Page 243 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Payback.
And Dawn hated herself for it.
She did not want to be that kind of person—bitter and cruel, secretly wishing harm upon others. She wanted to be better. She wanted to become someone worthy of the life she had begun to build… someone worthy of Kai.
But change did not come easily.
Some wounds refused to close.
She felt Kai’s tension the moment they left the Desert Kingdom behind and crossed into his lands. It settled into him like a second skin. He was eager to return.
And she understood why.
His thoughts were no doubt fixed upon his army, still trapped within the witchlands, unable to break free from the tightening noose of magic and war. His plan was already forming—to gather the remaining wyverian forces, to take to the skies with the dragons, and somehow carve a path back through the wall to liberate those left behind.
It took them several days to reach the wyverian castle.
They were forced to land often, resting every few hours so the group could recover and eat. Especially Alina, whose body, despite its unnatural resilience, could not yet endure long stretches of flight.
By the time the dark volcanic mountains of the Kingdom of Darkness rose before them, Dawn felt a deep, aching relief at the thought of solid ground beneath her feet.
She glanced slowly up to take in the castle. It towered above the jagged landscape. The stone seemed to drink in the light, and above it, the sky remained perpetually grey, as though the sun itself had long since abandoned this place.
Dawn stared in quiet awe.
They landed upon a vast stretch of barren land, where even the grass had withered into brittle shadows of what it once was.
The moment Dawn’s boots touched the ground, she felt it.
The silence.
It was unlike anything she had ever known. It was heavy, suffocating, as though the world itself had fallen still. No voices. No movement. No sign of life beyond their small group.
As if nothing else existed.
‘They must be inside,’ Kai said when the others glanced at him, all of them thinking the same thing. Without waiting, he strode forward towards the great black doors of the castle, clearly intent on summoning servants or guards to receive them.
But he slowed.
Then stopped entirely.
A figure stood at the entrance. Watching them.
Ash Acheron.
He leaned against the dark threshold as though he had been waiting for their arrival all along. Clad in black wyverian garments, his golden hair and eyes seemed almost unnatural against the gloom.
Dawn had almost forgotten how beautiful he was.
How effortlessly he could silence a room simply by existing within it.
She had not seen him since the witches had stormed his castle. And she remembered, with a cold twist in her chest, the promise she had made to herself, to Hagan. That the next time she saw Ash Acheron, she would kill him.
Ash tilted his head slightly, studying them in silence.
There was something different about him.
Something… ancient.
