Page 45 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
And one day…
One day, he would find them again.
‘Eirwen…’
Bryn’s eyes widened as the realisation struck that his youngest sibling was nowhere to be seen. Little Eirwen was gone. Could it be that his brother had escaped? That somehow, against all reason, he had survived?
Bryn sat upright and turned slowly, scanning the emptiness around him. Once, this vast quiet had brought him peace. Now it crushed him. The open land pressed in from all sides, tightening like invisible chains around his chest. The silence whispered to him, cruel and insistent, reminding him of just how utterly alone he was.
And he hated it.
How strange that something which had once comforted him now filled him with dread. How desperately he wished he could erase it. Sitting there alone, on the cold ground, felt no longer like a blessing but a curse. The castle had always been alive with noise—servants moving, voices echoing, laughter and arguments weaving together. Bryn had rarely known stillness. When he craved it, he would slip away with his wolf to hunt or wander, exploring new stretches of land. Sometimes Eirwen would follow, bright-eyed and eager, but more often than not, Bryn would invent some excuse to leave his little brother behind, just to steal a few precious hours for himself.
Now his heart splintered at the thought that the silence he had once longed for would be his constant companion.
His new reality.
His only one.
Bryn had been so lost to his thoughts that he never heard them approach. By the time sound reached him, they were already standing mere feet away. He lifted his head slowly, his face stiff with frozen tears. Caldwell did not look at him at all. His gaze was fixed instead on the bodies of the princesses, lingering there a heartbeat too long before sliding to the fallen king.
‘King Fannar is dead,’ Caldwell muttered.
Bryn wanted desperately to believe that the tone carried shock, grief, even sorrow for the loss of their ruler. But Bryn was not a fool. He had always known what stirred beneath Caldwell’s surface. The hunger. The ambition. The quiet patience of a man who had long coveted the throne but required time to reach for it. And Caldwell had taken that time, year after year, driving men through storms, forging loyalty through hardship, reshaping belief until they followed him without question.
Turning them.
When Caldwell finally turned upon Bryn, his men standing in tight formation behind him, something cold slid down Bryn’s spine. These were not the faces of soldiers who had just lost their king.
No.
They looked like a pack.
Wolves, poised and waiting.
Bryn’s breath caught the instant he noticed the axe in Caldwell’s hand.
Loving someone can be seen as a weakness. For when we love someone, they keep a little of us with them. And when they leave, that little piece is never returned. So when you are loved, and eventually abandoned, it can be felt as though not much of ourselves is left.
Tabitha Wysteria
Mal had spent the past few days wandering the lands that cradled the small, decaying castle her uncle called home. There was little to see beyond rock and ruin, yet the beach below the keep had become her refuge. Each morning she brought her mother there, the two of them sitting side by side, observing the storm-dark sea in shared silence. Sometimes Mal would bring a book, though she rarely turned its pages.
Ash had carried wooden chairs down the narrow path for them, ensuring they could sit comfortably and watch the waves. Mal had watched him do it with a heart quietly breaking—this man, her husband, lifting heavy chairs simply so the queen and she might find a measure of peace. He never offered to stay. He knew the solitude they needed, and so he withdrew. To where, Mal did not know.
The chairs remained, a silent promise that Mal couldreturn to the beach whenever she wished. She made her way down the path now, steps soft and unhurried, her attention fixed on the stretch of sand below. A faint smile touched her lips at the sight of wyverns gathered there, wild and untamed, roaring at one another. They were not her own, but creatures bred by her uncle, free and fierce in their own right.
At first, the wyverns stilled at the presence of a stranger. Then they scented the air, and their tension eased. Mal felt a quiet relief bloom in her chest. The God-Killer within her did not frighten them and she was grateful for that, for such rejection might have shattered her.
If there was anything left of her to break.
Lately, Mal could not help but wonder whether she had already been broken so completely that nothing remained.
Mal sighed as she lowered herself into the chair, her arms settling along the armrests, her purple glare fixed on the restless sea. She tried deliberately to ignore the presence that now occupied the chair beside her, the one that usually belonged to Queen Senka.
Her hand drifted to her stomach, rubbing slow, absent circles as she hummed softly, caught in quiet wonder at the swell of her belly. It had grown so much in recent days. She found herself counting heartbeats, wondering how long it would be before the child finally arrived.
‘Not long now,’ the creature murmured. Its mouth stretched wide in something close to delight as it licked its lips, those dark eyes lingering on Mal’s stomach with unsettling hunger.
