Page 47 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

I’m not sure which region I’ll visit first when I arrive in the Desert Kingdom for the Sand Trials.

I’ll have a little time to spare before they begin.

The princess is eager to show me every single one, but we won’t have enough time.

There are twelve regions in the Desert Kingdom, each filled with cities and towns.

Some are easily found, while others are hidden deep within the desert, visible only to those who know where to look.

Tabitha Wysteria

Alina had thought she’d witnessed everything the world could conjure. As always, she had been painfully mistaken.

The desert stretched out before her like an ancient, sleeping beast. Mysterious, unknowable, and far more dangerous than she had ever imagined.

From the moment they crossed into the territory of the Desert Kingdom, it became painfully clear how gravely the desert folk had been underestimated.

Dune after towering dune rose like silent sentinels, forming a vast, shimmering wall between their world and the rest. In the distance, mountains loomed, composed of sunbaked stone and layered sand, and as they drew closer, the illusions unravelled.

What had appeared solid and impenetrable slowly revealed its secrets: caverns and hollows carved into the rock like hidden mouths.

Entrances to a kingdom concealed so masterfully that, unless one knew where to look, it could easily vanish into the dunes.

Some of the openings yawned wide enough to allow even the great serpents to slip through.

Their journey had been no gentle pilgrimage.

One night, as they slept beneath a tapestry of stars, an enormous desert scorpion the size of a winged horse had launched its attack, armoured and venomous.

Together, they had slain the beast, and by morning, its remains had already been repurposed.

The meat fed their dwindling stores, while its chitinous shell was carved into plates for armour and wicked-edged weapons.

Alina watched in quiet awe as the desert folk worked—every claw, every fang, every drop of venom made use of.

Waste, it seemed, was an insult to the desert.

‘Like this, amira,’ Hessa said, elbowing her gently in the ribs to rouse her drifting attention.

They rested in the shadow of a tent fashioned from shed serpent skin, just hours from reaching the mountains.

Hessa was teaching her the art of extracting poisons from the venom sacs of slain insects, the kind that shimmered and pulsed with a deadly promise.

‘We smear this over our blades,’ she added, her tone calm, as though she were simply discussing a recipe for tea.

Alina smirked, no longer flinching away from hard work.

Her bare arms were bronzed by the relentless sun, lean muscle etched into her limbs from weeks of harsh training.

Her hair, once flowing in thick drakonian waves, was now tied high and tight to keep her neck cool.

She had begged to cut it, desperate to shed the final trace of her former life. But Hessa had refused.

‘Keep something of your past,’ she had said, ‘even if it’s only a single strand.’

Alina had disagreed. She wanted the past scorched from memory, turned to ash and scattered on the desert winds.

Her mind was a blade, honed and hungry. There was no room in it for nostalgia.

Only vengeance. Only Hagan and his screams, his blood, his end.

And she would make certain it came. She would not rest until he suffered. And oh, how she would enjoy it.

‘Vaana,’ Hessa said softly, gesturing towards the delicate vial of venom.

‘Dahami mi tra,’ Alina replied with care. Let me try.

Her grasp of the Sandhii tongue had sharpened swiftly in the span of the last week.

With endless hours to do little else but listen to the servants converse as they journeyed across the golden expanse, the language had begun to nestle itself in her mind.

During their stops, she would sit cross-legged beside Hessa, repeating syllables into the breeze, often dissolving into laughter when the desert princess clicked her tongue and scolded her for massacring the melody of the words.

‘Dahami, amira,’ Hessa corrected again, the disapproval in her tone laced with fondness. ‘Our i is as your ee . Agari. Try again.’

Alina echoed the word, though her attention was stolen by the jagged silhouettes of the mountains looming ever nearer. Her patience frayed with every step. How could Hessa be so calm when home waited just ahead? If it were her, she’d be running barefoot across the dunes, wild with urgency.

‘We are like the desert breeze, amira,’ Hessa said, her eyes knowing. ‘We do not run. We glide.’

Alina chuckled, the sound light as the wind stirring the sand. ‘But do you not yearn for home?’ she asked.

