Page 49 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

He led them into a chamber carved deep into the mountain's heart, a room that once echoed with the weight of strategy and blood-sworn oaths.

It had been a war room, centuries ago, where desert generals and kings spread maps across stone tables and plotted under torchlight, their voices sharp with purpose.

The air still carried the ghosts of old schemes, though the room itself had long since been abandoned to silence.

For over a hundred years, it had slumbered, untouched by war or whispers of conflict, its purpose forgotten as peace lulled the kingdom into stillness.

Dust lay undisturbed in the corners, and the shadows seemed to linger with memory, as if waiting for battle to return.

‘Sit,’ he said again, motioning to the low cushions scattered around a carved table of sandstone. He poured three glasses of vhina, the amber-coloured desert wine catching the light like melted sun. Alina sipped hers slowly, trying not to show the sudden tremble in her fingers.

Without warning, Hessa spoke.

‘Sahira is dead.’ The words landed like a scythe to the gut, swift and without ceremony. ‘The witches stormed the Kingdom of Fire. They’ve seized the city of Spark. Alina Acheron is the only survivor of the drakonian royal family.’

The king sank onto his cushion as though the weight of his grief had robbed him of his bones. No tears fell, but Alina could feel the hollowed ache radiating from him like heat off the sand. It was an ache she knew intimately. A grief so deep it did not howl, but whispered endlessly in the dark.

For a long time, he said nothing. His eyes closed, his breaths slow, as though he were wandering the corridors of memory, through laughter once shared, through the echo of Sahira’s voice in the hallways of his heart.

When he opened his eyes again, the sorrow had been neatly folded, tucked away behind the solemn eyes of a king.

‘Who else?’ he asked, voice hoarse but steady.

‘Princess Haven Blackburn has been slain,’ Hessa said softly. ‘Prince Zahian Noor as well.’

‘The Hawthornes have also perished,’ Alina added, her voice a pale thread of sound.

‘They aimed to snuff out every House,’ Hessa said. ‘The only ones untouched were the wolverians.’

King Siroc’s eyes narrowed. ‘Could they have colluded with the witches?’

‘I doubt it,’ Hessa replied, exchanging a brief glance with Alina. ‘They seemed just as stunned as the rest of us.’

‘They have no cause to betray the Houses,’ Alina said, though a faint unease stirred within her. ‘They gain nothing from this.’

‘Perhaps not,’ the king said, though suspicion lingered in the air like a coiled serpent. ‘But even the snow has shadows.’

Alina looked down, guilt blooming in her chest like a bruise. She had met the wolverians briefly, shared meals, seen them dance, and yet, she had never truly looked. Never seen. If only she had paid more attention. If only...

Perhaps this could have all been prevented.

‘Perhaps,’ Hessa said, her voice heavy with the weight of futures yet to unfold.

‘I wish to take the Dunayans with me. The witches will not rest with the Kingdom of Fire beneath their feet. They may never reach us here, buried in the arms of the dunes, but they will come for the others, one by one, until all is ash.’

‘The witches have always despised the drakonians above all,’ King Siroc said quietly, his stare settling on Alina like a shadow.

The meaning was unspoken, but understood by them both.

It had been her people who lit the match.

Her bloodline that rode dragons through the sky and turned a kingdom to cinders.

Her legacy that forged the witches’ wrath.

‘They might leave it at that,’ he added, though even he did not sound convinced.

Hessa shook her head. ‘No. They won’t. It was the drakonians who began the Great War, yes.

But the rest of us stood idle. Some even joined them in the flames.

The desert folk once stood shoulder to shoulder with the witches.

We were kin once, bonded by sand and magic.

But when they screamed for aid, we turned away. They will never forget. Nor forgive.’

King Siroc gave a slow, weary nod. ‘Very well, hajaa. Do what you must.’ Daughter .

‘We will stay for a while longer. Alina must learn to fight before we return.’

‘It may be too late by then, hajaa,’ he said, the old word heavy with sorrow.

Hessa rose. ‘I leave with Alina or I do not leave at all.’

His nod came again, slower this time. His eyes drifted to the bare wall, as if he saw a daughter that no longer stood beside him. Grief had hollowed him. He was a man stripped of resistance. Hessa could have asked for the world, and he would have handed it to her.

Alina hurried after Hessa, trailing behind through winding tunnels that twisted and dipped like veins carved into the mountain’s heart. Back in the stillness of Hessa’s chamber, Alina caught her by the arm, halting her.

‘Hessa! Perhaps the king is right. You should go ahead with the Dunayans. I won’t be ready in time. I’ll only slow you down.’

‘You will be ready,’ Hessa said, her voice resolute.

‘But you said they’d never accept me. I’m not one of them. I can’t train with the Dunayans. ’

‘They will accept you,’ Hessa whispered, stepping close, her white eyes blazing with defiance. ‘I’ll see to it, amira. Myself.’

‘Hessa…’

The desert princess placed her hands on Alina’s shoulders, grounding her. ‘This is our vengeance, amira. Not mine alone, and not yours. Ours. We will find Hagan and we will slit his throat. For Sahira, for your parents… and for Ash.’

Alina’s lips trembled, her eyes blurring with tears, but her smile held firm. ‘Waa kair janta,’ she whispered, as the tears slipped down her sun-kissed cheeks.

Hessa leaned in, soft and steady, and kissed them away. ‘Waa kair janta,’ she echoed.

We fall together.