Page 103 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)
Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if Hades did all those awful things to protect us.
To protect me.
Tabitha Wysteria
Adriana moved across the sodden, blood-drenched earth with the ferocity and grace of a true wyverian warrior.
No mercy, no quarter. Her blade was slick with crimson, having already claimed too many witches to count.
Most had hidden behind the sanctuary of the wall, until Mal Blackburn had soared above it on shadowed wings, raining fire from the skies and forcing their enemies into the open.
But no matter how many fell beneath Adriana’s sword, more surged forward, a relentless tide. Their cursed spells crackled through the air, emerald bolts of power flinging entire formations of wyverians through the mud like ragdolls.
A wyvern’s roar split the chaos, drawing her gaze skyward. A single breath, no more than that, but it was enough. Vines of vile green magic slithered out from the shadows, curling round her limbs and wrenching them apart. A scream tore from her throat, raw and feral .
Adriana swore violently at the witch now looming before her, who had seized the moment of distraction to strike.
A scream tore from her throat as searing green magic sliced through her flesh.
Ribbons of agony unravelled skin, muscle, and vein, her blood spilling freely onto the scorched earth.
One tendril coiled around her right leg, dragging her to her knees, while another lanced through her stomach with brutal precision.
Adriana howled, cursing the gods for the torment coursing through her.
But surrender had never been written into her bones.
With a defiant snarl, she thrust her hands forward, seizing the magical tendrils and pulling against them with raw, unyielding rage.
A wicked grin curled her lips as the witch's expression faltered, shock flickering across her face like a candle snuffed too soon.
It lasted mere seconds.
Keir’s blade pierced the witch’s heart from behind, the body crumpling like wilted paper at his feet. His eyes glittered with savage delight as he wiped blood from both blade and brow.
‘I think I’m ahead of you,’ he said, half-laughing. ‘How many have you taken down?’
‘I almost had her!’ Adriana swore, clutching her stomach as it bled.
‘Almost being the key word.’
It was a grim sort of game, the tallying of lives ended. But it was one they’d played before, back in the quiet safety of training grounds where the dead were illusions and the stakes little more than pride. This, though, was no training drill. This was war.
And yet she felt no guilt.
She should. She knew that. These were not spectres. They were flesh, blood, breath. But her hatred burnt too hot, too deep. Every time the faintest hint of remorse dared creep into her chest, it was consumed by the memory of Haven Blackburn’s face. And that was reason enough.
The ache hadn’t dulled, not even slightly.
Grief nestled itself like a shard of glass between Adriana’s ribs, catching with every breath, a cruel reminder that she yet lived while her best friend did not.
Haven was gone. Their future queen, their light.
And Adriana would have traded places with her a thousand times over if it meant summoning her back from the shadows of the underworld.
The tide of battle had shifted. Slowly, deliberately, the witches had begun to force their troops backwards.
Whether it was the fury of Mal and Nyx, their blazing sapphire fire charring the sky, or something more sinister beneath the surface, Adriana could not say.
But the witches now surged forward without hesitation, pouring into their own cursed lands, driving the wyverian forces deeper into the ash-stained heart of the wastelands.
Wyverians were famed across the Eight Kingdoms, fierce and unyielding, born to battle with fire in their veins and storm in their hearts.
But even they faltered when faced with wave upon wave of witches and warlocks, their numbers multiplying as if summoned by some unseen call, a whisper through the void.
Above them, Nyx carved through the sky, her flames still searing with unholy blue light. Yet even that power, once enough to rend battalions apart, now slipped harmlessly off the witches’ conjured shields, hissing into smoke and silence.
‘Adriana, watch out!’
Too late.
The warning came a heartbeat after the surge of green magic had struck her, hurling the wyverian warrior into the thick, rain-drenched mud.
For a moment, there was nothing. No sound, no breath, no pain.
Then it came, sharp and searing, blooming like fire through her abdomen.
Adriana screamed into the grey-blanketed sky above the wastelands, her voice lost in the chorus of battle.
Keir was at her side in an instant, his knees sinking into the sodden earth. Above them, Cronan circled protectively. Adriana’s fingers, trembling, scraped over the scorched edges of her black armour. It had been seared straight through.
‘Breathe, Adriana,’ Keir urged, already tearing at the straps of her chestplate.
‘Don’t tell me to fucking breathe,’ she snarled, fury blazing through the pain.