Hessa lifted her gaze to the crags in the distance and shrugged, her voice thoughtful. ‘The sooner we arrive, the sooner I will shatter their hearts.’

Alina said nothing, but her nod was heavy with understanding.

No one in the Desert Kingdom knew of the massacre that had swept through the drakonian castle, no whisper of Princess Sahira’s death had reached them.

Their kingdom was too secluded, too remote, cradled in sun and sand. Silence was its only messenger.

As they spread out the blankets across the cool shadows of the tents, Alina posed another question, one she had been holding close. ‘What is your family like?’

It struck her as oddly natural to be doing such things—laying blankets, sweeping sand from the tent corners, helping with meals.

In her former life, she would have scoffed at such menial tasks, raising an eyebrow at the very idea of touching what should be handled by servants.

But now, it was second nature. She sat with the cooks as they prepared stews from desert herbs and scorpion meat.

She hunted with the scouts beneath a sun that peeled the sky open.

The notion of idly watching others toil now repulsed her.

Hessa sat back on her heels, folding a blanket with practised ease.

‘My father, King Siroc, has many children,’ she said.

‘My mother was his second wife. His first died in childbirth. They were young then, barely more than children themselves, so he remarried quickly. With my mother, he had five. We are the eldest.’

‘And your mother now?’ Alina asked gently.

‘She is Saqardatis,’ Hessa said, a note of quiet reverence in her voice. ‘The voice of the sand. The spiritual hand of the kingdom. She cannot be touched by grief, or by men.’

Alina stilled, her fingers brushing the edge of the tent cloth, suddenly aching to meet the woman who had raised the warrior beside her.

Frowning, Alina tilted her head. ‘What is that?’

Hessa paused, the desert sun catching the gold in her braids as she searched for the right words in the common tongue. ‘A priestess,’ she said at last. ‘She was honoured, chosen by the gods to join the Saqar. Now she is Altaa Saqardatis, the highest of them all. The most sacred.’

‘And your father?’ Alina asked, brows still furrowed. ‘Did he not mind?’

Hessa shook her head with a quiet smile.

‘It is the greatest honour a desert king may receive. To have his wife chosen by the gods. But once she joins the Saqar, marriage is no longer permitted. She belongs to the divine, not to man. So now my father has a new wife. And many more children than my hands can count.’ She laughed, the sound soft and golden like the shifting sand.

‘I shall not name them all, you’ll end up with a migraha. ’

‘A migraha?’

‘A pain in your head.’

‘A migraine,’ Alina corrected gently.

Hessa rolled her eyes and waved her off, irritated at the interruption. ‘Qnahli.’

Alina stuck out her tongue, grinning. She recognised the insult. ‘I’m not a know-it-all.’

The two girls bent once more to their work, nimble fingers dancing over glass and bone as they brewed their venom in silence.

Alina’s brown eyes wandered across the horizon, drinking in every detail with the hunger of one newly awakened.

There was no fear left in her—not for the land, nor for the future.

Only a keen, sharp excitement. This land, this burning cradle of sand and stone, had birthed Hessa.

How could she fear it, when it had brought forth such fire?

As Hessa had once told her, ‘The sand spit me out at birth, so I am made of its grains.’

Alina longed to be made of something, too.

Something strong. Something eternal .

So she could burn the world down with every last witch in it.

…

The moment they reached the foot of the mountains, they were no longer alone.

Figures cloaked in flowing robes emerged from the ridges and shadows, materialising like ghosts summoned by the wind.

Alina did not need to be told who they were.

Their faces were entirely concealed, save for their white eyes—sharp and glinting, drinking in every detail with unnerving clarity.

Their robes clung to their forms, bound tight with scorpion-leather wrappings that gleamed dully beneath the waning sun.

Weapons were hidden in the folds of their garments, and most wore no shoes, their bare feet silent against the sand, as if the desert itself had taught them to tread without sound.

Alina’s heart thudded wildly in her chest as more and more figures appeared on the peaks above, at the crest of the dunes behind them, even amongst the rocks, half-hidden. It was as though they had known long ago that someone was coming, and had simply been waiting, watching.

Dunayans.