Page 65 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

I’ve studied poisons my entire life. I absolutely adore them.

Strange, isn’t it, how someone so enamoured with something so destructive could long to be a healer?

Tabitha Wysteria

‘I shall cut off one of your fingers each time you refuse to cooperate,’ Kai said flatly.

Dawn stuck out her tongue, extending her hand with theatrical flair. ‘Here, let me make it easier for you. Take this one, I rarely use it for pleasuring myself.’

‘Vile creature.’ He slapped her hand away as she laughed, unbothered by his scorn. ‘Did you speak like that to Ash Acheron?’ he added, eyes glinting with quiet satisfaction as her expression faltered, just for a moment.

With a snarl, Dawn snatched up the meagre bundle of leaves he’d gathered for their meal and flung them into the air.

‘I am not eating that! Aren’t you meant to be some fearsome commander?

Go and hunt something!’ She gestured dramatically at the dark hook swords strapped across his back.

‘Surely you can do more than posture with those?’

‘That won’t work on me, witch.’

‘Nothing seems to work on you, commander.’ Her amethyst gaze trailed slowly, insolently, down the length of him, pausing at a rather indecent spot.

Her wicked grin deepened. ‘You're lucky my powers haven't returned completely yet, or I’d be roasting dinner with your—’ Her words halted mid-threat as her eyes widened in disbelief. Kai, unmoved, had already begun eating one of the leaves she’d discarded. ‘And I’m the vile one?’ she gasped.

‘I do not waste food,’ he replied, utterly unfazed, plucking another leaf from his shoulder and taking a bite.

‘That is not food,’ she hissed just as her stomach betrayed her with an audible growl.

They couldn’t go on like this, living off berries, nuts, and the occasional unfortunate rodent.

She had no idea how long they’d been stranded in this cursed forest. Days?

Weeks? Time had blurred into misery. ‘We should return to the shelter,’ she muttered.

But even that was maddening. Every evening, no matter how far they wandered, no matter how determined their direction, they ended up back at the same ramshackle hut, trapped in some cruel loop, as though the forest itself were toying with them.

Dawn cursed under her breath at the thought of yet another night on the cold, unforgiving floor. How many nights had it been now? They had lost count. Too much time spent bickering to keep track.

‘Has something stolen your tongue, commander?’ Dawn quipped, unable to help herself. ‘You’re awfully quiet.’

But the moment she turned, her jest withered on her lips. Something was terribly wrong.

Kai stood rigid, his complexion several shades paler than usual. Without warning, white foam began to froth at the corners of his mouth, and his obsidian eyes rolled back into his skull. His body crumpled to the ground like a felled tree .

‘Wake up! What’s wrong with you?’ Dawn cried, dropping to her knees beside him. She cupped his head in her hands, slapping his cheek with increasing urgency.

Then she saw it, the strange discolouration blooming at the tips of his fingers, and swore under her breath. ‘Damn, stupid fool! Only you would be reckless enough to eat something poisonous!’

Grumbling with effort, she hauled the massive wyverian back into the hut, every muscle in her body protesting as she dragged him across the threshold.

She glanced down at him, worry furrowing her brow.

The forest was filled with plants unfamiliar to the rest of the kingdoms, but witches knew poisons better than most, and she recognised the signs well enough.

What she didn’t recognise, however, was the exact nature of the toxin, and that made purging it far more difficult.

She couldn’t risk leaving to search for an antidote either.

The forest was a trickster, a place of shifting paths and warped time.

If she wandered too far, it might never return her.

And as infuriating as Kai could be—gods knew she wanted to slap him more often than not—she had no desire to face this cursed place alone.

Not without her full magic to protect her.

‘I thought wyverians were supposed to be the finest warriors alive,’ she muttered, giving his leg a hard kick. ‘Clearly they skipped the bit about not eating wild, glowing foliage.’

With a growl of frustration, Dawn lowered herself back to the floor, gently shifting Kai so his head rested on her lap rather than the damp, mossy ground. A little of her magic had returned, just enough for minor tasks, like drawing clean water or lighting a fire.

She could try to draw it out manually, pull it from his blood the old-fashioned way, which would require very little magic, but it would burn. It would hurt like hell. And it might kill her, too.

