Page 38 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

Wyverians are like no other. Each kingdom holds its own unique beauty.

I love how wolverians can endure absolutely anything.

Even in the darkest of times, when most would give up, they press on.

I love how the desert folk live in such unity, breathing as one.

I love the way phoenixians are so patient, always thinking things through before leaping into action.

Calm and considered. I love how valkyrians set aside their own desires to do what is right.

I love how drakonians take such pride in their land, in everything they build and create.

I love the Fae and their care for their own, for nature and every living creature.

And then there are the wyverians. A blend of it all.

They endure. They are united. They are patient, calm, just, proud, and they fight for those who cannot.

Tabitha Wysteria

‘There. That section of the wall has been torn down completely.’

The wall had risen after the Great War, stone upon stone, a solemn testament to victory and fear, built by the united hands of seven kingdoms to cage the witches’ wastelands apart from the living world.

Yet now, where its ancient spine met the shadowed borders of the Kingdom of Darkness, a section lay sundered, torn open as though by some great, merciless hand.

Clearly the witches had obliterated sections of it, clearing a path in their hubris.

Ironically, it suited Kai’s army rather well.

Scaling the ancient barrier would have been no easy feat, but now an open expanse stretched before them, a barren no-man’s land, shadowed by uncertainty.

‘We don’t know what lies out there,’ Adriana warned, her tone clipped with caution. ‘We ought to take to the skies on wyverns and scout the territory from above.’

‘Then they’ll know we’re coming!’ Keir snapped, exasperated. ‘We’ll lose the element of surprise, Adriana!’

‘We patrol on wyverns all the time,’ she retorted. ‘Why would they assume it’s anything more than routine? Besides, am I the only one that thinks it’s a little suspicious that part of the wall has been destroyed? It’s almost as if they knew we’d be coming and wanted to make it easy for us.’

Inside the command tent, Kai and Ash stood side by side at the long wooden table, maps spread before them like delicate threads of fate waiting to be unravelled.

They said little, allowing the squabble between Adriana and Keir to play out as Cronan observed from a corner, releasing a low, brooding huff every now and again.

The army had made camp within the depths of one of the wyverian forests, a dense, shadowed sprawl that offered perfect concealment from prying eyes.

The trees loomed high, their canopies thick enough to block even the faintest glimmer of moonlight, exactly the kind of obscurity they needed to keep hidden from the witches.

Kai had long since explained that Adriana and Keir were their most formidable tacticians, though the price of their brilliance was their constant bickering.

Every few days they convened like this, gathering around the table to argue through strategy until something, anything, resembled consensus.

Eventually, they always emerged with a plan, but not without bruised egos and the occasional near-duel .

‘Perhaps we worry less about why a part of the wall was torn down and worry more about our plan of stepping through it,’ Kai said.

A voice called for Kai from beyond the tent. With a brisk pat to Ash’s shoulder, he murmured something unintelligible and strode out into the grey morning light, leaving the drakonian prince to keep watch in case the argument devolved into blades and bloodshed. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

Over the years of training together, Kai had grown familiar with the combative rhythm of Adriana and Keir.

Their rivalry had been fiery, loud, often infuriating and yet, beautiful in its own way.

Their resentment had slowly ripened into respect, that respect into something gentler, warmer.

Love, and then marriage. Kai had observed it all with a quiet, wistful envy.

He had wondered, once, if he might find his own Adriana.

And then he had met Alina.

But the thought of her struck like an arrow to the ribs. He clenched his jaw and forced the image of her from his mind. He would not think of her. It hurt too much.

‘What is it?’ Kai asked, his voice low as he followed one of his soldiers deeper into the shadowed glade, a part of the forest left untouched by the bustle of camp.

The young man glanced back nervously. ‘Some of the men found something. A girl… wandering alone.’

‘A girl?’ Kai’s brow furrowed, suspicion prickling at his skin.

‘She claims she’s lost.’

‘In these woods?’ Kai’s tone sharpened. ‘What does she look like?’

‘Wyverian, or so she appears.’

That meant very little. Ash had warned him time and again that witches could mask themselves as anything or anyone. Glamours were as easy to them as breathing. If the girl bore the likeness of a wyverian, it was all the more reason to be cautious.

‘Take me to her,’ Kai ordered, already bracing himself for deceit.

No true wyverian became lost within their homeland.

