Page 63 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
There was a pause, and when Thanatos spoke again, his voice had softened, stripped of its usual edge, almost childlike in its uncertainty. ‘She doesn’t know, does she?’
Ash understood at once what he meant. He also understood the fear beneath the question: Mal’s fury, her sense of betrayal, the weight of yet another truth withheld.
‘No,’ Ash said. ‘She doesn’t know why we look the s-same.’
Thanatos nodded slowly, dark eyes thoughtful.
‘But she will,’ Ash added, finally turning to face him. Gold met shadow, fire meeting the void. ‘Eventually. By then… it won’t ma-matter.’
‘It will always matter,’ Thanatos replied sharply, the softness vanishing from his voice as quickly as it had appeared.
The sea roared on, uncaring, as if it had already heard this truth before.
Ash crouched, sliding his hand beneath the sand. How alien it felt compared to his own homeland, where the grains were pale and soft beneath endless light. Here, the sand was dark, cold, heavy with salt and shadow. And yet, he did not miss his home. He was already in it. Wherever Malstood, wherever their child breathed, that was where he belonged. Always.
‘We must find a way to protect them both,’ Thanatos said quietly, ‘from each other.’
‘I’m trying,’ Ash replied, letting the wet sand slip through his fingers in a slow, futile stream. He sensed Thanatos step closer, felt the shift in the air. ‘It’s not s-so simple.’
‘Our child will—’
‘She isnotyours,’ Ash cut in sharply.
The edge in his voice seemed to strike Death itself. Thanatos stilled for a heartbeat before recovering, a crooked, unsettling smile curving his lips, one Ash did not like in the slightest.
‘Is she not?’ Thanatos teased.
Ash rose to his feet, the last of the sand falling uselessly from his hand as he turned to face him. ‘No. She ismychild. Mal’s child. Not yours.’
Thanatos chuckled, low and amused, as the sea roared on behind them, indifferent to claims of blood and fate alike.
‘But I am you, and you are me,’ Thanatos said, his dark eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. ‘We are the same, Ash Acheron.’
Ash did not stop to think. Instinct overtook reason as he lunged, fury propelling him forward, but the damned demon only laughed. In the blink of an eye, Thanatos was swallowed by the sand itself, dragged down as though the earth had opened its jaws just for him, leaving nothing behind but silence.
Ash staggered back, breath tearing from his chest. With a roar that scraped his throat raw, he drove his fist into the sand, striking it again and again as rage flooded his veins, hot and blinding.
Because this time, it was not merely anger that consumed him.
It was the truth.
Many years ago being a witch was a thing of pride. Our purple eyes were a distinction to be proud of. But then everything changed. All I wanted was to hide these purple curses that marked me as different. As wrong. That made the other kingdoms despise me for no reason but the colour of my irises. How could something so small, so insignificant, be so powerful?
Tabitha Wysteria
‘Alina, do not run! We mustn’t run, someone will see!’
But Alina only laughed, wild and unrestrained, as she flew through the corridors of the drakonian castle, her joy echoing off stone and marble. She wore, as ever, one of her ridiculous red-and-gold gowns, laced so tightly at the waist it looked entirely impossible to breathe in. Yet Alina had been raised in such finery; if it hurt, she had long since learnt not to notice.
Dawn had not.
Still, she chased after her, skirts gathered in her fists, laughter spilling from her despite herself. For a fleeting, treacherous moment, she forgot that she was a witch in borrowed skin, that she was meant to be watching, waiting, plotting against the very people she had begun to care for. Oneday, she would have to hurt them. Perhaps even kill them.
The thought vanished as Alina burst into one of the castle’s courtyards and tilted her face to the sun, squinting against the light. Without so much as a warning, she seized the stone and began to climb.
‘You are far too old for this, Alina Acheron!’ Dawn shrieked, then groaned as she hiked up her own skirts to follow. ‘If your mother—’
‘My mother is in bed with one of her headaches, Adara,’ Alina called back over her shoulder, already halfway up the wall. ‘Hurry, before one of the Red Guards spots us!’
