Page 164 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Together they looked out at the castle in silence, the wind tugging gently at their clothes.
After a moment, Medea turned back to him, a faint crease forming between her brows, something thoughtful dimming her playful expression.
‘Father,’ she signed, her movements slowing, growing deliberate. ‘Why can I not fight?’
Ash exhaled, long and weary.
‘Why are women not allowed to fight here?’ Medea pressed, her gestures sharper now, edged with something dangerously close to anger. ‘Enzo says that in his kingdom women fight.’
‘Ignore your cousin,’ Ash signed back, irritation flickeringacross his features.
‘I want to fight.’
‘You must not.’
The hurt that bloomed across her face cut deeper than any blade ever could. It would have been easier to endure a wound of flesh than that look, confusion tangled with betrayal. But he could not tell her. He could never tell her.
He watched her jaw tighten, watched pride wrestle with obedience. And in the quiet of his imagined future, guilt settled heavy upon his shoulders.
It was he who had preserved the old laws. He who had insisted that drakonian women remain far from swords and battlefields. He who had argued that tradition must be honoured, that some lines must never be crossed.
All for one reason.
For her.
Because if Medea ever learnt to fight, if she ever grew strong enough to lift a blade with confidence, then one day she might turn it upon her own mother.
And Ash did not know which fate would destroy him more: a daughter defenceless.
Or a daughter capable of killing Mal.
Ash wrenched himself back into the present, torn from the fragile warmth of the vision as his eyes snapped open. The future dissolved like smoke, leaving only the cold stone walls of the keep and the hollow ache in his chest.
He was alone.
Alone, save for Morthos who drifted through the corridors more like a memory than a man.
Alone, because his wife was now gone. A wife that held his cursed heart between her pale fingers, with the power to crush it until it bled all over her hands. There was a part of Ash thatresented her for having taken their child away. For not allowing him to hold her. But deep down he knew it had been for the best, that Mal was trying to protect their daughter from the monsters only she could see.
And Ash, Ash would protect her from the ones they could.
With a weary sigh, he made his way down to the beach, the wind sharp against his face. He muttered a string of curses the moment he spotted Thanatos standing at the edge of the storm-dark sea, black robes unmoved by the gale, as though the world itself did not dare disturb him.
‘It is done,’ Thanatos said, without so much as glancing back. ‘She’s in Hell now.’
Ash gave a single nod.
‘She will discover the truth,’ Thanatos continued, jaw rigid, dark eyes flashing with restrained fury.
Ash lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. ‘We cannot c-continue to keep it all from her.’
That earned him a look. Thanatos turned slowly, every line of his body coiled with tension. ‘She will never forgive us.’
Ash let out a rough snort. ‘You mean she will n-never for-forgive you?’
Silence settled between them, broken only by the crash of waves. Thanatos looked back to the sea, scrubbing a hand down his face as though the motion could erase what was coming.
‘Perhaps,’ he muttered at last.
