Page 65 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
‘Aren’t we too far?’ she asked quietly.
When her eyes met Alina’s, a knot formed in her stomach. There was something there she didn’t like at all. Satisfaction. A faint, unsettling pleasure in Dawn’s fear.
‘I belong to this desert now,’ Alina said softly. Her hand rose instinctively to the necklace resting against her chest.
Dawn’s eyes lingered on the white stone, luminous even beneath the rising sun. She wanted to ask who had given it to her, wanted to know what claim the desert truly held over the Fire Princess, but she bit her tongue.
Some truths, she knew, Alina would never willingly share.
Dawn lowered herself onto the sand opposite Alina. They watched one another in silence for far too long, the kind of quietthat prickled beneath the skin. At last, Dawn cleared her throat.
‘Teach me how to beat blood magic,’ Alina said, her tone sharp with command.
‘Say please.’
Alina frowned. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I do not work for you, Alina Acheron,’ Dawn replied, straightening her spine. ‘We are not in the Kingdom of Fire, and I am not your servant. Out here, we are equals. So if you want my help, you ask for it. Politely.’
For the briefest fraction of a second, Alina’s brown eyes widened. Then they narrowed, and she smiled.
‘Very well,’ she said smoothly. ‘Please help me, witch.’
‘And don’t call me witch,’ Dawn replied. ‘My name is Dawn.’
Alina tilted her head, amusement flickering across her face. There was something unsettling about her now. There was no hesitation, no fear. Only ironclad resolve burning behind those brown eyes.
‘Dawn,’Alina repeated, rolling the name across her tongue as though tasting it. As though testing how it might break.
A shiver crawled up Dawn’s spine. She almost wished she had never corrected her. Witch had felt safer, less intimate. Less exposed to the quiet hunger of this princess who looked as though she might devour anything placed too close.
Dawn extended her hand and waited. Alina’s gaze dropped to it, one brow lifting in faint confusion.
‘Drakonians shake hands,’ Dawn said lightly, masking her nerves with a thread of amusement. ‘So I’m not sure why you look quite so lost.’
‘Why are we shaking hands?’ Alina asked. ‘Is this part of the training?’
‘No,’ Dawn replied softly. ‘This is part of newbeginnings.’ She couldn’t stop the small smile that curved her lips at the way Alina’s eyes widened, just a touch. ‘If we are going to do this, we start again. You may continue to hate me if you wish, but from this moment on, we begin anew.’
Alina sighed, long and slow, then reached out and clasped Dawn’s hand, giving it a firm shake.
Dawn knew, deep down, that this changed nothing. Alina would never truly trust her, never fully forgive her. No matter how much the Fire Princess reshaped herself, at her core she would always remain the drakonian girl Dawn had met all those years ago. Still, she had to try.
Because even if she would never dare speak it aloud, Dawn wanted Alina’s forgiveness. She wanted her love again, fragile and fleeting though it might be.
She knew it would not last. She knew that when the day came, when Dawn drove a blade through Ash Acheron’s heart and stole his life, Alina would never forgive her.
And Dawn could live with that.
She could not quite understand why she yearned for Alina’s friendship again when her hatred for Ash still burnt so fiercely. Why did the loss of one ache more deeply than the other? Perhaps because Ash had been a lover, and Alina a friend. Perhaps because friendship, once broken, left a quieter, hollower wound. Dawn did not know. She only knew that whenever her thoughts strayed to Ash, rage coiled hot and merciless in her chest.
For so long, she had excused him. Had told herself he could never love her because she was a witch, because she was wrong in some essential, unchangeable way. But then she had learnt the truth—that he had married Mal Blackburn, that he loved her, a princess with the same purple eyes Dawn herself possessed. And in that moment, something inside Dawn had shattered beyondrepair.
Because it meant it had never been about her eyes.
It had beenher.
She was the flaw. The thing unworthy of love.