‘If you’ve got enough spirit to swear, you’re not dying,’ he muttered with a wry grin, lifting the shredded fabric beneath to inspect the damage.
‘How bad is it?’ she demanded, straining to glimpse the wound.
‘Not that bad,’ he lied, though the twitch in his brow betrayed him.
‘How deep?’ Her voice turned cold with command. ‘Keir! How fucking deep? Are my insides pouring out?’
‘I doubt you’d be talking if they were.’
She heard the sharp tear of cloth as he ripped his own tunic, tossing aside his armour to press the makeshift bandage against her seared skin.
‘This will sting,’ he warned, bracing her by the shoulders and hauling her upright.
Adriana’s scream tore from her throat, ragged and raw. She bit down on it halfway through, cursing every deity she’d ever met.
‘Just hurry, damn it!’
‘Don’t rush me, woman,’ Keir huffed, fumbling to secure the bandage tight around her midriff .
Once he had her strapped back into what remained of her armour, he gave her a lopsided grin and a quick, cheeky wink.
She kicked him in the shin.
‘Oof! What the hell was that for?’
‘You’d make a bloody useless healer. And don’t say hell, you know how much I hate that fucking place.’
Keir chuckled and pressed a quick kiss to the tip of her nose. ‘I love you, too.’
Adriana laughed through the pain, snatched up her sword once more, and rose with fire in her veins.
‘Don’t you dare get yourself killed, husband. If you do, I’ll march straight into the Underworld and drag you back by the ear.’
The trio moved as one, a seamless force honed by years of training and bloodshed.
There was an unspoken rhythm between them, each knowing where the other would strike, step, or shield.
The absence of Kai at their helm pulsed like a missing heartbeat, but there was no time to dwell on it, not now.
The witches were advancing, relentless in their magic, a tide of green fire and smoke that pushed the wyverian army back step by harrowing step.
Every time one of their cursed kind fell back, another took its place, fresh with magic and malice.
Adriana clenched her jaw.
‘We need to get over that wall!’ she cried, her sword catching a bolt of emerald energy, the clash reverberating up her arm. ‘We need to get to the wyverns!’
Keir’s dark eyes widened. ‘No, Adriana. Mal forbade it. The wyverns—’
‘This is a losing battle!’ she snapped, already pivoting, her boots digging into the churned and bloodied earth.
Before Keir could seize her arm or shout her down, she was gone, vanishing into the chaos, weaving her way through the forest of black-armoured wyverians, cutting a determined path towards the rear lines.
The wyverns had been tethered far from the fray, hidden beyond the treeline, protected.
But Mal could not hold the skies alone. And if they did not gain the upper hand soon, there would be no battle left to win.
The others blurred into shadows and steel behind her. She could no longer see Keir or Cronan in the thick of the fighting, but it didn’t matter. Let Mal reprimand her later. Let them all rage once the war was won. Wyverns were not ornaments, they were creatures of flame and fury, born for war.
When Adriana finally broke free of the battlefield and slipped into the shaded stillness of the woods, her breath caught. Not from the run, but from the sight before her.
Someone stood beside the wyverns, a lone figure murmuring softly, hand brushing along Daku’s midnight flank with unsettling ease. It wasn’t one of their guards. She would have remembered this presence.
‘I need those wyverns,’ Adriana said, voice steel-laced and breathless. ‘We’re losing this battle.’
Ash Acheron cast a glance over his shoulder, and those molten-gold eyes gleamed with something ancient and unknowable, something that made Adriana instinctively falter.
She, who had never feared war nor the promise of death, found herself chilled to the marrow by the quiet storm in the man once known as the Fire Prince.
‘We are meant to lose this b-battle,’ he said softly, his voice as smooth as silk drawn over steel. His hand moved with reverent calm across Daku’s scaled flank, as if the world were not being torn apart by blood and magic just beyond the tree line.
Adriana shook her head, defiant.
‘I need those wyverns,’ she said, raising her sword with the poised elegance of a trained killer. ‘Step aside, Fire Prince.’
Amusement flickered like a flame in his gaze.
‘I haven’t b-been the Fire Prince for a very long time,’ he said. He turned at last, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his blade, though he made no move to draw it.
Adriana adjusted her grip. Her stance widened.
‘I never trusted you,’ she said flatly.