Page 104 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

‘I know.’ His smile was laced with sorrow, so fleeting it nearly passed unnoticed. ‘Perhaps you should have t-trusted that instinct.’

He moved.

Faster than sight, faster than sound. One moment he stood at the wyvern’s side, and the next he was before her, close enough for his breath to ghost against her lips, his presence pressing into her skin like smoke.

The wyverns didn’t so much as flinch. Their gleaming eyes remained calm, watching the scene with eerie serenity. Adriana had never seen them so still, so at peace. It was as though Ash’s very being lulled them into trust. An unspoken bond, quiet and unbreakable.

He leaned in, his voice a murmur in her ear.

‘I know what you, Keir and Cronan are.’

The earth tilted.

Adriana stiffened, a breath catching somewhere in her chest. Trained as she was not to betray emotion, the blow landed nonetheless. She had feared that Ash would see too much, perceive what others could not. It was what made him so dangerous.

‘And if you know…’ she whispered, her voice a brittle thing, ‘if you know what we are… then why fight me?’

Ash said nothing at first. His eyes did not meet hers. Instead, he lifted the hilt of his sword, an almost tender gesture, and brought it down against her head.

Darkness took her.

‘For her,’ he said to the silence. ‘It’s all for her.’

…

Mal guided Nyx along the length of the towering wall, the great shadow wyvern gliding with thunderous grace as she attempted to keep the witches from breaching the border.

Whatever strategy they’d devised was clear enough.

They meant to drive the wyverian army back into the heart of the wastelands.

They would not allow them to scale the wall.

She had already tried to break through it, ordering Nyx to unleash torrents of ethereal blue flame, but the stone did not yield. Reinforced with intricate wards and runes, the ancient wall held firm beneath their assault, its magic as stubborn as the blood feud it protected.

From below, screams rose as the shadow of Nyx swept across the field.

Terrified witches hurled bursts of green flame skyward, desperate to strike down the beast that soared above like a creature born from the void itself.

But what was already dead could not die, and the spectral wyvern only roared louder, raining fire as Mal bade her to reduce them to ash.

Beneath her, the chaos was overwhelming.

Blood drenched the soil, spells lit the sky, and still, the slaughter did not stop.

Mal gritted her teeth, her chest aching with each breath.

They were killing each other, her people, all of them, whether they wielded wyverian steel or witchfire.

She tried not to admit it, but it was the truth all the same: both sides belonged to her.

And each time she gave the command to strike, each time she whispered burn , another fracture appeared in the fragile armour of her soul. Something within her sank, deeper and darker, into a place she feared she might never return from.

Mal straightened, inhaling slowly, watching the ruin unfold below her. She wanted to cry out, to scream into the wind for them all to stop. To beg them to see sense. But it was far too late for peace. Too much blood had been spilt, too many hearts turned to stone.

There was no room left for mercy.

The hatred had been passed down like heirlooms, stories told by firelight, whispered in nurseries, etched into every child’s bones. Parents had raised their young on the bitterness of old wars, and now their children burnt for vengeance.

It would never end.

Not even in annihilation.

There would be no victors. Only survivors, haunted by the ghosts of those they failed to save.

Mal could see it in the way their lines wavered.

The wyverians were losing. They were superior in strength, in speed, in the close-quarter brutality of hand-to-hand combat.

But this was not a war fought with steel and claw.

The witches kept their distance, hurling their magic like lightning across the fields.

And there was a reason the other kingdoms, a century past, had grown wary, terrified even of the Kingdom of Magic.

Relentlessly, the witches pressed forward, herding the wyverian forces further into the open plains of the wastelands.

Mal narrowed her eyes, watching the ebb and flow of their movements.

There was strategy behind the assault. Too precise, too deliberate.

This wasn’t just about keeping the wyverians from breaching the wall, from entering the lands of fire.

No, it was something more.

She’d briefly considered flying Nyx into the heart of drakonian territory, to summon reinforcements. But by the time she returned, she feared there would be nothing left of her people to save.

Then came a cry, piercing and primal. A scream that cut through the clash of metal and roar of flame, silencing even the thunder of steel and wings.

Mal exhaled, her heart tightening.

‘Wolverians!’

And there they were, spilling across the battlefield like a silver tempest, their hair gleaming like moonlight, their movements fluid, feral.

They did not charge, they hunted. The witches attempted to stand their ground, but the wolverians were a storm made flesh.

They weren’t refined soldiers, most had never held a blade in formation, but what they lacked in discipline, they more than made up for in raw fury.

It was enough.

