Page 80 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)

After several quiet minutes, Kage came to a halt, his steps faltering at the sight of a small cottage nestled incongruously in the clearing.

His frown deepened as he glanced around, every instinct in his wyverian blood warning him that something was amiss.

But he gave nothing away. The shock coiled within him like smoke in a bottle, trapped behind a mask he refused to let slip.

Wyverians were masters of restraint. And he was no exception.

‘What is this?’ he asked evenly, his voice low, cool.

Freya stood by the door, her shoulder resting against the frame, her expression unreadable in the half-light. ‘It is whatever you wish it to be.’

‘And what, precisely, do I wish it to be, Freya?’

Her smile appeared, but the warmth from before had cooled like embers dying in a hearth. ‘A reunion.’

Before he could demand further explanation, she opened the door and disappeared inside.

Kage lingered, staring up at the strange little structure.

It was small, quaint, almost absurdly so.

A red-tiled roof crowned soft orange walls, each window dressed in delicate white shutters that fluttered gently with the breeze.

The whole thing looked plucked from a quiet corner of the Kingdom of Fire.

Peaceful, inviting, and suspiciously serene.

‘Why drakonian?’ he asked as he stepped inside, the floor creaking gently beneath his boots. At the heart of the space stood a round wooden table, polished to a dull gleam. The kitchen was simple, the air warm.

‘I rather like them,’ Freya replied casually, as though discussing wallpaper.

‘So this isn’t real.’

‘It is whatever you want it to be, Kage. Just because something is only seen by us, doesn’t make it unreal, does it?’

He said nothing as he pulled out a chair and sank into it. Freya mirrored him. And so they waited. For what, exactly, he could not say. But he waited nonetheless, his posture still, his expression impassive, as the minutes dripped by like water through a cracked ceiling.

There were no purple eyes. None waiting for him in the shadows. None at all.

‘I’m not a witch,’ Freya said, breaking the silence.

Kage tilted his head, studying her with fresh wariness. ‘Then what are you?’

Her fingers idly scratched at the table’s surface, the wood whispering beneath her nails. She didn’t answer at once. The question, it seemed, demanded consideration. At last, her lips curved, not with kindness, but with something far older, far darker.

‘I am something far worse.’

Someone crossed the threshold of the cottage before Kage could form a reply, but all thought fled the moment Haven Blackburn stepped into the room.

She moved with lightness, a gentle smile curving her lips as though no time had passed at all.

Without hesitation, she made her way to the modest kitchen and busied herself with the preparation of tea, her every motion familiar and heartbreakingly mundane.

Kage remained frozen, his body stiff upon the wooden chair, hands clenched against the table's edge. The sight of her, so alive, so unchanged, had rendered him utterly motionless. He dared not blink, lest she vanish like morning mist.

When Haven turned with a steaming cup in hand, she tilted her head, casting a teasing glance over at him.

‘Aren’t you going to say something?’ she whispered, arching a brow in that maddeningly knowing way she’d always had.

‘How…’ Kage’s voice caught. He surged to his feet, nearly toppling the chair in his haste.

Within seconds, he had crossed the space and wrapped his arms tightly around her, pulling her against him as though by force of will alone he could keep her there.

She let out a soft, nervous laugh, though her own hands clutched him in return.

He did not release her until she gently extracted herself and nudged him back towards his chair.

‘Sit, or your tea will go cold.’

He obeyed, slowly. Yet his eyes never left her.

‘It’s not you,’ he whispered, scarcely above a breath.

A shadow passed over her expression, quick as a cloud dimming sunlight.

‘Of course it’s me, Kage,’ she said gently.

‘You’re dead.’

Haven looked away, her attention drifting to the cottage window.

She looked precisely as she had the day she died.

Same soft black dress, same short-cropped black hair, cut just beneath her jaw.

Diamonds still adorned her horns, and matching ones glistened in her ears.

Regal, poised, unearthly. Haven had always held elegance like a second skin. Even now. Even in death.

