Page 163 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
She looked into his black eyes and felt something perilously close to fear.
How was she meant to kill Ash Acheron when Kai stared at her as if she were a fallen star, something miraculous, something meant only to light his path?
If she chose him… she would betray her entire people.
The thought coiled tight in her chest.
‘I will spend the rest of my life telling you how beautiful you are,’ Kai whispered, pressing soft kisses to her chin, her cheeks, the corner of her mouth. ‘Until one day you finally believe me.’
She should have told him not to bother.
She should have warned him not to build castles on sand. Instead, her heart cracked quietly at the image he painted, of years stretching ahead, of mornings and evenings filled with nothing more dangerous than his voice calling her beautiful.
Dawn did not know what she would do tomorrow.
She did not know which oath would claim her in the end. But in this moment, she allowed herself the indulgence of pretending that a future with Kai, a future where she was not monster or weapon or witch, but simply a woman loved, might be possible.
She reached up and kissed him.
She kissed him as though she were drowning and he was the last breath left in the world. She kissed him as though there were no kingdoms, no wars, no blood between their people. As though he were not a wyverian and she were not a witch.
She kissed him until the ache inside her quieted.
Until the fractures in her heart felt, if not mended, at least held together.
Until she almost forgot the colour of her owneyes.
Then again, they were only eyes.
Nothing more.
I thought perhaps I could persuade Melinoe to give this up. To stop chasing after the phantom of a mother that had never existed. She can’t get over it. She can’t understand why I chose Hadrian over her.
But it was never about her.
I didn’t want to abandon her. Not really.
I just couldn’t stand to be reminded of Hades each time I looked at her.
Tabitha Wysteria
The moment Mal had left him, Ash had done the only thing he knew how to do any more; he retreated inward, vanishing into the quiet corridors of his own mind. The world beyond him dissolved into nothing. Yet this time he did not wander backwards, did not revisit the brittle memories of Hagan and all that had broken him. No. This time he let himself drift forwards.
To a future.
To a daughter born into the world whom he had never been permitted to hold.
He stood upon a hill brushed with wind and wild grass, and before him rose the drakonian castle.It had taken years to rebuild, but at last it stood restored to its former glory, proud and unyielding against the horizon.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
He turned to see Medea hurrying up the slope, breathless and indignant. She was in her early twenties, her eyes alight with the softness of a world that had known peace for long enough to forget the taste of war. She was heartbreakingly beautiful, so much so that it almost ached to look upon her. Her black horns curved with the same regal grace as Mal’s, and her eyes shone that same vivid purple. Yet her hair fell long and golden down her back, and in that she reminded him so fiercely of Alina that his chest tightened.
‘You have to stop running off,’ she signed, her hands moving swiftly with exaggerated annoyance. She dropped down beside him with a huff and nudged him sharply with her elbow. ‘For an old man, you’ve got very fast legs.’
‘I’m not old,’ Ash signed in return, scowling with theatrical offence.
Medea laughed, bright and unburdened, and the sound of it felt like sunlight breaking through years of cloud.
