Page 74 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Kage nodded, swallowing the grief clawing at his throat.
‘Your ring,’ she added softly. ‘Where is your ring?’
With my body,he thought, but the truth lodged itself too deep to ever be spoken. Even cursed as he was, gifted a body to walk the mortal world by night, his ring had remained behind, bound to the corpse he no longer owned.
Before he could fashion a lie, his mother turned her face back towards the sea, as if the question had already lost its meaning.
‘I’ve missed you,’ Kage whispered, tightening his grip at last, no longer fearing the chill of his skinnor what it betrayed. His eyes drifted to the plate of food by her chair, untouched. She looked smaller somehow, frailer, as though grief had been feeding on her in place of meals. ‘Mother… you must eat.’
She did not seem to hear him. Her lips moved again in their soft, broken cadence. ‘We ought to sleep now, Kage.’
‘Why?’ he asked quietly.
‘Because then we can see Haven.’
His body went rigid. ‘Mother… Haven is dead.’
‘Not when I sleep,’ she replied, patting his hands with a tenderness that cut deeper than any blade. ‘She visits me, Kage.’ Her gaze lifted suddenly. ‘Your eyes.’
‘What of them, mother?’
‘They are the same as Haven’s.’
‘Of course they are,’ he said gently. ‘We are wyverians. We all share the same eyes.’
Queen Senka shook her head. ‘No, Kage. That’s not what I mean.’
‘Then what do you mean?’
She turned to him then, and the madness was gone. In its place sat a terrible, lucid sorrow.
‘They are the eyes of the dead.’ Her face crumpled as she began to weep. ‘My boy… they took you too.’
Panic tore through him. Kage staggered back, his breath catching as fear flooded his veins. How did she know? Had she always known? Could she see him for what he was?
Her sobs grew louder, breaking apart what little strength he had left. He rose abruptly, retreating from her, terrified that his presence had only deepened her suffering.
‘Your ring…’ she continued to murmur, the words chasing him even as he fled.
Kage ran from the room, from thekeep, from the sound of her voice and vanished into the night, the echo of her grieffollowing him long after he was gone.
I’ve heard rumours that long ago a God-Killer was created. And the gods joined forces in a terrifying battle of the divine. And somehow, they found a way to destroy this God-Killer. Unfortunately, this is just a long forgotten tale. And no one seems to know how they defeated this enemy.
Tabitha Wysteria
Mal had drawn a bath in a tub carved from volcanic stone, so dark it turned the water to liquid shadow. Such was the wyverian way. Both stone and water were bitterly cold as she slid into it, sinking until even her head slipped beneath the icy surface and her eyes fell shut.
She imagined another life. A gentler world, where she had never wed a prince of fire. A world in which she had remained at home, untouched by truth, sheltered by ignorance.
When she broke the surface at last and dragged in a breath, her eyes narrowed at the sight before her—the God-Killer reclining opposite, half-submerged in the blackened water, idly toying with it as it tilted its head in bored curiosity.
‘Get out,’ Mal hissed, splashing the wretched thing that wore her face.
‘You ought to kill your uncle,’ the God-Killer said, its dark eyes still fixed on the droplets slipping from its long fingers.
Mal stilled, frowning. ‘Why?’
‘He’s half-god. He will become a problem.’
