Page 55 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

Why has it become so easy to lie?

Why is it so effortless to watch my fingers stain with blood?

Have I become the very thing I once feared?

Tabitha Wysteria

Wren nestled instinctively into the solid warmth behind her.

The heat of the Kingdom of Fire was suffocating, a relentless weight pressing against her skin.

But whatever lay curled around her made the world feel just a little less cruel.

She sighed, melting deeper into it, until a low chuckle shattered the illusion.

Her eyes snapped open in alarm. That warmth, deceptively comforting, wasn’t a soft bundle of fur or a particularly huggable shrub.

It was a mortal. A breathing, living mortal.

Arden’s laugh deepened as Wren shrieked and scrambled away, limbs flailing, cheeks flushed.

‘Thank the gods you’ve finally woken. You were choking me, little wolf,’ he said, his evergreen eyes dancing with mirth. ‘Any more of that wiggling and I’d have found you stretched across my chest.’

‘Ya could’ve shoved me off!’ Wren huffed, her hair a wild silver halo stuck to her damp forehead.

‘And abandon such a gentlemanly opportunity? Perish the thought.’

With a growl, she snatched up a nearby pebble and launched it at his head. He dodged with infuriating ease, still grinning. ‘Are you always this pleasant in the morning, or is it just me who inspires such violence?’

Wren refused to answer, choosing instead to scan the horizon.

Far in the distance, rising smoke smeared the sky a deeper orange.

Trouble. It wasn’t hard to guess its source.

Fireheart was burning, or at least fighting to stay unburnt.

Her toes curled with urgency, her body buzzing with the ache to do something.

Around them stretched a wasteland of scorched soil and bone-dry grass, broken only by the occasional boulder.

For days they had wandered through this hearth of a kingdom, sleeping beneath open skies, no shelter required.

The land itself radiated enough heat to roast them alive. Shade was rare, water rarer still.

Somehow, Arden remained maddeningly flawless in the heat, his dark skin glowing as though kissed by fire itself.

Wren, on the other hand, looked like she’d survived a battle with all nine hells.

Barely. Her silver hair clung to her face in limp strands, sweat darkened every seam of her clothes, and her feet were blistered, raw. She stank like a boiling swamp.

And Arden still looked at her like she was made of starlight. Which was irritating. Deeply, thoroughly irritating.

Liar.

Arden’s attention lingered on the rising plume of smoke, and as Wren followed his line of sight, she caught a fleeting shift in his expression.

Something sharp, unreadable, there and gone in an instant.

He was a master of subtlety, a man carved in shadows and cloaked in charm.

And though he had proven himself quite the capable hunter, snaring birds with uncanny ease, plucking their feathers with the precision of a craftsman and cooking them with effortless grace, there was something more to him, something that tugged at the edge of suspicion.

It was the way he moved. Fluid, silent. Predatory.

Like a wyverian in the wild, his steps barely stirred the earth, his breath matched the rhythm of the trees.

When he threw his knife, it flew like an extension of his will, striking a bird clean through the eye.

Not even the meat was bruised. Wren told herself that perhaps Fae cooks were taught to hunt, but each passing day chipped away at that excuse.

Arden noticed her glances, her furrowed brows, and began to feign ignorance in little things, as though trying to dull the edges of her curiosity.

‘You’ve got something on your face,’ he said, interrupting her thoughts.

She blinked. ‘Huh?’

‘A miniature imperator, I believe. Very common in drakonian lands.’

‘A what?’

‘Tiny scorpion.’

Wren shrieked, her composure evaporating. ‘Get it off! Get it off!’

‘Don’t move,’ he said softly.

She stood frozen as something small and sinister crept across her cheek towards her hairline.

Arden stepped in, close enough for her to smell the faint spice on his clothes.

With a deft flick of his fingers, the creature flew off and landed near their feet.

Wren lifted her boot, ready to crush it, but Arden caught her arm.

‘Don’t. We’re in its land, not the other way round. It meant no harm. ’

Wren wrinkled her nose as the tiny scorpion scuttled away, no larger than a child’s fingertip. ‘Is it poisonous?’

‘Only mildly. Would’ve numbed half your face for a few hours.’ His smile curved with mischief. ‘Didn’t take you for the squeamish type, little wolf.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Am not. Just don’t fancy drooling all over meself.’

Her answer earned a laugh, rich and amused.

They packed quickly, gathering the meagre belongings they’d carried across kingdoms, and turned towards the city ahead, the one now smoking in the horizon.

As they walked, Wren found herself letting down her guard, inch by inch.

She’d shown him her deft fingers and quick hands, her ability to snatch eggs from nests and make traps with a few twigs.

He had praised her for it, called her clever.

But she hadn’t told him the truth, the whole of it. He didn’t know she was a Seer.

And for once, she didn’t want to be worshipped or shunned for what she was. She just wanted to be seen. By him.

‘You’ve got that look on your face again.’

Wren blinked. ‘What look?’

‘The kind you wear when you’re arguing with yourself and, tragically, losing.’

She snorted. ‘I’ve neva lost an argument in me life.’

‘That’s only because you’ve yet to have one with me.’ He winked, smug and maddening. ‘And I never lose.’

‘I once had an argument with a boy named Edur,’ Wren said, her chin lifting in defiance, ‘about da best way to hunt an ice-cuckoo. By da time I’d finished proving me point, I’d hunted every ice-cuckoo in da forest. He went home with nothing but bruised pride and a grumbling stomach.’

Arden raised a brow. ‘An ice-cuckoo? What in nature’s hand is that?’

‘A bird,’ she said loftily, ‘that makes a stew fit for royalty.’

He pulled a face. ‘It sounds adorable.’

‘So?’

‘You shouldn’t be cooking adorable birds.’

‘Ya’ve been hunting birds every day!’ Wren shot back, exasperation prickling her skin like nettles.

‘None of mine were cute.’

‘So if it’s ugly, it’s fair game? That’s da most ridiculous thing I’ve eva heard!’ Her voice pitched higher, despite her best effort to keep it level.

He grinned, eyes sparkling. ‘It’s all right, little wolf. No one would hunt you.’

Wren stumbled mid-step, heat rushing to her cheeks. Was he… calling her cute?

No one had ever said that to her before. No boy had even looked at her properly. Most were either intimidated by the weight of her title or too busy worshipping her as the Seer of their people.

He's a man, not a boy, she reminded herself grimly. And a man like Arden Briar would never look twice at someone like her.

Despite being in her early twenties, Wren had never been kissed.

Love and romance were luxuries she had set aside long ago.

Her life had been devoted to her people, to her brother, to the legacy they were expected to carry once their father’s breath stilled.

Dreams had been shelved. Desires quieted.

Her own heart, neatly folded and put away.

And truth be told, no one had ever been interested in her.

‘You’ve got that look again,’ Arden said, his voice softer this time.

Wren made an indignant noise, storming ahead to hide the flush creeping up her neck. She wouldn’t let him make her feel like a foolish girl with butterflies in her stomach.

‘Well, of course no one would hunt me!’ she snapped over her shoulder. ‘Becas I’m a wolf, and wolves do da hunting!’

His laughter followed her like a song on the wind, curling around her spine and making her shiver despite the heat. She tried to outrun it, tried to ignore the warmth that bloomed deep in her chest.

But his voice reached her still, low and amused, and far too close to something dangerous.

‘Is that so, little wolf?’ he said. ‘In that case, I wouldn’t mind if you hunted me .’