Page 75

Rolling her shoulders back, Mal studied Hagan as he began circling her.

He wielded two drakonian short swords, their undulated blades gleaming beneath the sun.

Unlike the lavishly adorned weapons of drakonian nobles, the Red Guard's swords bore no ornamentation—no embedded stones or intricate engravings, just steel honed for the sole purpose of war.

Mal had left her own sword in her chambers, and she could not use her powers here—not in the open, not in front of so many watching eyes.

Too many had already seen what she was capable of at the wall, including Hagan.

Ash had assured her that his friend would never speak of it, but trust was a delicate thing, and Mal was not willing to gamble with hers.

The others had yet to speak of what they had witnessed her do.

Perhaps the truth gleaming in her purple eyes was explanation enough.

Or perhaps their silence was not born of understanding, but of distraction—minds too burdened by the looming shadow of the curse to dwell on what, or who, she truly was.

She longed to shadow-walk, to dissolve into the very air itself, but now was not the time. That, too, would have to wait until she left for the dagger.

Hagan lunged.

Mal twisted out of his reach, catching his arm and spinning him forward with such force that he crashed into the ground, his sword slipping from his grip.

But he was quick—far quicker than she expected.

Within seconds, he was back on his feet.

However, Mal was faster. One of his blades now rested in her hand.

Their swords clashed, ringing through the training yard like the roll of distant thunder. Mal could tell—Hagan was holding back. He was Red Guard, trained for war, and yet, there was restraint in his strikes, a careful calculation in his movements.

By the time she headbutted him back onto the ground, an entire crowd had gathered, cheering her on.

But Mal was not paying attention to them.

Her eyes found Ash, watching her from amidst the onlookers, his lips curled into the faintest of smiles.

And she felt it—the weight of his pride, heavy and all-encompassing, wrapping around her like something tangible, something real.

It was an intoxicating feeling. To be looked at like that, to be cherished in such a way.

He was light. And she—she was something darker, something woven from the shadows he had unknowingly begun to chase away.

None of the drakonians watching seemed to care that she fought like one of their own. Perhaps they had grown used to the strange ways of the wyverians, or perhaps they simply did not care what their future queen did—so long as their own women did not follow suit.

A shadow cut across the courtyard, and Mal’s gaze snapped upward just in time to see Kage’s bird circling above. Its caw echoed like an omen, a warning.

The distraction cost her.

Hagan’s elbow slammed into her chin, sending her stumbling backward. She turned, searching, her eyes locking onto the archway where Kage stood, his face carved into something unreadable. A shiver danced along her spine. She had seen that look before.

It made her nervous .

The moment of hesitation was enough. Hagan’s sword was at her throat before she could fully regain her stance, the steel pressing against her skin just enough to draw a single ink stained bead of blood.

‘You ought to yield, your highness,’ he said, his voice laced with quiet amusement.

Mal tilted her head ever so slightly, letting the blade graze her skin a fraction deeper. A single trickle of black slid down the curve of her throat.

‘Perhaps you ought to yield, guard.’

She arched an eyebrow, glancing downward.

Hagan followed her gaze—his breath hitching the moment he realised what he had failed to notice.

The small dagger she kept hidden beneath her skirts was now pressed precariously close to his cock.

He swallowed hard.

Something shadowed in his brown eyes—something Mal couldn’t quite place. But before she could analyse it further, it was gone, replaced by an easy laugh as he stepped back, bowing deeply.

‘You fought well, as usual, your highness,’ he said, but there was something else beneath the words. Something unspoken.

Mal only nodded in return, offering a small bow before turning away, her steps carrying her towards her brother.

She ignored the weight of Ash’s gaze lingering on her back, the silent question woven into the way he watched her—wondering why, after everything, she was not in his arms.

‘We need to talk,’ Kage said, his head dipping low, his lips grazing the shell of her ear as he whispered, ‘Wren had a vision.’

A cold breath of foreboding curled around Mal’s spine, but she nodded, following her brother through the dimly lit corridors of the castle.