‘This is all Vera’s fault.’ Dawn let her head fall back against the wall with a dull thud, eyes squeezed shut in pure, simmering frustration. ‘I don’t know why I always end up listening to my sisters.’

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, stinging with the force of helplessness that had begun to rise within her chest like a tide.

Her childhood, in her own mind at least, had been a happy one. A golden haze of simpler times.

Others often tried to tell her otherwise, especially her sisters, who insisted they remembered it all so differently. But before their mother had left for the Kingdom of Fire, they had lived as a family, together with their father in the Kingdom of Magic, in a quiet village called Elmwych.

There hadn’t been much to the town. It had been rebuilt stone by stone after its destruction a century earlier during the Great War, razed to ash by drakonian fire.

Her parents had always insisted that the village had been restored to its former glory, identical in every way to how it had once stood.

Dawn had often raised a sceptical brow at such claims. How would they know?

Neither of them had been alive when it first existed.

But their father had sworn that Hecate herself had visited him once, and that the goddess had blessed the reconstruction, declaring it true to memory, to magic, to myth.

Dawn had adored him for stories like that, even if they were half-truths or outright fancies.

He had played with them in the fields, spent long hours reading tales by candlelight, and loved them as fiercely and fully as any father could.

But then their mother had changed .

She’d grown restless, her heart tugged elsewhere, towards purpose, towards war, towards something more.

She had longed to join the cause, to fight back against injustice.

Their father had wanted no part of it. He had dreamt only of peace.

A quiet life. A home where his daughters would grow in safety, untouched by the fires of conflict.

‘I can still hear them arguing when I lie in bed at night,’ Dawn whispered, her voice barely carrying over the soft patter of rain beginning to fall.

The gentle rhythm of it on the roof of the hut offered an odd kind of comfort.

Steady and grounding. She had always loved the scent rain left behind, the way it clung to the earth like a memory.

‘Funny, isn’t it, the things that stay with you,’ she continued.

‘Even after all these years. Sometimes, it’s just the ghost of a smell.

My father used to smoke a pipe of rich, spiced tobacco.

And now and then, I’ll catch the scent of it in the wind, out of nowhere, and it’s as if it fills the entire room.

Or I’ll hear a laugh, bright and fleeting, and for a second, I’ll swear it’s hers.

My mother’s. Then I have to remind myself. .. they’re gone. It’s not real.’

She looked down at the wyverian, unconscious and pale, his head resting heavily in her lap.

‘She took Vera with her, when she left,’ Dawn said after a pause, her voice tightening around the memory. ‘It nearly broke my father. But it did something to me and my other sister, too. Left us hollow. Left us with that ache of not being chosen. Of not being enough.’

Her lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. ‘Our mother was off saving the world, and she chose Vera to go with her. Not us.’

She shrugged, as though trying to shed the weight of it.

‘I understand now. I see why she chose her. Father used to say it was because Vera was the youngest, and she’d adjust more easily.

But no, that wasn’t it. Not really.’ Dawn exhaled softly.

‘Vera’s always been... different. Harder.

Sharper. She’s made of nails and thorns and grit.

My mother knew she could survive it. Endure it.

She picked the daughter who could bear the weight. ’

Without realising it, Dawn’s fingers had drifted into Kai’s dark hair, twisting strands around her knuckles in a slow, absent motion. A small, unthinking comfort.

‘When my mother was assaulted… and fell pregnant because of it, my father couldn’t bear it.

He began to wither almost straightaway. Then, before long, he died.

’ Dawn’s voice was soft, like a bruise being pressed.

‘So my sister and I were sent to live with relatives, until we were old enough to go to our mother. I don’t know why, but.

.. I hated my father for it. For not saving her.

For doing nothing. Even after he learnt the truth, he didn’t go after her.

He just faded. He left us to gather the broken pieces alone. ’

Her fingers had curled tightly in Kai’s hair without her noticing. The moment she realised, she let go, gently smoothing the strands as if in apology.

‘When I turned fifteen, my mother allowed me to join her. I pretended to be of courtly blood, a distant relation. Vera was already there, working as a servant. And our mother… she barely looked at her. Treated her like a stranger. I could see it hurt Vera deeply, gutted her, and yet... I think I almost took pleasure in it.’

A bitter smile ghosted across her lips.