Page 16 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

I’ve discovered that mortals can enter godly realms, so long as they are taken by a god.

However, during my research, I came across something curious: gods themselves cannot enter the realms of other gods.

The Sun God cannot set foot in the Underworld, yet Hecate can because she belongs to the same realm as Hades.

That is why they cannot kill one another.

Each is protected by their own domain. But everything changes on mortal lands.

A god can die in the land of the living.

However, the moment they die, they return to their own realm.

But… I’ve heard there is something called the God-killer, and if a god is killed by the God-killer, they vanish forever.

Which makes me wonder... If gods are so difficult to kill, and can only die on mortal lands, then surely, if one god wanted another dead, they’d spend a great deal of time among mortals—plotting, scheming.

I shouldn’t think like this, but…what if Hades is here for a reason other than the one he gave?

Tabitha Wysteria

Mal felt as though she were trapped in a dream.

But no, not a dream. Dreams weren’t meant to feel quite so wrong, so hollow, so deeply unsettling.

A nightmare, then. Yes, that must be it.

She remembered the blade at her throat, Makaria’s laughter, and then darkness.

But now she was awake, or something like it, in a room that bore an uncanny resemblance to the main hall of her family’s castle.

Yet something was amiss .

The settee, her mother’s favourite place to lounge with a book or a cup of tea, was now occupied by three girls she did not recognise.

They sat together, murmuring quietly as their fingers worked at something gleaming and strange.

A golden thread, fine as silk and glowing faintly, as though stitched from sunlight itself.

Mal blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing. The first girl, seated nearest to her, spun the thread with deft fingers, though when Mal looked to see its beginning, she found there was none. The thread flowed endlessly, conjured from some unknown source beyond sight or reason.

‘Makaria sent you here,’ said the first girl, tutting as she continued to spin. ‘That girl is always meddling. We really ought to cut her thread once and for all.’

‘No,’ murmured the girl furthest from Mal, her voice low and even. ‘It is not yet her time.’ She held a long, obsidian-hued dagger, and every now and then, with ritual precision, she would sever a length of the golden thread.

Mal studied the trio. They were peculiar to look at, a strange amalgamation of lands and peoples, as though each of them wore the bloodlines of the world like a patchwork.

The first girl, who had smiled knowingly at Mal, bore twisted black wyverian horns like her own, yet her hair shimmered gold like a drakonian’s.

Her eyes were the pale white of the desert folk, while her skin was rich and dark, reminiscent of the Fae.

The girl with the dagger had hair as black and wild as nightfall, curling loosely over her shoulders.

Her red eyes shone with a sharpness that spoke of old knowledge, and antlers crowned her head like branches of a sacred tree.

The third girl, seated between them, shared their dark skin, but she was otherwise wolverian in every way—calm, quiet, steady.

‘Who are you?’ Mal asked .

‘We are all,’ said the first girl with a widening smile, her youthful face rippling like water until it transformed into the creased and sagging visage of an old woman.

Mal took an instinctive step back as the three raised their veiled heads and turned to face her.

‘What are you?’ she breathed.

‘Don’t answer,’ the dagger-bearer warned under her breath.

‘Moirai,’ said the first, now with the face of age and wisdom, her voice a whisper of eternity.

Though they wore gauzy veils, it was impossible not to see their eyes.

Despite everything, Mal was not afraid. Something in their presence soothed her.

It felt like standing at the hearth of an old, forgotten home.

‘Why are you…?’

‘We are all,’ they spoke together, voices layered like song. ‘We are everything.’

A soft chuckle broke the spell, and Mal turned sharply, her body bracing itself to strike.

Of all the things she had prepared herself to see, a man sitting quietly at the end of the table was not one of them.

‘Do not trust him,’ whispered the girl with the dagger. ‘He lies, that one.’

Mal frowned and stepped cautiously forward. The man was seated where her father, King Ozul, had once held court—proud and imposing, ruler of shadows and steel. Her heart lurched painfully in her chest, dread curling in her gut.

And then she saw him clearly.

Ash.

…

Mal could not grasp what her eyes were showing her.

It was Ash, but not. It was as though someone had taken a brush and painted his likeness onto another man’s face, striving to capture every detail of the Fire Prince with unsettling precision.

Yet the artist had veered from truth, taking liberties that unsettled the heart.

