Page 37 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)
‘Alina,’ a voice whispered at her ear, rousing her from the reverie like a cold gust sweeping through memory.
She jolted upright, convinced for a moment she’d find Hessa beside her, gently chiding her for daydreaming.
But instead, she saw him—Ash—his face half-shattered, as though someone had caved it in with something unforgiving.
‘Help m–me,’ he gasped, his voice twisted with pain, before tumbling down the far side of the dune and out of reach.
‘Ash!’ Alina screamed, scrambling after him. Her feet tangled and she fell, striking the ground with a thud that stole her breath. The sand was not soft as stories claimed, but hard and unrelenting. Her mouth filled with it, choking her as she spat the grains from her tongue.
She raised her head, blinking furiously. Her brother was gone.
‘Alina...’
There! Further still, impossibly distant. How had he moved so quickly?
Clambering to her feet, she ran, heedless of the way the world behind her began to vanish. The camp was no longer in sight. Hessa’s warning about wandering too far echoed dimly in the back of her mind, but she silenced it. She couldn’t leave him. Not again.
‘Ash, I thought you were dead...’ she panted. He stood motionless, his back to her. ‘Ash?’ Her voice trembled.
When he turned, she cried out. His face dissolved before her eyes, skin and bone melting into another, one she recognised all too well.
Kai.
But not the Kai she adored. This version of him was torn and disfigured, a cruel mirror of what could have been.
‘Look what they did to us,’ he spat, voice like venom. ‘While you stood by and did nothing.’
A pair of arms yanked her backwards and she tumbled, colliding against a warm body. Still staring, heart racing, she watched as Kai vanished like smoke in the wind. Gone, as if he’d never been there at all.
She lay breathless atop Hessa.
‘Salla astapada nanaha!’ the desert princess snarled in her native tongue.
Alina didn’t need a translation. She could guess every word.
‘I saw—’
‘You saw nothing , amira,’ Hessa said, her voice firm, though not unkind. ‘It was a ghula. They enter your thoughts, weave your longings into visions. They show you what your heart most desires and then trap you in it.’
‘But Ash... he felt real.’
Hessa sighed, lifting Alina to her feet and folding her into a tight embrace. ‘But he wasn’t, Alina. Your brother is gone. He is not here.’
Alina’s body went limp in Hessa’s arms. Her face crumpled as silent grief bled through her composure.
‘I’m sorry, amira. But you must never do that again. When we reach my kingdom, know this. The desert is bewitched. It shifts with the moon, hiding our lands from outsiders. If you wander off, even I may not find you again.’
Alina nodded, the weight of the warning settling deep in her bones.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them began to quiver. A low, ominous tremor rumbled through the sand, growing rapidly in intensity. Both girls stumbled, falling into each other’s arms as the earth seemed to groan and shift beneath their feet.
‘What is that?’ Alina gasped, clutching Hessa as the tremors worsened.
Hessa’s white eyes flared with horror.
‘Arahni mhaarta,’ she whispered .
‘What?’
‘The death spider,’ Hessa translated, her voice barely above a breath. ‘It lives beneath the sand, but when disturbed... it rises.’
Alina shrieked at the mere thought. They scrambled up the slope of the dune, the ground shifting treacherously beneath them. Tremors pulsed like a heartbeat through the earth, sand slipping beneath their feet. Below, long spindly legs pierced the surface like skeletal spears.
Hessa shoved Alina up the final stretch just as the creature fully emerged, and Alina froze.
The spider was monstrous, larger than a valkyrian winged horse, its limbs long and jointed like warped spears, its carapace shimmering like obsidian glass. As it reared, the ground groaned. Its maw gaped wide, revealing rows of razor-like teeth as fine and numerous as grains of sand.
The world tilted. Hessa lost her grip and tumbled, her scream stolen by the wind as she slipped down the dune. Alina's own cry followed her descent.
Knife flashing in hand, Hessa struck just moments before the beast’s maw could devour her.
Her blade sliced deep into the flesh of its mouth, sending the spider lurching back in agony.