He did not lead her towards his chambers as she had expected but instead guided her towards the small courtyard she recognised as the place where she had first spoken to the queen alone.

The scent of roses lingered thick in the warm air, their petals fully unfurled, burning crimson beneath the dying light. She ran her fingers absentmindedly over the silken blossoms as they passed, finding herself distracted by their beauty despite the weight that pressed against her chest.

‘Kage, where are we going?’ she asked, but he did not answer.

Instead, he led her to a door—one carved from dark, ancient wood, hidden within the castle’s labyrinthine depths.

Mal knew what lay beyond it. The tunnels beneath the keep.

Darkness greeted them as they stepped inside, thick and consuming, but to wyverians, the abyss was a welcome companion.

They did not fear the silence of the deep nor the shadows that clung to their skin like whispers of forgotten gods.

They walked deeper, their footfalls echoing against the blood-red stone walls. And then, just before they reached the winding caverns that led to the dragon dens below, Kage stopped.

‘Wren saw what would happen if the curse is not broken,’ he said, voice low, barely above a whisper, as if speaking it too loudly might make it real.

‘We will all fall into an eternal sleep. Every last one of us.’ He turned to her then, and though she could not see his face fully in the darkness, she felt the weight of his gaze, of his certainty, settle upon her like a storm about to break.

‘All except for one,’ he finished. ‘Your husband.’

‘But why him?’ she rasped. ‘Why would the rest of the world fade into silence while he remains—’ Her throat closed around the thought, her lips pressing together to keep them from trembling.

‘So, if I stab Ash, I break the curse but condemn him to death. If I do nothing, the curse falls upon us all, and he will wander the ruins of the world alone.’

Kage inclined his head, the movement slow, almost sorrowful.

‘I can’t…’

‘Mal, why are you still here?’ Kage’s voice sharpened, the softness vanishing.

‘You know where the dagger is. What are you waiting for? We are days away from the curse taking hold, and I find you outside in the training yard, playing swords with Ash and his friends as if this is nothing more than a game.’

‘I am stalling, brother,’ she admitted, wrapping her arms around herself as if to shield against the inevitable.

Kage scoffed. ‘Stalling?’ He let the word linger between them like an accusation.

‘I will leave tomorrow,’ she said, exhaling slowly. ‘During the engagement party. Everyone will be too distracted to notice my absence.’

Her brother’s snort was dry and disbelieving. ‘I highly doubt the Fire Prince will not notice.’

Mal smiled, but there was no warmth to it. ‘That is why you will stay behind. To distract him.’

A long silence stretched between them. Kage’s eyes, darker than midnight, studied her with a knowing she wished he did not possess.

‘Are you delaying his death on purpose, Mal?’ he asked at last, his voice unreadable.

She did not flinch. ‘No, brother.’

She lifted her chin, her spine straightening, though every bone in her body ached from the weight of the lie.

She would not show weakness, not now, not when her own resolve was fraying at the seams. She would not tell Kage that the thought of plunging a dagger into Ash Acheron’s heart made her sick, that she feared she would rather carve out her own before she could do it.

‘I will retrieve the dagger and kill him.’

And with that, she turned on her heel, striding towards the exit before her brother could say anything more. She did not need to prove herself to him. She did not need to justify what was already written in fate.

But as she walked, something shifted in the air.

A scent—faint yet undeniable—coiled through the tunnels, seeping into her lungs like a whisper of warning.

Mal hesitated.

Her senses prickled with unease, her fingers twitching for the dagger strapped to her thigh. She cast a quick glance around them, but the tunnels remained empty. Only Kage stood behind her, watching.

And yet…

She could not shake the feeling that someone— something—had been listening.

Mal returned to her chambers, the heavy weight of her thoughts pressing against her shoulders like a phantom’s embrace.

She unfastened her dress with trembling fingers, letting the fabric slip from her body and pool at her feet like shadows spilling onto the floor.

