Page 60 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

Hades has threatened to send Thanatos after me. But I’ve read too much about Hades’ world to be afraid. No matter how much he wishes it, he cannot act, not unless the Moirai cut the string that keeps me breathing.

I wonder if I could find my way to the Moirai.

To cut Hades’ string instead.

I’ve heard him speak of a god killer. Of creating one, and all that he could do with it.

Tabitha Wysteria

Mal supposed she ought to have felt something, anything, amidst the chaos consuming the city of Fireheart.

But her heart, perhaps, had long since run dry, emptied of grief, of rage, of sorrow.

Or perhaps it was simply that she drifted through the carnage like a ghost, untouched by blade or flame, a silent witness as drakonians and witches clashed in the streets, their blood staining the stone beneath them a rich, harrowing red.

Thanatos moved like lightning, a shadow among bodies, placing his hand upon foreheads slick with sweat and blood, guiding the souls from flesh with a reverence that felt almost holy.

Mal had watched him do the same for Allegra, had seen the light leave her eyes, and something in her chest twisted sharply at the sound of Vera’s anguished cries.

Part of her had wanted to hate the witch. The other part, maddeningly, could not. Perhaps that was why she had spared her. Why she had stepped in, if only briefly, to offer Vera a sliver of hope, a fleeting chance at escape.

She wondered now where the witch had gone. If she’d slipped beyond the city walls or was still hiding, curled in the shadows where even death struggled to find her.

‘Do they live,’ Mal asked quietly, her voice cutting through the smoke-thick air, ‘if you do not touch them?’

Thanatos stood only a few feet away, cradling a young witch in his arms, his hand resting upon her brow. Her purple eyes dimmed slowly as her soul ebbed from her body.

‘The Moirai speak to me,’ he replied, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it.

‘They sever the thread. They choose when life ends. I merely obey.’ He didn’t look like the harbinger of death in that moment.

Not a spectre to be feared, but a reluctant servant.

‘If I don’t reach them in time,’ he added, eyes fixed on the girl, ‘they may survive, for now. But death always finds them. Eventually. I do not need to touch them, but it makes their transition easier. And I wish for them, in their last moment, to feel cared for.’

Mal looked away, unable to bear the weight of his words.

‘It is the cycle of life, Melinoe.’

The words struck her like a blade. She gasped, because she had heard them before. Standing atop a mountain, watching wyverns feast, as her sister Haven whispered them with quiet conviction. The cycle of life.

Mal had never taken pleasure in pain. Never delighted in suffering. And after Haven’s death, the very idea of mortality, of endings, filled her with a cold, clawing dread.

‘I don’t have to enjoy it, do I?’ she spat, bitterness burning in her throat.

Thanatos looked at her, and in those fathomless black eyes stirred an emotion Mal could not name, something too vast, too complex, to unravel.

He let the witch’s body slip gently to the ground, her limbs folding like the petals of a withered flower, before he turned and began to walk towards Mal.

Each step was deliberate, his face, so eerily familiar to her, marked with a concern that tightened something deep within her chest.

He parted his lips, as if to speak, then faltered.

Whatever words he’d intended dissolved on his tongue.

His jaw clenched, frustration clear in the tension of his shoulders, his expression a storm barely held at bay.

Mal instinctively stepped back, arms crossing over her chest, as though she could shield herself from whatever he might say.

She didn’t need his pity.

‘It is not pity,’ he said softly.

The gleam of anger in her eyes must have betrayed her, for he quickly added, ‘I cannot read your thoughts, Melinoe. But I can read your face.’ His voice dropped lower, almost mournful.

‘I don’t pity you. Truly, it is something rare, something admirable, that you care so deeply for those you love.

I only wish I were one of them. No one has ever cared enough to worry about what becomes of me. ’

He gave a bitter laugh, the sound hollow. After realising how much he had revealed, he turned sharply and walked away.

‘Wait!’ Mal cried out, her voice slicing through the noise of the battle-torn street.

Thanatos vanished down a narrow alley before she could reach him.

A flash of green light exploded against a nearby wall, caused by a warlock fending off five drakonians.

Though instinct told Mal to intervene, to cast herself between them and end the bloodshed, she forced herself onward.

If she lost sight of Thanatos now, how would she ever return?

Would she remain like this? A drifting spectre, invisible and unheard, trapped between realms for eternity?

When they had first emerged from the Underworld, their forms had been wholly corporeal—solid, tangible, real.

But later, as they slipped like shadows into the streets, Thanatos explained that he had cloaked them in invisibility, their bodies suspended in a delicate limbo, neither fully bound to the realm of the living nor entirely lost to the dead.

