Chapter Fourteen
Each year, the Kingdom of Fire hosts a grand tournament.
Dragon fighting. The Council receives its invitation without fail, and I’ve attended by my mother’s side for as long as I can remember.
I can’t say I’ve ever truly enjoyed it. There’s something unsettling about watching two dragons tear into one another while the crowd erupts in applause.
No, I’ve always preferred the thought of riding one instead, of soaring through the skies rather than witnessing blood spilt for sport.
I often wonder what it must feel like… to fly.
Tabitha Wysteria
‘By tomorrow, we’ll be crossing into phoenixian lands,’ Kai said, crouching low as his eyes swept across the cracked terrain.
The forest had withered away behind them, each day thinning the trees until there was nothing left but brittle scrub.
Now, the world was a canvas of dry, crumbling earth, soon to harden into jagged rock, and eventually, surrender itself to the shifting dunes of the desert.
‘Then we ought to look the part,’ Dawn declared, her fingers glowing with a glimmer of emerald.
With a flick, the green witch’s robes melted away, replaced by phoenixian travelwear.
The outfit clung in all the right places, loose where it offered grace and movement, tight where it flattered.
Her midriff and arms were left bare, her boots thick-soled and suited for unforgiving terrain.
‘Well?’ she asked, spinning slightly. ‘What do you think?’
Kai turned his back on her. ‘I think I don’t care.’
‘I’m rather fond of the skirt myself,’ she said with a smirk.
‘I am not interested,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, but phoenixians do know how to dress their women. Shall we see what they might give a man?’ Before she could complete the spell, Kai wheeled around and caught her wrist in a firm grip.
‘Don’t you dare. I’m not changing.’
‘Your wyverian garb reeks.’
‘Let it reek.’
‘You stink.’
‘I’ve grown fond of it,’ he said with a wolfish grin. ‘Shall we move along now?’
Grumbling, Dawn turned with a dramatic huff and began walking, kicking at a loose stone as she went. Her boots thudded against the dry earth, dust lifting with each step.
After several minutes of her sulking silence, Kai arched a brow. ‘Are you truly going to ignore me all the way to the border?’
Still, she said nothing.
‘You know I much prefer you quiet, don’t you?’
More silence.
Kai chuckled under his breath and shrugged, allowing the stillness to settle between them like an old friend. Then, almost against his own will, he asked, ‘How does it work, your magic? The clothes you wear now… are they merely illusion?’
Dawn offered no reply, her gaze fixed firmly ahead as she continued along the cracked path, the folds of her phoenixian garb rustling faintly with each determined step.
‘You’re beginning to test my patience, witch,’ Kai muttered, irritation creeping into his voice.
She spun around, eyes wide with incredulity. ‘I’m the one getting on your nerves?’ she cried.
Kai chuckled under his breath. ‘Got you talking, didn’t I? Wasn’t so hard after all.’
‘I swear, I’m going to turn your head into stone.’
‘You could try,’ he said, laughing. ‘But I doubt I’d be quite as handsome a boulder.’
‘Who said you were handsome?’
‘Everyone.’
‘They were lying,’ she huffed, rolling her eyes in theatrical exasperation.
‘And why would they do that?’
‘Pity, perhaps. Or maybe just good manners.’ She stuck her tongue out at him.
‘Careful, witch. I might slice it off.’
She waved a hand dismissively. ‘Terrifying. Truly. You keep making threats, commander, but never follow through. Tell me, do you offer the same false promises in bed? All bark and no bite?’
Kai’s grin was wicked. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘I’d rather choke on my own bile.’
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound rough and warm. Sunlight struck his dark features as he glanced skyward, squinting against the relentless blaze of gold above.
‘You’re certain the dragons flew south?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How certain?’
She hesitated. ‘Seventy per cent.’
His black eyes narrowed with restrained fury. ‘We’ve abandoned my army on a seventy per cent certainty?’
Dawn exhaled and blew a lock of silver-white hair from her brow. ‘Fine. Seventy-five.’
‘Incredible,’ he muttered.
‘You didn’t have to come with me,’ she shot back, her voice sharp. ‘You could’ve trotted off to the wall with the rest of them, not that it would’ve helped. They’re all still caged behind stone and spell.’
Kai came to a sudden halt, his shoulders drawn tight with tension. Slowly, deliberately, he turned to face the witch.
‘And why,’ he asked, his voice low and cool, ‘are you so determined to unleash dragons upon the witches? They are your people.’