‘Your ring,’ he noted, eyes narrowing. The ring each of them wore, always on the smallest finger, was absent.

‘Do not fret,’ she replied, her voice calm. ‘Mal has kept it safe.’

Kage turned towards Freya, who remained seated, silent and watchful. She did not speak. She simply offered him a slow, lingering smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. There was something gleaming there… something unreadable. Something not quite right.

‘Where have you been?’ Kage asked softly, the question falling from his lips like the first flake of snow.

Quiet, hesitant, and filled with weight.

A part of him longed to reach across the table, to rest his hand over hers and tether her back to the world he knew.

But physical affection had never come naturally to him, and he feared it might disturb her, might make this already fragile moment somehow worse.

So he kept his hands folded neatly in his lap, as still as the silence between them.

‘I can’t speak of that place, Kage,’ Haven replied, her voice a gentle murmur, heavy with unshed sorrow.

Sadness traced itself down her features like rain gliding down a windowpane.

‘But I’ve made peace with my ending. It is almost..

.’ She paused, choosing her words with care, as if each syllable mattered. ‘Calming.’

From the corner of his eye, Kage saw the smallest twitch over Freya’s brow. He said nothing, only filed it away like a note kept at the edge of a battlefield, something to be dealt with later.

‘My entire life,’ Haven continued, ‘felt like a never-ending list of duties. An endless parade of obligations. But now…’ Her voice softened, and her shoulders, always so perfectly braced against the weight of expectation, now looked unburdened.

‘Now I can breathe. I wouldn’t have chosen to die, Kage.

I need you to know that. But... it’s a strange, painful truth that I didn’t have much of a life, not really. ’

Kage pressed his back against the chair, the pressure grounding him.

Her words sat heavily on his chest, as though the air itself had grown thick and difficult to swallow.

He understood. He had always understood.

She had lived shackled by title, by duty, by expectation.

Only in death had she found release. And that truth carved itself into him like a blade dulled by grief.

‘How are Kai and Mal?’ Haven asked, leaning forward slightly, as though shifting her focus might somehow erase what she’d just said.

‘They’re...’ Kage cleared his throat, the lie rising like ash from a dying fire. He hadn’t seen them since the day everything shattered. He had no answers to give, only hope stitched together from fragile memories. ‘They’re doing fine.’

‘I’m glad.’ Haven smiled, and for a moment the room felt a little warmer. ‘What of our parents? I hope my death didn’t break them.’

Kage glanced down at the untouched tea in his hands, then over at Freya, who sat quietly, unmoved.

He had so much to say, so much that had weighed on him for too long.

But now, with Haven seated before him, the words dissolved like mist. How could he tell her the truth?

That her death had cracked the very foundation of their family?

That their home, once filled with warmth and laughter, now echoed with silence?

No. He would not lay that burden at her feet. Not now.

Because perhaps she had made peace with death, had found breath, finally, beyond the veil.

But the living had not. They were the ones left behind, the ones still searching for the broken pieces, trying to glue the world back together with hands that trembled from the effort.

And though they might pretend, might move forward and smile again, they all knew deep down that something vital had been lost.

A piece of them was missing .

She was missing.

‘Letting go does not mean forgetting,’ Haven murmured, reaching across the table to clasp his hand, her fingers curling gently around his.

Kage shook his head, the movement barely a breath.

‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘Not when it comes to you. I don’t know how.

It’s as if the world has bled of all colour, all sound, all feeling.

I keep thinking that if I open my eyes, you’ll be there again.

And when I remember that you won’t… the pain starts again, hollowing me out. ’

Sadness fractured Haven’s expression. ‘I know, Kage. I know it feels unending. But it won’t be. One day the sharpness will fade into a softer ache. And one morning, without knowing when it happened, you’ll wake and it will have become a memory. A tender scar, not a wound.’

Kage’s voice was raw with emotion. ‘But I don’t want the pain to fade, Haven. If it does… I don’t want you to think you weren’t important. That I have somehow forgotten you. The pain will always be a reminder of what was lost. Of you.’