They drifted, unseen and untouched, veiled in safety by divine manipulation.

It was a power they could wield, if they so chose.

Mal had asked him to teach her the trick of it, to show her how to summon such power from her bones.

But Thanatos had avoided the question, brushing it aside with a silence too sharp to ignore.

There was something almost deliberate in his refusal, suspicious even, as though he feared what she might become if she ever learnt to wield her godhood in full.

Twisting alleyways blurred around her, each turn more disorienting than the last. The chaos of war closed in on all sides, but none of it touched her. No one saw her. No one heard her. She was no longer part of their world, not truly.

She and Thanatos were only meant to observe, to follow as he collected souls like fallen stars from a darkened sky.

But she had begged him, pleaded with him, to let her remain corporeal to the mortal realm, to fight, to do something. In this ghostly form, she could do nothing but observe the destruction around her.

Yet that was not the will of Hades. And Thanatos, loyal as stone, obeyed every word the god whispered.

A couple hurried down the street, shoving open a door before vanishing inside.

Mal would have walked straight past, her attention fixed elsewhere, if not for the glint of silver hair that caught her eye.

They had moved so swiftly she’d barely registered them, but on second thought, neither of them had looked particularly drakonian.

Mal’s blackened heart seemed to halt for a beat.

‘Wren?’ she whispered, her voice barely a breath.

Without hesitation, she followed them through the door, stepping into what had once been a small, fragrant bakery, known for its sweet breads and drakonian-style cakes.

The scent of flour and sweetness still lingered faintly in the air, but the warmth was gone.

The door at the back slammed shut, and Mal bolted forward.

She slipped through into the alley behind, and froze.

Wren Wynter stood before her.

She had not changed. And yet, she had.

The face was familiar: that proud jawline, those ice-bright eyes once brimming with laughter, mischief, and the fierce curiosity of youth.

But now, something had shifted. The spark had dulled.

The mischievous glint was gone, replaced with steel.

Her shoulders, once carried with a kind of carefree elegance, now bore the weight of battles fought and grief buried deep.

The girl Mal had known in the drakonian castle had been spirited, occasionally foolish, always joyful.

This Wren was harder. Sharper. Stripped of light, and stitched together with hatred.

Beside her stood a Fae man, beautiful and striking, with dark rich skin and a crown of antlers that curved high and proud. The moment they halted, he stepped closer to Wren, his presence a quiet shield. Protective. Intimate.

And Mal, watching from the shadows, felt the ground shift beneath her feet.

‘Did ya hear that?’ Wren asked, her ears twitching slightly.

‘The screams of the dying?’ the man beside her replied dryly. ‘Yes, little wolf, I’ve been hearing them all day.’

‘No!’ she insisted, frowning. ‘I could’ve sworn someone said me name.’

‘Well, that’s mildly concerning.’ He offered her a teasing smile. ‘Let’s not start hearing voices just yet. We still need to find our way into the temple.’

From the shadows, Mal tensed, eyes narrowing. What were they doing here? And why was Wren alone with a stranger? The last time she had seen the wolverian princess, she had been fleeing the castle with Bryn, Kage, and Freya.

Mal swallowed down the swell of questions rising in her throat.

She wanted, needed , to know if her brother was safe.

Suddenly, a hand closed around her wrist. She spun instinctively, a low snarl rising in her throat, only to meet the ever-calm, maddeningly amused gaze of Thanatos. He didn’t so much as flinch.

His eyes slid past her to Wren and the Fae, curiosity dancing in their endless black depths.

‘Why are we watching them?’ he asked, his voice too close, breath warm against her ear.

‘She’s my friend,’ Mal answered softly. ‘I have to help her.’

Thanatos gave a short, dismissive snort. ‘She’s well protected.’

‘What do you mean?’ Mal asked, her focus narrowing on the Fae man. It must be him, surely that’s who Thanatos meant.

‘That one,’ he said simply.

Thanatos was standing so near she could feel the contours of his body pressed along hers, but for the first time, she didn’t pull away.

‘He’s Fae,’ she whispered, the words careful, as though speaking too loudly might shatter the illusion… or worse, be heard.

‘Oh, yes,’ Thanatos chuckled darkly. ‘But he’s far more than that, Melinoe.’

‘Speak plainly,’ she snapped, ‘and stop playing games.’

Thanatos leaned in, voice like silk and smoke.

‘That man is not only Fae, Melinoe. He’s a Black Lotus.’

Mal swore under her breath, the weight of those words sinking like stone into her chest.