‘I don’t intend to burn anyone,’ Dawn replied swiftly. ‘But with dragons, I could stop Hagan. He’s the only real threat.’
‘If you say so.’
‘My people aren’t evil,’ she added, quickening her pace to walk beside him once more. ‘None of this is our fault!’
Kai spun around, so abruptly that Dawn nearly crashed into him.
‘No fault?’ he said, his voice sharp. ‘Then tell me, witch. Who murdered my sister? Who took Alina’s life?’
Dawn rubbed her bare arms, though the air was stifling, the land hot enough to blur the horizon in waves of heat.
‘Those were… unfortunate circumstances,’ she murmured. ‘Sometimes people die.’
Kai’s jaw tensed. ‘Are your hands clean?’
‘What?’ She blinked, caught off guard.
‘Your hands,’ he repeated, voice colder now. ‘Are they clean? Or are they steeped in blood like the rest of us?’
She froze mid-motion, her eyes drifting down to her fingers as if seeing them anew. A deep sorrow shone across her expression, fleeting as a shadow before it morphed into anger.
‘Don’t put this on me!’ she snapped. ‘My kingdom was obliterated a century ago for no reason. We deserve our vengeance!’
‘And in another hundred years,’ Kai said quietly, ‘when those you slaughter decide they too deserve theirs, then what? Will it ever end?’
‘Whatever,’ she spat, pushing past him. Her shoulder clipped his with deliberate force before she stormed ahead, though not so far that he couldn’t still see her figure against the parched, rust-coloured plain.
Kai turned to his shadow horse, fingers trailing through its smoky, insubstantial mane.
His thoughts drifted to Kage, to Mal, and hope sparked within him that they were safe, that they were still out there.
And though he had never been one for prayer, nor ever placed much faith in gods, he sent a silent one now, into the burning wind.
Wherever his sister Haven was, he hoped she was watching over Alina.
…
Kai found himself repeatedly questioning his decision to follow the witch into the unknown.
And yet, somewhere deep within him, in the part of his soul that whispered truths even when logic protested, he knew, knew, that this was the path he was meant to take.
Whether it was instinct or something more ancient and elusive, he couldn’t say.
But there was certainty in his bones: he had to find the dragons.
Still, the further they journeyed into the land of scholars and phoenixes, the more doubt began to seep in like a slow poison.
What if the witch had lied to him, if this was all a ploy, a snare woven from illusions?
No matter how many days he had spent beside her, no matter the subtle way she had begun to shift his perception of her, trust remained elusive.
She was still a stranger with too many secrets.
‘When we reach the city of Kairus,’ Kai said at last, his voice gruff with reluctance, ‘you’ll need to glamour yourself.’
The pain that flashed through her purple eyes struck him like a blade. Not the kind of pain he was used to, the kind earned through bruises or loss, but something more soul-deep. A hurt woven from a lifetime of hiding.
Kai had never had to endure that. He had grown up sure of who he was, anchored by duty and wrapped in love.
His parents had adored him. He remembered it clearly: training in the grey cloud mornings, and evenings spent recounting his lessons to Mal, watching her wide-eyed admiration.
Kage would sit by the fire and recite ancient tales, while their mother combed gentle fingers through Haven’s dark hair.
A life steeped in warmth, in safety, in belonging.
But Dawn had not been gifted such a life. She had learnt love only through the lens of betrayal. Had been taught, time and again, that affection came with conditions and that those who claimed to cherish her would abandon her the moment her truth was revealed.
They settled for the evening beneath a pale amber sky, the horizon swathed in fading gold.
Dawn, with a flick of her fingers, had transformed a handful of foraged fruits into a modest banquet, half of it rotted and sour, perfectly suited for Kai’s wyverian digestion, the other half fresh, vibrant, and mouth-wateringly sweet, meant for her.
‘How does it work?’ Kai asked, his voice low as they sat atop a flat outcrop of stone, slightly raised above the land that stretched endlessly around them. Wherever his gaze wandered, it met only endless stretches of chalk-white rock and yellowed earth, parched and ancient.
‘Your magic,’ he clarified. ‘Can you summon food from thin air?’
Dawn shook her head, biting into a glistening red apple.
‘No. Magic doesn’t work like that, it’s not limitless.
We must begin with something real, something tangible.
I can multiply what exists, enhance it, make it sweeter, riper, change its essence entirely, turn an apple into a pear, or a pear into roast chicken.
