Page 44 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Another set of chains materialised around Arden’s wrists.The witch tugged them sharply, laughing as her magic released its hold on him. He lunged for her without hesitation but the chains whipped up around his neck, constricting with brutal force, choking the breath from him.
‘That’s not how we play,’ the witch crooned. ‘Be a good boy, or you’ll end up like your friends.’ She gestured casually towards the carnage scattered across the snow. Then she turned on her heel, yanking the chains that bound them both. Ylva and Arden shared one final look, an understanding dawning between them, sharp and dreadful as if, at last, they could see the path laid before them.
‘Come along,’ the witch said cheerfully. ‘I promised Hagan some presents. We mustn’t keep him waiting.’
Ylva opened her mouth to plead. To scream. But before a single sound could escape her, the witch snapped her fingers.
The world dissolved in a burst of green smoke leaving behind only the ruined remains of a winged horse, a fallen wolf, and two Fae, broken beyond recognition.
Wolves must always travel in packs. If one of them is pushed out of the pack, it is their end. Death would be a better punishment than being exiled. Many choose the blade than to be left alone.
Tabitha Wysteria
Bryn was exhausted by the time he, Caldwell and the commander’s men reached the outskirts of the wolverian castle. Horror struck at once. Flames clawed at the sky, smoke smothering the world until there was nothing but fire and ruin. In that moment, Bryn knew, truly knew, that whatever awaited him within those walls would be monstrous. And yet hope, that strange and treacherous creature, still slipped its fingers around his heart. Even when the mind understands the truth, hope insists on blinding us.
The instant Bryn’s boots struck the castle’s stone floor, his world splintered. His eyes widened at the sight of servants butchered where they had fallen, their blood staining halls that had once known warmth and laughter. Entire rooms lay in ruins, and whole levels had been burnt by smoke. Caldwell barked orders, sharp and urgent, but Bryn no longer heard them. He heard nothingat all.
The pain became unbearable, crushing his chest until he could scarcely breathe. He fled the castle, stumbling into the fields beyond, where snow lay thick and untouched. For a fleeting moment, he considered sinking into it, letting the cold creep into his bones and allowing the forest spirits to claim him. But he could not. Not yet. Not until he found his family.
Perhaps the witches had taken them. Prisoners. The thought felt wrong even as it formed. Witches did not keep captives. They killed without pause.
‘Search,’ Bryn whispered, pressing objects that had belonged to the royal family against the giant wolf’s nose. ‘Search, boy.’
The great beast stiffened, scent caught, and then surged forward through the snow. It did not travel far before stopping.
Bryn’s heart stuttered as he followed.
Dread coiled tight around his heart.
From such a distance he could not see clearly, yet something foul seeped into his bones all the same. An instinctive horror that slid through his veins and settled there, unwelcome and certain.
It took an eternity to reach whatever the wolf had found. Not because it lay far away, but because his legs had turned to stone beneath him. The snow here was thick and treacherous, dragging at every step. His heart thundered so violently he was certain it might force its way up his throat.
At first, his mind refused to understand what lay before him. The sight was too grotesque, too cruel to be real. No, this had to be some twisted illusion, a nightmare conjured by his own terror before he had even arrived. It could not be real. It could not.
But it was.
His two younger sisters lay before him.
One of them had been mauled by some beast beyondimagining—her face utterly gone, torn away and shattered beyond recognition. The other knelt nearby, her body still upright, her ribcage split open and laid bare. Her face remained intact, and the agony frozen there was so raw, so unbearable, that Bryn doubled over and retched what little remained in his stomach.
Gwyneira had been only fifteen winters old, far too young to meet such a savage end. And her twin, Gwyneth, now faceless and ruined, had suffered the same fate.
Bryn fell to his knees in the blood-stained snow and bowed his head, praying, begging, that their souls had found the afterlife gently. That somewhere beyond this ruined world, they were at peace.
His body went rigid when he saw the king lying not far away, his neck broken and twisted at an unnatural angle. King Fannar had already been ill—his lungs slowly crystallising, his time measured now in months rather than years. Yet the sight of him like this, so small and fragile in death, shattered Bryn all the same.
His entire family was gone.
Erased.
In a single, merciless heartbeat.
Bryn collapsed onto the frozen ground, curling in on himself, knees drawn tight to his chest as tears streamed freely down his face. He did not care who saw him. He did not care about anything at all. He prayed desperately to be taken too. What meaning could life hold when everything that had anchored him to it had been torn away? Why should he remain in a world where his sisters would never again pester him, never grow into women, never marry or cradle children of their own? He had wanted to watch them live. He had wanted to see his father age gently and die when it washis time.
But none of that would ever come to pass.
They would be in Nilfheim now, in the Underworld, waiting for him.
