Chapter Four
The trouble with us witches is that we rely far too heavily on our magic. It is woven into everything we do. We build with it, we heal with it, we fight with it… Our lives are laced so deeply with magic that without it, we are nothing.
I fear the day it fails us. For if that day comes, we will be utterly doomed.
Tabitha Wysteria
Ash Acheron knew he was dreaming. And yet, for all his vast knowledge—ancient, inherited, and hard-won—even he could find no way to wake.
He was running.
Through the long, shadowed corridors of the drakonian castle, his footsteps echoing like thunder in the empty halls.
He was younger, perhaps sixteen, his limbs leaner, face unweathered, though already marked by suffering. His leg throbbed with every step, and he was almost certain a rib had cracked. But still he ran, refusing to let the tears sting his eyes, refusing to let the world see him break.
He found the wall he remembered, thick with tangled vines, a hidden ladder that would take him to solitude.
It led to the tower. His sanctuary.
He had never cared much for climbing; that had always been Alina’s joy, despite the endless reprimands she received for it.
It hurt to climb now, each movement igniting pain in his chest, but the need to escape was greater than the pain.
With gritted teeth and trembling fingers, Ash dragged himself upward, again and again, until finally, he reached the red-tiled roof and slumped onto it, legs dangling over the edge, breath shuddering as he drank in the warm, dry air of his homeland.
Every week, without fail, his father—King Egan—summoned him to the study. There, Ash would be made to recite whatever he had been tasked to memorise, word for word, syllable for syllable.
No mistakes. No hesitation. No fear.
Should he falter, the king would break him apart, only to rebuild him into the prince he believed Ash ought to be.
So far, Ash had failed every week, save for the ones before public ceremonies, when he was meant to appear flawless.
He had tried to tell his mother. He had told her of the punishments, of the cruelty. He had told her how, once, the king had held Ash’s hand above an open flame as he was forced to recite, burning the flesh clean away. The skin had healed, of course. He was, after all, born of fire and dragons.
But his mind had not.
When he’d confessed to Queen Cyra, she had only sighed, clearly exasperated by the interruption.
‘Your father is trying to help you, Ash,’ she had said, her voice laced with weary detachment. ‘He is trying to make you strong. You must be strong, for what is to come will be grave indeed.’
Ash coughed, and the pain roared through him like a blade.
He hissed and clutched his side, as if the pressure of his hand might somehow hold his breaking body together.
A sudden sound pulled Ash from his thoughts. A low, melodic chant, drifting on the breeze not far from where he sat. But how could that be? He was perched atop a tower, high above the world.
Curiosity, swift and unrelenting, swept away the ache in his body.
He edged around the curved slope of the roof, drawn by the sound.
He saw her. A girl sat on the far side, weaving her golden hair into a braid as she sang softly to herself.
Her voice was like no other he had ever heard, smooth as silk and hauntingly sweet, a song half-whispered into the sky.
‘You shouldn’t spy on others. It’s rather rude,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder.
Ash nearly lost his footing. He hadn’t expected to be noticed and certainly not so casually. His heart thundered in his chest, not from the stumble, but from the sight of her. She was striking, radiant and unlike anyone he’d known.
He’d seen many drakonian girls in his life. Most giggled and waved as he passed, and he, in turn, would blush and look away, silently begging they wouldn’t approach. The thought of stuttering before them, of their laughter, was unbearable.
So Ash had done what he always did and donned a mask of quiet severity, a cold facade meant to keep the world at bay.
‘Are you going to sit?’ she asked, interrupting his reverie.
He nodded and made his way to her, settling beside her on the slanted roof. She seemed to be about his age, though how she had climbed so high in such a tightly fitted red dress was beyond him.
She laughed, as if reading his thoughts.
‘We ladies always find our ways,’ she said, her brown eyes gleaming with playful light.
‘It gets a bit much down there, doesn’t it?
’ Her smile was soft, unguarded, and so full of life that Ash, in that moment, feared he might never see anything more beautiful.
‘I like it up here. It gives me a bit of space to breathe.’
He nodded again, still too struck by her presence for words.
‘You don’t speak much, do you?’ she asked, frowning thoughtfully.
‘I’ve seen you at the dances. You always stand off to the side with your sister.
The other girls say you look angry. Scary, even.
’ She shrugged. ‘But I don’t think you look angry.
I think you look... sad.’ She lowered her gaze.
‘I get sad too, sometimes. We could be sad together, if you’d like. ’
She tied off the end of her braid and extended her hand to him, offering it with quiet confidence. Ash looked down at her hand, and for the first time in his life, a genuine smile curved his lips. Unguarded, unforced and entirely his.
‘You must be Ash,’ she said, her grin full of teeth and starlight. ‘It’s a pleasure.’
‘And you?’ he asked, carefully, as if her name might vanish like mist if he spoke too quickly.
Her smile deepened.
‘I’m Adara.’
…
Ash crouched low, his golden eyes fixed on his outstretched hand as he examined the ground beneath him. The memory of the dream clung to him like a shadow, unwelcome and persistent. He tried to shake it from his thoughts, but it lingered all the same.
The wolverian and wyverian forces remained stranded in the Kingdom of Magic, a shattered realm abandoned by its creators. They had spent the first week camped beneath the crumbling wall, hoping vainly that the gods might yet descend to deliver them.
But Ash had known better.
The gods would not come. They never did.
At last, he had convinced the others to move inland, to leave behind false hope and instead seek the scattered towns, to begin learning how to survive in a kingdom steeped in decay.
‘What do you think?’ Adriana asked, crouching beside him.
He turned to look at the wyverian warrior. Her short black hair was windswept, the horns that curled from her head stark against her dark armour which she still insisted on wearing, despite his repeated assurances that, for now, it was unnecessary.
‘The witches used magic for everything,’ she added, glancing around. ‘Even the growing of food.’
‘The soil here is g-good,’ Ash replied quietly. ‘We could g-grow crops.’
Adriana nodded and gestured for a few nearby wolverians to join them, beckoning them to inspect the land.
‘We destroyed this place,’ she said with a bitter snort, ‘and now we’ll be the ones to breathe life back into it. Funny, isn’t it, how fate plays her games?’
‘Curious, indeed,’ Ash murmured as he rose, his gaze sweeping across the landscape, the long-forsaken kingdom of the witches.
The skies were thick with ash-grey clouds, and near the border of the Kingdom of Fauna, it rained endlessly. Much of the terrain had become marshland, but towards the east, forests still lingered with remnants of older, wilder magic.
In the distance, a structure rose from the dead earth, its silhouette fractured yet standing.
It looked like a strange marriage between temple and fortress, with shattered spires that marked it unmistakably as one of the arcane witch towers, spun through countless old tales.
‘We can’t stay here forever,’ Adriana said, falling into step beside him as they walked across the field of brittle, withered grass. ‘We need a plan, something to break through the wall.’
Ash stopped and turned to face her, his expression unreadable.
‘We c-cannot break through m-magic,’ he said flatly. ‘We must wait.’
‘We cannot wait around.’
Ash stepped forward, the distance between them vanishing in a breath. His voice, when he spoke, was sharp-edged. ‘Then why do you not do s-something, Adriana?’
He saw the way her body stiffened, her face tightening under the weight of old grief.
‘We made a promise, long ago,’ she said. ‘Keir and I swore never to intervene. Only to watch.’
Ash gave a humourless snort. ‘Then be silent and watch.’
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and marched on, leaving Adriana behind, her mouth parted in disbelief, her dark eyes blazing with restrained fury.