Page 247 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
She sank into it.
Time passed. Years, it seemed, slipping through her fingers like silk. And with every passing moment, the memory of the real world faded further, until she no longer questioned the illusion.
Until she no longer remembered it was one.
And then, something seized her.
An invisible force, merciless and unyielding, tore her from that fragile paradise.
Mal broke through the surface with a violent gasp, air crashing into her lungs as though she had been reborn. Water streamed from her as she blinked against the light, disoriented, breathless.
She expected darkness.
Lucifer’s ring.
Instead she found the shore.
Hershore.
The jagged coastline she knew too well, where her uncle lived, where she herself had hidden for months before giving birth… before leaving it all behind.
The sea roared behind her, wild and restless, but Mal barely heard it. Her gaze had already fixed upon the figure waiting at the water’s edge.
It stood there, still as death.
Watching her.
A perfect mirror.
Her face. Her form.
But wrong.
Those black eyes locked onto hers the moment she dragged herself from the churning waves, her boots sinking into wet sand as she approached. She stopped a few feet away, breath slowing, pulse unsteady.
She could not remember the last time she had stood this close.
It felt… unnatural.
To look at herself like this.
At the version of her that was darker, crueler, twisted into something sharp and merciless.
And yet she knew with a quiet, dreadful certainty that it was not separate from her at all.
Only another piece of herself, given shape.
‘I’ve made a deal with Lucifer. So when I go back…’ Mal’s voice faltered as she caught the creature’s expression, how its lips curled, slow and delighted, as though savouring every word. ‘I will be Queen of the Underworld, until…’
‘Until?’ the creature prompted, almost eagerly.
Mal swallowed. ‘Until my daughter hears the bells of Hell calling her. And then… she will banish me into Hell.’
A pause lingered between them, heavy as a held breath.
‘It doesn’t have to end like that.’
‘It does,’ Mal said, her voice tightening. ‘I will not hurt my child. I will not harm the ones I love.’