The Kingdom of Darkness might be small and sparsely populated, but its people were bred from youth to navigate it with their eyes shut.

At fourteen, they entered military training.

At sixteen, they chose: return to civilian life or forge ahead into specialised combat units.

Either way, they did not lose their way in wyverian woods.

He arrived to find a handful of his men encircling a young woman, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, a picture of fragility.

She looked frightened, too frightened. Something about her posture was off.

There was no wyverian discipline in the way she stood, no hint of the battle-hardened posture that came with years of training. His instincts stirred.

‘My men tell me you’re lost,’ he said slowly, studying her every twitch, every breath.

Her eyes flickered. Then, too quickly, a smile bloomed across her lips.

‘Seize her!’ Kai barked, but it was already too late.

‘Glacio,’ she whispered.

A soft green shimmer pulsed from her fingertips. Kai’s soldiers froze mid-step, their limbs locked in place by invisible threads.

She hadn’t touched him.

She hadn’t frozen him.

Kai’s blades were drawn in an instant, his black hook swords gleaming with faint embers, the steel forged in blue wyvern flame, honed by blood and fire. His arms were taut, ready to strike. Only one question mattered.

‘Why didn’t you bind me?’ he asked.

‘I’m not here to fight you,’ the girl replied, calm despite the steel in his hands. ‘I came to help.’

He didn’t lower his swords.

‘Why would a witch want to help me?’

Her glamour dissolved like mist in morning light, revealing the truth beneath. Her skin was a deep sun-kissed bronze, her hair a pale, almost spectral white. Her unnatural and vivid eyes shimmered purple like enchanted amethysts. Tattoos, runes in swirling script, climbed up her arms to her elbows.

Recognition dawned.

‘Vera,’ Kai said warily.

The girl shook her head. ‘I’m her sister. Dawn,’ she replied. ‘Though Ash knew me by another name.’

Kai remembered the tale well of how Ash had once fallen for a drakonian girl who had, in truth, been a witch in disguise.

It had been Ash himself who recounted the story one night, their breath clouding in the cold as they passed a bottle between them.

Keir and Adriana had been quarrelling over a game of cards, as they so often did, while Ash had stared into the fire with a haunted look in his eyes.

‘Adara,’ Kai murmured now, the name slipping from his lips before he could call it back. ‘Why are you here?’

The girl—no, the witch—lowered her gaze. ‘Because…’ Her voice faltered. ‘I need to know. Is he…did she… did she kill him?’

Kai gave a humourless snort. ‘Ash Acheron still breathes. My sister broke the curse.’

Dawn’s purple eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Thank Hecate,’ she whispered. ‘Then I must help him. I won’t let anything happen to him.’

Kai’s jaw clenched, the old bitterness rising to the surface like bile. ‘And yet you let his parents and sister be butchered?’ he snapped.

Something shimmered behind those strange, otherworldly eyes. Shame, perhaps. Or guilt. She bit her lip but didn’t answer.

‘Take me as your guide,’ she said instead, her voice steady now. ‘Let me prove myself.’

Kai’s laugh was cold. ‘You’d lead us to your own kind? And I’m meant to believe that?’ He stepped closer, his hook swords gleaming at his sides. ‘You’re not getting anywhere near Ash. I won’t have you crawling back into his head. He’s married. To my sister.’

A trace of pain passed over her face, but she lifted her chin with quiet defiance. ‘Then make me your prisoner. I’ll prove my worth. I thought he was gone…’

Kai narrowed his eyes. ‘And why shouldn’t I strike you down where you stand, witch?’

Her mouth curled in a sharp, sardonic smile. ‘Because, whether you care to admit it or not, I’m worth more alive. I’m your map, your key, your eyes behind enemy lines. If you truly believe you can walk into my homeland without crumbling to ash, then you’re more foolish than you look.’

He hated that she was right.

He didn’t trust her. Gods, how could he? Not someone who had once held Ash’s heart in her hands. But information was everything. And if she could be useful… if he could keep her hidden, use her as leverage…

Kai’s thoughts turned quickly. The others must not know. If word reached his men, they’d tear her apart before she drew another breath.

‘Can you make them believe you were just a wyverian girl? That you vanished into the woods?’

Dawn’s mouth curled into something sly and serpentine, and for a moment, Kai wondered if he was walking straight into a trap of his own making.