"Alice Ligthing"
Arc 1: Chapter 3
POV: "???" + Alice Lighting
The field was green and vivid, a perfect canvas painted to hide the cage. The sun warmed Alice's face, but the heat did not reach. The grass was soft beneath her fingers, which she gripped tightly, tearing small blades —a minuscule act of rebellion.
The shadow that fell over her did not come from any cloud. It came from him. He sat beside her, and his shoulder brushed against hers—a contact that was not casual.
When she finally faced him, his smile was the same as always: easy, bright. It was the smile that had made her believe in fairy tales.
And it was with that same sweetness on his lips that he said, as if commenting on the weather:
"But this... was the moment I won you."
Alice Lighting, 9 years old:
In the Safe Zone, there was no talk of choice. Only of destiny. A destiny forged for generations in the mandatory marriages between the two great noble Houses—the House of Light and the House of Darkness—always in the hope that, from the crossing of darkness and light, the so-called "Definitive Light" would finally emerge.
An heir. A savior. A key.
She, Alice Lighting, was the female half of the equation. He, Oliver Darking, the male counterpart. It was written in the prophecies, in the salvation of a world bathed in chaos and death—and etched into the gaze of everyone who surrounded her. She was destined for him even before she was born.
Oliver Darking, in turn, radiated his own light. He was attentive in a way that did not seem rehearsed, bringing Alice flowers that he himself drew, because he said that cutting them from the garden was violence. Creative, he invented names for clouds and stories for the wind. Alice clung to these gestures like a lifeline.
Andrew Darking, however, was the shadow that Oliver's light inevitably cast. Older brother, designated protector of the heir, he fulfilled the duty like a prison sentence. Serious to the bone, of few words, his silences were more eloquent than the speeches of any courtier. His gaze — that gaze that never met hers directly, but always evaluated her from afar—seemed to measure insurmountable distances. And to find Alice always on the other side.
Alice did not like him. She even detested the way his presence chilled the air around Oliver.
But Oliver... Oliver was different. Oliver was the promise that destiny could, perhaps, be bearable.
The first formal meeting was a meticulous ritual. It took place at the top of the tower, which stood in the middle of the kingdom. "The Tower of Light," it was called. At the top, a circular chamber whose crystal ceiling let in the sun, bathing everything in a greenish and ethereal light—this was "The Garden of Light." Living walls of vines and ferns created the illusion of an indoor garden, nature domesticated for the occasion.
To the left, imposing like a cliff dressed in black, stood Bruce Darking. Everyone knew him by the title that was a warning: "The Strongest Man in the World," leader of the House of Darkness. Beside him, Esther Darking did not smile; her posture was a study in icy elegance.
To the right, very close but seeming leagues away, her own parents. Her father, Marcos Lighting, puffed out his chest with visible pride. Theodora Lighting, her mother, had eyes bright with a happiness that, to Alice, seemed sharp enough to draw blood.
Alice felt the weight of the sky-blue silk dress—a luxury cage—and the much greater weight of all those eyes. She sat on the green velvet cushions arranged over the ornamental lawn. Waiting for the approach from the left.
When Oliver approached, he stopped before her, hands slightly trembling, smile somewhat crooked. His eyes, however, were sincere.
"You're Alice, right?" His voice barely carried in the immense hall. He swallowed hard, and on impulse, extended his hand—not for a formal greeting, but as one seeking a real connection.
"I..." Oliver continued, taking her hand with a softness that contrasted with the dampness of his palm. "I promise to make you the happiest woman in the world."
The phrase echoed in the heavy silence. It was a child's promise, made in a world of adults who played chess with lives.
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And, with time, the seed of that naive promise took root in the arid soil of Alice's duty. She began to water it.
"You... promise?" The question escaped her years later, in a private nook of the Garden of Light. It was less a doubt and more a spell, an attempt to conjure the reality she so desired.
"By darkness and by light, yes! I promise." Oliver's voice was an anchor amid the sea of expectations. His smile, in Alice's memory, had become her guiding constellation, as reliable as the sunrise.
The Day of Name Confirmation was not a simple event. It was a public ritual, the first official stitching of the future into the fabric of the present. In the Great Hall of the Tower of Light, under frescoes that narrated past unions and future prophecies, the Ball of Alliances was held.
Oliver was radiant, dressed in the colors of darkness in a way that made them seem warm. His smile was so wide it seemed to challenge the very solemnity of the event. Before leaving, he turned to Andrew, who stood like a column of shadow against the wall.
"Wish me luck, Andy," Oliver whispered, his eyes shining with genuine emotion that made the request almost a jest.
Andrew did not smile. His face remained an impenetrable mask. He merely tilted his head — a tilt of a millimeter that could mean anything: a greeting, a concession, an anticipated mourning. Oliver, accustomed to his brother's silence, departed like a sunbeam.
He crossed the hall, ignoring the whispers and heavy gazes of the nobles, to the table where the Lighting family was enthroned. Marcos Lighting observed. Theodora smiled, but her eyes were fixed on her daughter, evaluating every movement.
