Page 252 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Vera recoiled, her purple eyes widening in horror as she instinctively drew the child closer, as though distance alone might shield her from Mal’s reach.
Kage stepped forward then, his attention lingering on theinfant for a fleeting moment before lifting to Mal, heavy with something unspoken.
‘Wren is dead.’
Mal did not react. Not a flicker. Not a breath out of place. Only stillness—perfect, chilling indifference. Kage saw it. He must have. Confusion rippled across his features as he shook his head, as though trying to dislodge what he was witnessing.
‘Where is my sister?’ he asked, his voice low, strained.
‘Sleeping,’ Mal replied simply. ‘Sleeping within a dream from which she will not wake.’ She shifted slightly upon the throne, settling deeper into it, as though claiming not just the seat but everything it governed. ‘I am in charge now. And you, all of you, are mine.’ A wicked smile unfurled across her lips. ‘On your knees.’
She waited, patient as a gathering storm. When none of them moved, her posture changed as she leaned forward, her black eyes igniting, bleeding slowly into a dangerous, molten red.
‘On your knees.’
This time, her voice was no longer hers alone. It echoed with something ancient, something vast. A chorus of countless God-Killers who had existed before her, in other worlds, in other ages. The weight of it pressed down upon them, unseen yet inescapable.
And they fell.
Mal turned her attention upon Thanatos, upon the husband she had once loved, still achingly beautiful in a way that now felt distant, almost irrelevant, and she smiled.
‘You’ll grow accustomed to it,’ she said, her lips curling into something sharp, something unkind. ‘Now…we must prepare to kill the gods.’
Thanatos inclined his head, though the tension in his jawbetrayed him, tight as a drawn blade.
‘May the shadows guide your way,’ he said.
The others echoed him, their voices subdued, their eyes darkened with grief and something quieter. Resignation, perhaps.
‘May the shadows guide you,’ the Queen of the Underworld replied.
THE END