But I cannot conjure it from nothing. There must always be an origin. ’
She leaned back against a nearby stone, her purple eyes fixed on the sky as twilight deepened. ‘Glamours work similarly. We don’t create a new form, we only mask the one that’s already there. I can’t make a person. Only the gods can do that… and even then, perhaps not.’
Kai glanced towards the pile of rotten food and gave a brief nod. ‘Thank you.’ Before the witch could respond with her usual flourish of sarcasm, he raised a hand. ‘Do not dare.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything,’ she said, though the twitch of her lips betrayed her.
Kai snorted. ‘If only that were true, witch.’
Dawn wrinkled her nose at the rotten pile of food.
‘Don’t look at it,’ Kai said.
‘It’s hard not to. It’s almost as foul as your face.’
He chuckled, a low, amused sound. ‘You’re not as skilled at this game as you think.’
‘Oh?’ she challenged, her tone arch. ‘And what game would that be, commander?’
Kai offered no reply. Instead, with a casual flick of his wrist, he lobbed a piece of rotting pear directly at her. It landed with a wet smack against her cheek. The sight of Dawn’s face shifting from stunned disbelief to absolute outrage delighted him far more than it should have.
‘Did you just throw rotten food at me?’ she demanded, rising to her feet, wiping the mess from her skin with murderous precision. ‘What is wrong with you!?’
Kai doubled over with laughter, unrepentant. His amusement, however, was short-lived. With a whisper of her fingers, she summoned a torrent of water that drenched him head to toe, followed swiftly by a gust of wind that struck him with enough force to ruffle his dignity.
He was on his feet in an instant, soaked, spluttering, and scowling, though the glint in his eye betrayed his enjoyment. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he warned, finger pointed accusingly as magic danced across her palms.
‘Try and stop me,’ she said sweetly.
He lunged.
Hook swords in hand, Kai closed the distance in a heartbeat, striking again and again, but she was faster.
Each swing was met with graceful evasion or a blast of magic that sent him sprawling.
One moment he was airborne, the next skidding across the dust. She was toying with him, and that realisation stoked his irritation into something near volcanic.
And then, in a rare misstep, she faltered. Just long enough.
His blade caught her leg. Not deep, not fatal, but enough to spill blood. A thin crimson line bloomed across her skin. Her gasp, sharp and startled, was followed by a tremble in her frame. Kai’s swords dropped instantly, horror dawning on his face.
‘I didn’t mean to—’
But it was too late.
She looked up, and he knew. He knew. He had been fooled.
She sprang like a wildcat, tackling him in a blur. They tumbled, and Kai hit the ground with a dull thud, instinctively wrapping his arms around her to cushion her fall.
For a breathless moment, neither moved.
The sky above them was painted in hues of blue and burnt orange, glowing with the last light of day. Kai lay still, his heart thundering in his chest, arms still cradling the witch he’d sworn to loathe.
And then he looked up.
Her purple eyes met his, no longer blazing with fury, but something quieter, something unreadable. And in that fleeting silence, he realised, rather inconveniently, how dangerously pleasant it was to hold her this close.
‘Do you enjoy having me on top of you, commander?’ Dawn purred, her breath brushing his cheek, mischief gleaming in her purple eyes.
Kai hissed, pushing her off with a grunt, ready to spit back a retort, until a vast shadow swept across the earth, silencing him in an instant. He instinctively pulled her down beside him, pinning her low against the ground, his gaze scanning the skies.
‘What the—’ Dawn shoved at him, shrieking in protest.
‘Quiet!’ he snapped.
‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do, you stupid bastard!’
‘Hush,’ he murmured, palm pressing over her mouth, which only widened her eyes in livid outrage. He stifled a laugh at the sight. ‘Look at you, all quiet and obedient.’
She sank her teeth into his hand without hesitation.
Kai howled, jerking back just in time for her to kick him, hard. He wheezed, winded.
‘I am not obedient!’
Kai couldn’t help it. He laughed, truly laughed. No, she certainly wasn’t.
‘Don’t you ever tell me what to—’ Her words were cut short as she followed the line of his sight and froze. Her mouth snapped shut, the fury draining from her expression. In its place bloomed a quiet, reverent wonder.
Kai moved swiftly, gathering what few supplies they had. He leaned in close, lips brushing the shell of her ear.
‘Never obey anyone, Dawn,’ he whispered. ‘Not even me. Especially not me.’
He didn’t wait for a reply. With silent urgency, he turned towards the distant outline of Kairus, his eyes tracking the slow glide of a colossal shadow overhead.
The unmistakable silhouette of a dragon.