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Curious, she glanced back at Zahian, expecting the usual teasing smirk. But his face had darkened—not in intrigue, not in admiration, but in something startlingly close to hostility.

‘What is it?’ she asked, her voice quieter now.

Zahian blinked, as though recalling himself, and the tension in his shoulders eased. ‘Nothing,’ he muttered, his voice too casual. ‘You should keep your distance from that one.’

‘Why?’

Zahian reached for another pear, tearing it in half with his fingers. Without a word, he offered one piece to Alina. She hesitated only a moment before taking it, something about the simple act of sharing food feeling oddly intimate.

‘Flora Hawthorne knows too much,’ he said at last.

‘Too much about what?’ Alina pressed, licking the sticky sugar from her lips.

Zahian’s gaze drifted briefly to her mouth before returning to the Fae princess in the distance. ‘About everyone,’ he murmured. ‘She’s not to be trusted. None of the Fae are.’

Alina leaned in slightly. ‘Why? She has always been very pleasant to me.’

Zahian’s laugh was quiet but sharp. ‘I’m sure she has.

There are whispers that the Fae want the witches to return—and that they will do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Before the Great War, both kingdoms were bound together in ways the rest of us never understood.

Some say they wish to restore what was lost.’

Alina swallowed, considering his words. ‘And do you think if the witches return… that it could ever be like it was before?’

Zahian’s smirk vanished. His fingers idly toyed with the bitten fruit in his palm, his jaw tightening ever so slightly. ‘After what we did to them?’ He shook his head. ‘If the witches return, princess, it will not be peace.’

His red eyes gleamed, burning like the embers of a dying fire.

‘It will be war.’

…

The scent of burning incense clung to the dimly lit chamber, curling through the air like ghostly tendrils as Hessa lounged carelessly across Kage’s bed.

It was an intrusion that made his skin itch—not the sight of her submerged in a steaming pool hours earlier, naked and languid, but this.

This casual claiming of his space, this invasion of his carefully maintained solitude.

‘They say that the gods created us because they were bored,’ Hessa mused, stretching like a feline against the sheets, her dark eyes dancing with amusement as she studied Kage’s stiff posture.

He stood at the room’s edge, watching the absurdity of it all—the number of bodies crammed into a space that was never meant for company.

Wren sat cross-legged on the floor, methodically sharpening three short daggers she had concealed in her pocket.

Vera, ever at ease, drummed tattooed fingers against the wooden table, her expression unreadable.

Sahira, Hessa’s sister, perched lazily on that same table despite Kage’s earlier protests that there were perfectly good chairs to use.

But it was Mal that held his attention the most.

His sister sat apart, her posture tense, her gaze locked onto Vera with quiet intensity.

Kage had seen the way she had returned to the castle earlier, her fingers entwined with the Fire Prince’s, her laughter trailing behind her like the soft chime of temple bells.

He had never seen her look so… free . So utterly unburdened.

Perhaps that was what unsettled him most.

‘Why do these meetings always take place in my room?’ Kage finally muttered, his voice edged with irritation as he cast a glance around at the unlikely gathering.

‘Because, apparently, I am a prisoner,’ Vera drawled, not even bothering to look up.

‘You are not a prisoner,’ Mal countered sharply. ‘We are simply keeping a careful eye on you.’

Vera arched a brow. ‘Because you do not trust me.’

Mal’s expression did not soften. ‘You are a witch,’ she said, her voice laced with quiet venom.

‘And witches— your sister —tore my wyvern from the skies, left her broken and lifeless. So no, I do not trust you. In fact, I would very much like to carve your heart from your chest, inch by inch, and watch as you drown in your own blood.’

Vera’s lips curled, the glint in her eyes more amusement than alarm. ‘Is that a threat, princess?’ she asked, her voice low, edged with something both dangerous and knowing. ‘Why don’t you, then? Take that vengeance you hunger for.’

Mal leaned in, her presence a storm cloud before the downpour. ‘Because I need you. But trust me, witch. The moment I no longer require you to breathe, I shall end you and the rest of your kin.’

Vera merely sighed, shifting her gaze to Hessa with a languid ease, as though she had grown weary of the conversation, as if the weight of Mal’s threats was nothing more than the whisper of an autumn breeze against her skin.

‘They also say the gods created witches first,’ she said.

‘Gifted them with magic to see what they could shape with it. There’s an old tale that claims it was the witches who first breathed life into the great wolves of the Ice Kingdom.

The gods, fascinated by their creations, grew envious and sought to craft something greater.

’ Her gaze flickered to Wren then, a knowing smile playing upon her lips.

‘That is why, they say, the gods made dragons, wyverns, and all the other creatures of this world. Each god fashioned their own beast, convinced that their creation was superior. The Sun God, arrogant above all, made his own children believe there were no other gods at all.’

Mal let out a dry, humourless snort. ‘Tell that to the drakonians and phoenixians.’

‘They are the only two among the eight kingdoms who still cling to a single god,’ Vera said, tilting her head as if she found the notion amusing.

Mal’s patience was thinning. ‘Why are we having this conversation?’

Vera’s smile turned sharper, more pointed. ‘Because your god—the one who created the wyverns—is the God of the Dead.’

Silence blanketed the room, thick and heavy.

Vera leaned forward slightly, her voice dipping into something almost melodic, almost cruel. ‘Fitting, isn’t it?’