Tears shimmered at the edges of her dark eyes.

‘Life moves forward, Kage. And you must move with it. We, who remain beyond that veil, we know. We know that we are loved, remembered, in the smallest gestures, in fleeting thoughts. The dead are never truly gone so long as the living carry them in their hearts.’

She squeezed his hand once more, her voice soft as starlight. ‘So live, Kage. Live, for me, if for nothing else.’

‘I don’t know how.’ Tears appeared in his eyes. ‘I’m lost without you. I don’t want to be alone.’

Her grip tightened. ‘Listen to me, brother. You will never be alone in this world. And if you ever do feel as though you are alone, close your eyes and imagine me there with you. For I am always with you. I’ve always been with you, little brother.

Just because you cannot see me doesn’t mean I’m not there.

’ She placed her hand over his heart. ‘We share the same heart within two separate bodies.’

The tears finally fell from Kage’s eyes and he allowed the pain he had kept buried to break free. He sat in silence, his sister holding him as he cried, as he shattered for the very first time.

‘It is time,’ Freya announced, her voice soft, yet filled with finality.

Haven nodded, a sorrowful sigh slipping from her lips as she brushed away his tears and rose to leave. Kage mirrored her movement at once, stepping to her side with panic beginning to bloom in his chest.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked, the question caught between disbelief and dread. ‘You can’t go. Not yet. It’s only been a few minutes—’

‘I can’t stay,’ Haven said, her dark eyes already distant. ‘Not for long…’

‘She must go now, Kage,’ Freya interjected, her tone sharp with authority. ‘She doesn’t belong among the living.’

‘Shut up!’ Kage’s voice cracked as it rose, raw with anguish. ‘Of course she does! She belongs with me!’ Without thought, he seized Haven’s hands, his grip fierce and trembling. ‘Don’t go, Haven. Please . I’ll find a way to fix this, to bring you back. I’m sorry I didn’t save you before but—’

Haven’s smile was gentle, filled with knowing. It made his words falter.

‘Let go, Kage,’ Freya said again, her voice quieter now. ‘She must leave. Let your sister go.’

‘No!’ he barked, pulling Haven closer as his fingers clenched tighter around her wrists.

Outside, the wolf growled low and warning, pacing near the edge of the cottage.

Spirox shrieked, his talons scraping against the windows in frantic protest. The whole world seemed to tremble with Kage’s refusal to release her.

Terror surged through him, this desperate second chance slipping through his fingers like sand.

Why did he always ruin things? Why hadn’t he told her what she meant to him?

That she had been the best sister anyone could have ever hoped for?

‘I have to go, Kage,’ she whispered, drawing him into one final embrace. Her arms were warm, familiar, heartbreakingly brief. ‘Forgive yourself.’

Before he could beg her to stay, Haven slipped from his grasp. She turned, opened the cottage door, and closed it behind her with a soft thud that echoed like thunder in his soul.

Kage darted after her, bursting into the clearing, but she was gone. The forest stood still. Empty.

Spirox fluttered down, clicking his beak against Kage’s boots in frustration, circling his master with agitation. Kage turned around slowly, dread blooming within his chest.

The cottage was no longer there.

‘How did you do that?’ he whispered, eyes fixed on the empty space where the little house had once stood. ‘Was it magic?’

‘I’m no witch, Kage,’ Freya replied airily, waving her fingers as though brushing away a foolish thought.

‘Where is my sister?’ he demanded, voice hoarse. ‘Where did she go?’

‘She’s returned to where she belongs,’ Freya said, her tone laced with something both reverent and distant. ‘Back to the realm where all souls find their rest.’

Kage’s breathing turned ragged, his pulse thunderous in his ears. ‘Even witches can’t bring back the dead,’ he whispered, terror and awe mixing in his voice. ‘Not like that. Not so… real.’

‘No,’ Freya agreed with a slow, eerie smile curving her lips. ‘But gods can.’