The scent of rose oil and jasmine lingered in the air, steam curling from the waiting tub, beckoning her into its warmth.

She stepped in, sinking low into the water, her dark lashes fluttering shut as she allowed the heat to ease the tension from her muscles. For a fleeting moment, she imagined sinking deeper, letting the warmth swallow her whole, dissolving her into nothingness.

The doors creaked open .

Mal’s lips quirked at the edges as she heard the quiet shuffling of feet, followed by the hasty retreat of her maids as they were ushered away. She did not need to open her eyes to know who had entered.

Water sloshed violently over the sides of the tub as Ash climbed in without hesitation, peeling away his clothes as if undressing before her was the most natural thing in the world.

‘We do not fit,’ she huffed, tucking her legs against her chest to make room for him.

He grunted in response, unimpressed by her complaint, before grabbing her legs and tugging them apart, draping them over either side of his body. A shiver coiled through her as her bare skin met his, her chest pressing flush against his own.

Ash took up the soap, clumsily working it through her damp tresses, his fingers combing through the strands with an endearing lack of grace.

He managed more chaos than care, water spilling onto the floor, soap seeping into her eyes, until she batted his hands away with a laugh, blinking against the sting.

‘Hopeless,’ she teased, the sound of her mirth a fleeting reprieve from the storm inside her mind.

She turned her focus to his wounds instead, carefully cleansing them with delicate fingers. She ignored the weight of his gaze boring into her, refused to acknowledge the way his eyes traced over her face with such tenderness that it made her chest ache.

‘I cannot concentrate with you breathing down on me,’ she muttered.

His fingers found her chin, tilting it upwards, forcing her to meet his eyes.

‘What is wrong?’ he asked, voice low, searching.

Mal stilled.

The truth was a venomous thing, coiling at the back of her throat, begging to be freed.

She wanted to spill it, wanted to shatter the fragile illusion between them and confess that their love—if it could even be called that—had been born from betrayal.

That she had been sent to kill him, and now, now she could not bear the thought of losing him.

That no matter which path she took, no matter which choice she made, Ash Acheron was doomed.

Instead, she swallowed it down like poison.

‘Nothing,’ she lied.

His jaw tightened, golden eyes searching hers, seeking something—anything—that would make sense of the sorrow tightening the corners of her mouth.

He was a man carved by fire, molded into something devastatingly beautiful, and for a fleeting moment, she allowed herself to imagine a world where she could keep him.

Where she was not bound by duty, by fate, by a curse that demanded his blood.

She cursed the gods for their cruelty.

She cursed herself for her weakness.

‘Mal, what—’

She silenced him with a kiss, a desperate thing, pressing her lips to his in a silent plea to forget, to stop asking, to lose himself in her as she longed to lose herself in him.

She did not want to think. She did not want to feel.

She wanted to disappear in the taste of his skin, in the way his hands roamed over her as if he could never get enough of her.

Tomorrow, she would leave to retrieve the dagger—the blade meant to carve through his heart.

Tonight, she would worship him as if it were their last.

He did not notice the tear that slid down her cheek as she pressed herself against him, her lips tracing desperate paths along his jaw, down his throat.

She committed every inch of him to memory—the warmth of his golden skin, the way his body tensed beneath her touch, the sound of his breath catching in his throat as she took him in, rolling her hips in a rhythm that sent water spilling over the tub’s edge.

Mal pressed her lips to his forehead, his temple, his parted lips, as if she could kiss away the fate that awaited him. As if she could carve his image into the fabric of her soul, so that no matter what came after, no matter what darkness awaited them, she would never forget.

Later, when the fire had faded and the night stretched long and silent, Mal lay awake beside him, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest.

She pictured her own hands gripping the hilt of the dagger, the steel poised above his heart, the fatal plunge that would bring an end to everything.

Her fingers curled around the phantom blade.

She wept in silence, whispering his name to the gods who had never answered her before, pleading for them to save him.

But the gods, as always, remained silent.