Page 83 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
The words seemed to catch her off guard. A faint creaseappeared between her brows before she swatted his hand away and stood on her own.
‘For what, exactly?’ she asked, clearing her throat as she checked herself over, ensuring the glamour held.
‘I’m sorry you have to keep changing your face.’
He saw the instant her body went rigid. Instinctively, he wanted to reach for her again, to brush the pain from her expression, to coax back a smile, or even a laugh.
‘Stop pretending to be kind,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t suit you.’
‘I’m not pretending.’
She rolled her now-black wyverian eyes and scoffed. ‘If you say so, commander.’
Kai turned fully towards her, making sure she could read the truth etched into every line of his face.
‘I never pretend with you, Dawn.’
She froze, lips parting as if a dozen words were fighting to escape. But before she could speak, Alina cleared her throat, casting them a look sharp enough to freeze the desert itself.
Kai had a dozen sharp words ready for Alina, each one burning to be spoken, but they died in his throat the moment he noticed Arena and Isla. They stood at the front of the formation now, flanked by the king himself and an overwhelming tide of desert folk fanning out behind him. Kai swallowed his retort whole.
‘Alina Acheron, we meet again,’ King Siroc said, tilting his head before letting his pale eyes rake slowly over each of them. ‘Here you stand upon the land that birthed my daughter, Hessa. The very soul you slaughtered.’
Kai watched Alina closely. Her expression did not so much as shift. Behind her, the dragons stood in disciplined formation, vast and terrible, their presence humming with restrained violence. Only a stretch of sand separated the two sides. Sandthin enough that, with a single word from Alina, dragonfire could reduce the king and his people to ash.
‘You wished to see me, King Siroc,’ Alina said at last, her tone measured, ironclad. ‘Here I am.’
‘I want you to pay for your crimes.’
Alina’s control fractured then. ‘The crime of loving your daughter?’ she snapped, the words sharp with fury. A bitter laugh tore from her throat. ‘Very well,’ she said, voice ringing across the sands. ‘Let me pay for such a crime.’
Kai let his attention settle fully on the king. He was young, strikingly so for a man who carried an entire desert on his shoulders. Handsome and broad-built, with dark hair cropped short, though streaked through with threads of white that caught the light depending on how he turned his head. His skin held the warm, sun-kissed brown of his people, and his eyes were pale and luminous, white as moonstone, unreadable and ancient despite his youth.
To one side stood another man, a little younger than the king, clad in the garments of an advisor. His brown hair was kept in a ponytail. He stood proudly, chin lifted, shoulders squared, as if daring the world to test him.
On the king’s other side stood the Saqar, resplendent and unsettling in their presence. Kai had heard of them countless times in stories whispered through long evenings, tales his younger brother Kage had once recited with reverence—stories Kai had half-slept through, yet remembered well enough now. The Saqar were sacred to the desert. Holy women who did not merely advise, but decided.
They were entirely shrouded in flowing robes that concealed every inch of their bodies, leaving only bare feet, slender hands, and those eerie white eyes exposed. They stood silent and unmoving, like living statues carved from devotion and dust,and Kai felt, deep in his bones, that their judgment weighed heavier than any blade or dragonfire ever could.
One of the Saqar glided towards the king and bent close, murmuring words meant only for him. Confusion flashed across his face before he nodded slowly and spoke aloud.
‘The Saqar foresaw an evil rising upon this land. They believe that evil is you, Alina Acheron.’
‘They are right,’ Alina said calmly.
A sharp gasp rippled through the gathered crowd.
‘There is an evil that crept into this desert,’ she continued, her voice steady and unflinching. ‘But it was not me. It was Saren. She killed Hessa. Not I.’
The Saqar leaned in once more to whisper to their king, but Alina stepped forward before they could finish. At once, her dragons shifted and growled, massive bodies tensing beneath their scales. The air thickened with unease.
Alina reached beneath her garments and drew something out, something Kai could not see at first. But when she lifted it high, the world seemed to still, as if even the desert itself were holding its breath. Kai stared, uncertain of what he was witnessing.
A necklace gleamed in the sunlight—a delicate golden chain bearing a smooth white stone, luminous and unmistakable.
The king inhaled sharply, the sound torn from his chest.
‘Hessa Waadi Al-Dunasi gifted this to me before her death,’ Alina declared.
