Page 117 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Alina swallowed whatever reply threatened to rise andallowed herself to be guided forward.
The seven Saqar did not speak. They simply turned as one and began walking out into the desert, their movements fluid and silent. The figure at the centre was taller and held herself differently. She was unmistakably the Altaa Saqardatis, Hessa’s mother.
They walked for some time. Sand shifted beneath their feet, wind tugging at fabric, until the mountain was no longer a looming presence but a fading silhouette against the horizon.
The Saqar’s faces were entirely veiled, their thoughts unreadable behind layered cloth. They stopped at last, the desert stretching endless and merciless around them.
One of the women spoke. ‘The Altaa Saqardatis will speak to you now.’
Alina stepped forward with Mareena at her side, but the woman who had spoken lifted her hand, halting them.
‘She will only speak with the sun-haired one.’
Mareena’s red eyes narrowed, a flicker of irritation passing through them, yet she did not argue. Instead, she inclined her head with controlled grace.
Alina bit down on her tongue to steady herself and followed the woman dressed differently from the rest.
All the Saqar wore robes that concealed them completely, but the others were clothed in sand-brown fabric, light and practical, easily swallowed by the desert. The Altaa Saqardatis wore blue, so the gods could spot her from the sky. Her robes were thicker, longer, sweeping the sand and covering even her hands and feet.
Alina glanced over her shoulder as she followed the Altaa Saqardatis farther into the open desert. She did not like leaving Mareena behind with those silent, watchful figures. The Saqar unnerved her. Too still, too knowing.
She had been raised in a land where religion was little more than tradition. Prayers were rarely spoken; the Sun God was invoked in passing, a phrase more than a presence. What mattered was the crown. The throne. Power that could be touched and seized.
She had never understood the hunger to believe in something unseen. Something intangible. Something that demanded faith without proof.
The desert stretched endlessly around them, gold bleeding into amber beneath the lowering sun. They walked in silence until a cluster of caves emerged from the dunes, their dark mouths yawning open like secrets waiting to be swallowed.
Desert caves were common in these lands. Dunayans used them as refuge during sandstorms or to hide from prowling beasts. Some tunnels ran deep into the earth, winding like veins beneath the sands. Many were natural—raw, untouched by mortal hand. Others had been shaped and claimed, their walls smoothed, statues carved into the stone, turning shelter into sanctum.
The Altaa Saqardatis moved towards one such entrance.
Alina halted at its mouth, the air cooler there, tinged with the scent of dust and ancient stone. She turned once more.
She could still see Mareena in the distance but she was too far now to read her expression, too far to know whether Alina walked towards danger.
Not that she needed protection.
With every passing day she felt the shift within herself. Stronger. Sharper. More deliberate. Mareena had been teaching her the disciplined, lethal forms of the Phanax; Kai had trained her in wyverian combat. Her body no longer felt like something fragile to be broken.
She no longer felt helpless.
And once she mastered how to fight blood magic…
Well.
Then the world would have reason to fear her.
The Altaa Saqardatis moved swiftly into the cave, and Alina followed with measured reluctance.
Candles lined the walls, their flames steady and unwavering, as though protected by unseen hands. For a fleeting moment, Alina had imagined they would descend into solitude, into shadow and silence, but the cavern was anything but empty. Saqar lined the stone walls, seated upon the ground, their veiled heads bowed in prayer.
When they reached the heart of the cavern, Alina’s breath caught.
The space opened into something vast and cathedral-like, far grander than the mountain’s exterior suggested. The ceiling soared impossibly high, vanishing into darkness. They must have descended far deeper than she had realised. Here, the stone had been painstakingly smoothed, transformed by deliberate hands. Carvings adorned every surface—intricate patterns woven around flowing lines of scripture she could not decipher. She could speak Sandhii, yes, but reading it was another matter entirely.
At the centre lay a great circular chamber. Dozens of Saqar knelt in a wide ring, their robes pooling around them like dunes of cloth. Their veiled faces tilted upwards towards a single aperture in the roof, where a shaft of natural light poured down like a divine blessing, illuminating the exact centre of the circle.
The chanting filled the chamber. It hummed through the stone and into her bones. The sound was hypnotic, almost tidal, and Alina found herself swaying ever so slightly where she stood, caught in its current.
