needs to be made.

alina's mouth twists into an angry, snarled knot. for all that she tries to restrain it, her temper has always burned bright and incandescent. )

And he said nothing? ( her fingers blanch into fists, tight enough she can feel the bone creak. ) So it was my head under the executioner's axe, and not his?