Alice, trapped in a dress that weighed more than her age, felt her heart beat like a caged bird. Then, he stopped before her. Oliver made a perfect bow, but the gleam in his eyes was anything but formal. He extended his hand, challenging, promising.
"My future lady," he said, and his voice rang clear in the sudden silence of the hall. "Will you grant me this dance?"
It was like breathing for the first time. Alice's hand met his before her mind could process. The ceremony ended; life, it seemed, began there. He led her to the center of the marble courtyard, under the crystal dome that let in the starlight. All eyes were on them—not as teenagers, but as the Living Embodiment of the Prophecy.
The dance was, to be kind, clumsy. Oliver stepped on her feet twice, and she laughed, a bright and free sound that echoed strangely in that severe place. They stumbled, spun out of time, but in the glances they exchanged — his full of pure joy; hers of wondrous discovery — there was a perfection no protocol could dictate.
"Do I love him?" Alice thought, losing herself in the joyful chaos of those steps. "I think so. This must be what love is: light, easy, like breathing."
"I just wished this moment could last forever."
And the dance continued, an awkward and hopeful whirlwind in the heart of the world that relied on them.
In the background, motionless, Andrew watched. Indifferent. Or mysterious.
Three years of stolen breaths and complicit glances passed. Only one lunar cycle, one year, remained until the wedding ritual when the Darking House was summoned. A last-minute mission to the Infernal Zone—not an expedition, but a baptism by fire. Bruce Darking, the patriarch, did not ask; he ordered: Oliver would accompany him. "A future leader cannot fear the ashes from which he will be forged," he roared, ending any debate.
Andrew, the shadow, protested. Not in the throne room, but in the dark corridors, grasping his younger brother's arm with desperate strength. "It is not your war yet," he whispered, a failed prayer. But darkness does not hold light; it only follows it. At least, that was what he thought of his father.
The departure was at dawn, without fanfare.
The return was at twilight, announced not by trumpets, but by the dull drag of boots on the stone courtyard. Alice, whose heart had learned to count the days by emptiness, ran. The troop that entered was not the one that had left. Men reduced to silhouettes, hooded by the ash that never dissipates from the Infernal Zone, with eyes that had seen too much to shine.
She scanned them once, twice, three times.
She searched for the disheveled hair, the easy smile, the relaxed posture.
She found only Bruce Darking, the Strongest Man in the World, whose heavy gaze met hers and, for the first time, averted.
Oliver Darking, heir of Darkness, died at fourteen.
And with him died the world Alice thought she was building.
The wake was a monument to silence. Alice's weeping, however, did not respect the liturgy. In a fit of despair, she sought some echo for her pain, some face that reflected the abyss within her. Her eyes, blind with tears, found Andrew.
He stood behind the coffin, completely rigid. He looked at his younger brother's serene face with an intensity that was not tenderness, but a cold analysis, a silent calculation. Not a hint of moisture threatened his eyes. He was dry.
The hatred that sprang in Alice was not a spark. It was a flood. A dense, justified poison that gave her pain a target. Did he cry? No. Then she would cry for both. Did he suffer? No. Then she would hate for both.
Years later, the cold machinery of the Houses ground her pain and recycled it into duty. The unthinkable became decree: Alice Lighting would marry Andrew Darking. The replacement piece.
The man she detested with the vivid memory of her unshared grief.
On the wedding day, the silence between them was not absence of sound; it was a physical presence. "Yes," she thought, the taste of the ceremony wine sour in her mouth, "I hate my husband. I always have."
The life that followed was a choreography of ice. Andrew was a walking fortress in formal attire. He never spoke to her without necessity. He never greeted her upon arriving, never sought her upon leaving. In public, they were the image of conjugal devotion, painted smiles and calculated touches for the court's eyes. At home, the imperial bed was a desert of velvet and linen, where two bodies slept in opposite corners like enemies declaring truce only under the vigil of sleep.
Alice's life narrowed to a single function, clear and brutal as a blade: to generate the Ultimate Light. It was her duty, her prison, and her supposed redemption. Following her mother's glacial and pragmatic advice—"The womb is the battlefield where women like us conquer or perish"—she decided to fulfill the protocol.
One night, after a silent dinner, she went to his study. She shed the persona of the despised wife and donned the armor of the breeder. The silk robe was not an invitation; it was a uniform. It left everything and nothing to the imagination, a contract of flesh exposed.
She stopped at the door, her heart beating not from desire, but from the hatred that had always driven her. Her voice, when it emerged, was clear, metallic, devoid of any warmth that was not the heat of challenge.
"We must do this," she said, her eyes fixed not on him, but on the emptiness beyond his shoulder.
"For the good of the world."
"Nothing more."
Multiple POVs: Alice + "???"
This is the moment when "???"'s POV shows us the character's real thoughts and places him squarely in his own perspective.
How does he manage to do that? Only the future can tell.