It writhed, legs flailing violently, casting up clouds of sand.
Hessa struck again, tearing her way free of the gaping mouth, dropping low as one of the legs sliced through the air beside her.
She slashed through it with one clean arc, but another leg caught her unawares, crashing into the back of her skull. She crumpled, unmoving.
‘Hessa!’ Alina screamed, paralysed for a breath before instincts seized her. Without thought, she launched herself down the dune, her body tumbling through the burning sand. She hit the bottom hard, rolled, then sprinted to Hessa’s side.
The spider loomed, bleeding, furious .
Grabbing the fallen dagger, Alina swung with every ounce of fear and fury in her veins, slicing at any leg that dared creep towards them.
The desert blade—a long, elegant curve of steel, allowed her reach without closing the distance.
But still, one of the spider’s limbs lashed out, cracking against her chest and hurling her backwards. Air fled her lungs.
Gasping, she rolled, narrowly dodging a second blow. With a wild cry, she slashed again, this time cleaving deep. The spider shrieked, a sound like shattered glass and flame. Black ichor sprayed across the sand.
Panting, Alina seized the broken remnant of a severed leg, hoisting it like a spear. The spider turned, its tiny, glistening, murderous eyes fixing on her.
And Alina ran.
Straight for the mouth.
The beast opened wide, its breath rancid with decay. Alina screamed and plunged the jagged limb deep into its gullet, shoving with everything she had until the spider spasmed and thrashed, its limbs collapsing beneath its bulk.
It choked, convulsed, and finally stilled.
Alina dropped to her knees, chest heaving, her arms trembling from the effort. For a moment, all was silent.
Then she breathed.
‘You killed it.’
Alina spun round, her chest bursting with breathless relief at the sight of Hessa sitting upright.
‘By the blazing light of the Sun God!’ Alina gasped, racing to Hessa’s side. She dropped to her knees, hands reaching to cup Hessa’s face, as if only by touch could she confirm the desert princess was truly alive. The warmth of Hessa’s skin grounded her; the pulse beneath her fingertips a blessing.
‘You killed it,’ Hessa repeated, her white eyes fixed on the collapsed monstrosity strewn across the sands.
Alina’s joy faltered slightly. She bit her lip. ‘Was it sacred?’ she asked cautiously. Surely not, surely she had done no wrong by saving Hessa’s life. She could not have left her to the mercy of a beast, divine or otherwise.
But Hessa shook her head slowly, awe flickering in her gaze. ‘No one has ever killed one and lived to speak of it,’ she said softly, wonder dancing in her voice like desert wind across dunes.
Alina followed Hessa’s gaze to the spider’s massive corpse. Her stomach turned at the sight of its lifeless, grotesque form.
‘Just luck,’ she muttered with a small shrug.
‘That is not luck, amira.’ Hessa’s voice was low, reverent. ‘You came back for me. You fought a death spider, for me.’
‘I’d never leave you behind.’ Alina smiled, eyes warm. ‘What is it your people say? Sahraa qamh haiklii.’
Hessa’s eyes lit up. ‘You remembered.’
Alina rose, brushing grains of sand from her robes. ‘A grain does not make a desert. We are one.’ Her smile deepened. ‘I’d never forget.’ She offered Hessa the dagger, its curved blade stained and still trembling in her grip. But the desert princess shook her head gently.
‘It is yours now, amira. You have earned the right to carry a desert blade.’
Alina looked down at the dagger with new eyes, tracing the pale white stone embedded in its hilt.
It reminded her of Hessa’s eyes—sharp, otherworldly, and gleaming with ancient power.
She had never taken a life before, and while a beast was no man, she felt a strange thrill in her veins, a sense of awakening.
The image of Hagan’s throat beneath this blade flitted like a whisper through her thoughts.
Her fingers curled more tightly around the hilt .
Still smiling to herself, Alina reached for Hessa’s hand, lacing their fingers together as they made their way back across the ever-shifting sands, towards the safety of camp, and whatever destiny awaited them next.