His once-glorious golden hair was now curly and white, pale as snowfall, so like Makaria’s it made Mal’s breath catch.

The warm gleam of molten gold that used to light his eyes had been snuffed out, replaced with a blackness so deep it seemed to swallow the world.

His once sunkissed skin had withered into pallor, his complexion dull and bloodless, robbed of its drakonian glow.

‘Am I dreaming?’ she asked, her mind fumbling in the dark, searching for memory, for logic, for something that might anchor her. Had she fallen asleep? Was this some conjured nightmare?

Ash, or the thing wearing his face, tilted his head to one side, smiling.

But it was that smile that told her the truth. That smile undid her. There was no warmth in it. Only malice, curling at the corners like smoke. Twisted and cruel, it sent a coldness through her bones. This was not him.

She stumbled back, revulsion rising like bile in her throat as the impostor stepped closer, reaching for her. His hands found her waist, his touch like winter pressed to bare skin. Ash had been heat, life, fire. This was ice and death wrapped in flesh.

‘You’re not him,’ she breathed, her voice barely more than mist in the air between them. ‘Who are you?’

That unholy smile deepened.

‘Not who , Melinoe,’ he replied, voice a perfect echo of Ash’s, but hollow somehow, like a bell rung in an empty chamber. ‘Ask me the right question.’

Even his voice was a lie, shaped to resemble the one she loved. It twisted something deep within her .

She turned her head, searching for an answer in the silent witnesses who watched her now.

The Moirai, still spinning, still weaving, had lifted their veiled faces at last. The first wore her smirk openly, eyes bright with cruel amusement.

The second remained impassive, unmoved by the scene unfolding.

But the third, with her red eyes burning like coals, leaned forward.

‘Ask what he is, child,’ she said, voice ancient and grave.

‘Do not meddle,’ the first hissed, her grin unfaltering.

Mal turned her face back to the figure holding her. Her heart twisted painfully at the sight. It was Ash—his hands, his jaw, the arch of his brows. And yet, it was not. She knew it in her bones. The tragedy was in how deeply she wanted to believe it could be him.

‘What are you?’ she whispered, her voice as soft as breath against flame.

‘I am Thanatos,’ he replied, releasing her with deliberate ease. ‘The God of Death.’

‘I thought my father held that title.’

His wicked grin stretched wider, teeth gleaming like a blade under moonlight. ‘Hades is the God of the Dead. Their sovereign, their king. I, dear Melinoe, am but his loyal shadow. I do the killing.’

‘He seems perfectly capable of it himself,’ Mal snapped, a spark of irritation cutting through her unease. ‘Why am I here?’

‘Makaria sent you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Thanatos sighed, a sound like wind rustling over graves.

‘You are all gods. Here, in the underworld, you cannot die. If one of you kills another, you are simply banished here, to keep me company. Your siblings treat it like a game, hunting one another for sport. When a deadly god from the underworld falls, they arrive to this threshold, where we bind them until the time comes to send them back.’

‘But this is the underworld,’ she said, glancing about the uncanny chamber that so perfectly mimicked her family’s castle, down to the faded tapestries and the scent of old stone.

‘Not quite,’ he said, voice low and layered with meaning. ‘The world has depths, Melinoe—strata like sediment. The underworld is merely the first tier, the place into which all souls fall. But there are further depths, darker and more ancient still.’

‘Hell,’ she said quietly.

‘If you must put it that way.’ Thanatos moved towards the table, pulling back a chair with courtly grace. Mal, still dazed, lowered herself into it without resistance. Her fear had melted away, leaving only a strange, simmering curiosity.

‘The Moirai and I dwell in this realm,’ he continued, ‘the arbiters of endings. We do not always chase mortals through alleyways with scythes in hand. Our work is subtler. More eternal.’

‘If you are death, shouldn’t you be... up there?’ Mal gestured vaguely towards the ceiling. ‘Taking lives?’

He chuckled, a sound deep and rich. ‘My presence is not required. So long as I exist, death exists. I am its breath. Its beginning and its end.’

‘You said gods cannot die.’

Thanatos tilted his head, studying her as though she were a puzzle piece missing from a greater design. ‘Not here. Not on our plane. But the gods, the ones like you, are not as eternal as the Moirai or myself. You can be slain upon mortal soil, by another divine hand.’