Mal mirrored her motion, her own voice a whisper of steel. ‘Would you like to meet my creator then?’

Laughter bubbled from Vera’s lips, rich and full of mockery.

‘Not yet, princess.’ She sat back, stretching her arms as if this were all a grand performance staged for her amusement.

‘One day, probably sooner than I’d like, I shall meet my own.

But until then, we have far more pressing matters.

If we do not handle this curse,’ she lifted her tattooed fingers and tapped them against the table, punctuating her next words, ‘we will all be meeting our gods far sooner than we’d prefer. ’

Hessa rose from the bed, the brown silk of her robe slipping from her shoulders as she reached for the book Wren and Kage had stolen from the library.

With a practiced flick of her fingers, she leafed through its brittle pages, pausing when she reached the section detailing the Desert Kingdom.

Her finger, adorned with rings of beaten gold, tapped against an intricate illustration—a dagger, its bone hilt carved with ancient symbols, its curved blade gleaming even in ink.

‘That,’ she declared, her voice rich with certainty, ‘is the weapon we seek. The blade that will end the curse.’ She turned to the gathered company, her kohl-lined eyes dark with expectation.

‘My sister and I journeyed here believing the weapon might rest within this kingdom or with one of the guests attending the royal wedding. But we have found nothing.’

Kage stepped closer, his gaze narrowing as he examined the dagger’s depiction.

The hilt was unlike any drakonian weapon, its embellishments unmistakably desert-born.

Strange markings, the protective sigils of the sand folk, coiled down its length, wrapping around the white circular stone set into its pommel—a talisman of their people, a mirror of their unearthly pale eyes.

‘This is a traditional desert dagger,’ Kage said, running his finger along the text. ‘Why would the knife destined to break the curse belong to your kingdom?’

‘Because,’ Sahira said, her voice thick with exasperation, ‘when Prince Hadrian Blackburn was engaged to Princess Aithne Acheron, every kingdom sent them gifts of great significance. The records detail them all, and only one weapon was bestowed upon them—a dagger, gifted by the Desert Kingdom.’

Hessa nodded, picking up where her sister had left off.

‘Hadrian was never without it. The archives mention it frequently—his favoured blade, lighter than a sword, easier to wield in close quarters.’ She tapped the page again, drawing attention to the white stone embedded in the hilt.

‘All our weapons bear this mark—a symbol of our eyes, of our land.’

Kage’s gaze darkened. ‘And you believe Tabitha Wysteria used this dagger to kill him?’

Hessa’s lips curled into a knowing smirk. ‘Tabitha could not have slit Hadrian’s throat with his own cumbersome longsword,’ she said. ‘No, she would have needed something swifter, something she could wield in one decisive movement.’

Mal, who had been sitting in contemplative silence, finally spoke. ‘Then why was the dagger never found?’

Hessa turned, her expression unreadable. ‘What do you mean?’

‘If the legends hold any truth,’ Mal mused, ‘Tabitha seized the dagger, killed Hadrian, then took her own life. And yet, when the bodies were discovered, the weapon had vanished. Why?’

Sahira shrugged. ‘Likely stolen—such a blade would fetch a high price.’

Mal’s lips pressed into a thin line, dissatisfaction evident in the crease of her brow.

‘It doesn’t add up,’ she said, more to herself than to the others.

‘Hadrian’s body never returned to my kingdom for burial.

The records claim soldiers from the Kingdom of Fire found the scene—left Tabitha to rot, but took Hadrian’s remains to return them to the Kingdom of Darkness as a show of respect.

Yet the body never arrived, and no history book can explain why. ’

‘There was war,’ Vera interjected, though her expression had sharpened with intrigue. ‘Bodies are lost.’

‘They are,’ Mal agreed. ‘But not the bodies of those who spark wars.’ Her gaze drifted back to the book, to the dagger rendered so carefully in ink.

‘And we know, from Tabitha’s own writings, that she never truly died.

What if…What if Hadrian never died either?

What if she never killed him? Does the diary not say? ’

Vera’s fingers traced the edges of the weathered pages before tugging the notebook closer, her brows knitting together in thought.

‘Pages have been torn away,’ she said, frustration dancing in her purple eyes like embers caught in a dying wind.

She exhaled, a slow, measured breath. ‘It is impossible to say whether he truly met his end, or if the stories we have been told are nothing more than carefully spun illusions. Perhaps she never killed him at all. Perhaps the curse itself is a fabrication.’

A silence fell over the room, the weight of her words sinking in like stones into deep water.

Kage watched his sister as she stood, her arms folding tightly across her chest, her mind weaving a web of thought too tangled for the rest of them to follow.

Her sharp teeth caught the edge of her thumb, a nervous habit, as she began to pace.

Kage recognised that look—the faraway glint of realisation, the slow, methodical unraveling of a mystery.

‘The anniversary is nearly upon us,’ Hessa reminded them softly. ‘And we still do not know where the weapon lies.’

Mal stopped abruptly, her hands braced against the desk, her purple eyes trained on the open book. Something ghosted across her face, a revelation so sudden and visceral that Kage took an unconscious step forward, drawn to it.

‘What is it?’ he asked, unable to contain his impatience.

Mal’s lips parted, then closed again. She turned, her eyes locking onto his with unmasked astonishment.

‘I know where the dagger is,’ she breathed, the words almost lost to the room’s heavy silence.

She swallowed, her fingers curling over the book’s edge as if grounding herself.

‘And I know who has it.’