The wyverians seized the moment, breaking through the chaos, pushing forward with renewed strength until they reached the wall. The witches’ attention shifted to the wolverians pouring into the field, giving Mal’s people a precious sliver of time.

Mal raised her hands high, a surge of her powers rippling through her fingertips. With a flick of her wrists, she blasted a battalion of warlocks backward, sending them soaring over the wall in a crackling arc of darkness. The ground trembled as wyverians stormed through the breach she carved.

Her gaze darted across the fray, searching for a golden head of hair amidst the carnage. Ash. But he was nowhere to be found.

No time.

Mal turned her focus back to the wall. She had to get them over, every last wyverian, and into the Kingdom of Fire. To Fireheart.

To take back what was stolen .

And to end Hagan, once and for all.

Mal centred Nyx before the wall, palms outstretched, her fingers trembling as she summoned every ounce of power coursing through her divine veins.

Her body quaked beneath the strain, sweat tracing shimmering paths down her cheeks.

She did not possess the spellcraft to bring stone to heel, but she had something older, something mightier.

Godborn power thrummed within her. A force she still scarcely understood, yet now she surrendered to it completely, allowing it to flood through her bones, down her arms, and out through her fingertips in a burst of unrelenting light.

Nyx reared back and unleashed a torrent of cerulean fire, the wyvern’s breath scorching the very air as it struck the same patch of wall. Flames and shadows intertwined, colliding with the enchanted stone.

Mal screamed, her voice raw and ragged, as her limbs shook violently, the magical runes etched deep into the wall resisting, pulsing with ancient defences. But her power surged again, darker and deeper, not of this world.

Then, release.

A final surge erupted from her outstretched hands, a shockwave that cracked through the foundations of the wall and shattered the glowing runes like brittle glass.

A thunderous explosion followed, the stone imploding from within, sending debris into the sky in a roaring plume.

Mal staggered, nearly collapsing from the force of it, her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the gaping wound left behind.

She smiled.

Without hesitation, the wyverians and wolverians charged, a storm of black and silver tearing through the breach before the witches could regroup. No hesitation. No mercy.

They were going to win. Mal could feel it singing in her marrow. With warriors now pushing through the wall, the witches would be overwhelmed, their defences crumbling beneath the sheer weight of ferocity.

But the hope blooming in her chest withered almost instantly.

The battlefield fell into eerie stillness. One by one, the witches and warlocks ceased their attacks, their bodies stiffening as though seized by some silent, invisible command.

Mal froze.

Something was wrong.

A chant began to rise, low and rhythmic, vibrating through the battlefield like an ancient hymn.

Time itself seemed to halt at the sound, as if the very air held its breath.

One by one, the fighters froze in place—wyverians, wolverians, even the wind itself.

The witches’ eyes glowed with an unearthly light, the cadence of their chant intensifying, each syllable sharper, faster, more powerful.

Before Mal’s disbelieving eyes, the wall she had so painstakingly shattered reassembled itself in a blink. Stone slid over stone, mortar stitching like skin, until it stood proud once more, as though her efforts had never touched it.

The witches stationed upon the wastelands turned without a word and began retreating to the wall, passing their kin who continued chanting with unwavering focus.

All around her, wyverians and wolverians trembled in place, hands clenched around sword hilts, straining against the invisible binds that held them still.

Then came the light.

Cracks of vivid green surged through the wall’s stonework, illuminating the sky in a jagged flash before vanishing as swiftly as it had appeared. In its wake, the warriors were released, bodies lurching forward as if they had been underwater, gasping for air.

But the witches were gone.

They now stood atop the wall or safe behind it, glaring down with smug satisfaction, their smirks carved into the coldness of their faces.

Mal watched as Bryn Wynter darted towards the barrier, blade poised with fury.

Just as he reached it, the world shifted again.

Mal felt it in her bones, the presence of something ancient, something sacred and immovable.

The wall shimmered faintly. The runes glowed like stars awoken from slumber, whispering protection in a tongue shared with wyverians.

An unseen force hurled Bryn backwards with brutal force, slamming him to the ground. Mal's heart stuttered. Had he survived?

Others rushed forward in his stead, desperate to breach the wall, but each met the same fate. Snatched by the invisible barrier and cast into the air like leaves in a storm. They fell hard and unmoving, their breaths knocked out and bodies left sprawled on the sodden earth.

The witches laughed.

Mal saw their gleeful expressions as they vanished one by one, dissolving into tendrils of green smoke. Some cast her a final smirking, mocking glance as if to say you’ve already lost . And then they were gone.

Not a single witch or warlock remained.

On one side of the wall, wyverians and wolverians stood stunned, trapped in the cursed land of their enemies.

And on the other side, alone.

Mal.