Chapter Twenty-Nine
For years, whispers stirred across the lands, each wondering what secrets the phoenixians concealed beneath their gilded city. Some claimed an entire city lay hidden below, built in secret. Prepared perhaps, for the day war would come.
How tragic, then, that it was the witches who uncovered the truth during the Great War.
Taken as prisoners, they were dragged to phoenixian soil and entombed beneath the city, kept like shadows in the dark.
There, they were experimented on.
And the rest of the world turned its face away, silent, as the witches’ screams echoed endlessly against the stone walls.
Tabitha Wysteria
‘My father wishes to meet everyone for luncheon,’ Mareena announced with the ease of one accustomed to being heard.
Since his quarrel with Dawn, Kai had not laid eyes on her. That same night, he had knocked on her door, knuckles sharp against wood, but was met with only silence. The following morning, it was Mareena who intercepted him with gentle yet firm words. Dawn needed space.
But Kai did not want to give her space. He wanted her to see, no, to understand.
Understand what, precisely, he could not yet name.
Across the wide expanse of the training hall, his eyes met Alina’s.
They had spent the morning in tandem, exchanging strikes and technique, a quiet camaraderie forged through shared effort.
How strange this world had become. Months ago, he would have found such a scene inconceivable, a figment of fancy.
And yet here it was, real and tangible. Possible.
Alina was swift, her instincts sharp, but her training bore the mark of urgency. Her movements were unpolished, born not of years in the making but of a frantic need to survive. Quick-learning, he called it. Sufficient for defence, but far from refined.
‘Elbow up,’ he instructed, his voice cool and measured. She obeyed without hesitation.
Mareena reclined on one of the many ivory settees draped in silk, a picture of poise amidst the echo of blows and footwork.
One of her sleek black hounds lay curled beside her, its elongated ears twitching at the sound of Kai’s commands.
There was something unnatural in the creature, something too still, too silent.
‘We shall dine on the grand terrace,’ Mareena added, stroking the hound’s short fur, her fingers threaded through its strange obsidian coat.
Before Kai could voice his unease, the towering double doors swung open, and in stepped Dawn. She wore a smile as if nothing had transpired, radiant and unbothered.
Kai’s body tensed like a drawn bowstring.
If Dawn was smiling like that, then she was plotting.
Dawn sauntered over to one of the carved stone columns and leaned against it, arms folded neatly across her chest. It was still a jarring sight, seeing her cloaked in wyverian form, something about it felt inherently unnatural, not unlike the sleek, eerie dogs lounging at Mareena’s feet.
‘Higher,’ Kai instructed, his voice clipped as he tried to keep his attention fixed on Alina.
But she ignored the command, letting her arms fall before stepping away from him, her focus fixed intently on Dawn.
A charged silence bloomed between the two women, tense and unblinking, until Kai reached for Alina’s arm, his voice sharp.
‘What are you doing?’
She squared her shoulders, that familiar spark flaring behind her brown eyes, something bold, almost defiant.
‘You’ve taught me a few moves this morning,’ she said. ‘I wish to try them out. Your friend could assist with that.’
‘No.’
Alina’s brow furrowed. ‘Why not?’
‘She’s injured.’
The princess turned to inspect Dawn, as though searching for some visible sign of the claim. ‘Is that so?’
‘She’s got a bad leg,’ Kai said stiffly.
Alina’s expression twisted with doubt, suspicion knitting her features. ‘And here I thought wyverians could fight through broken limbs.’
For a fleeting moment, Dawn moved, just a step, the barest hint of a challenge.
‘Do not dare,’ Kai warned, his tone suddenly steel. Dawn halted, but the flare in her eye spoke volumes.
Before the tension could snap, Mareena rose gracefully, clapping her hands once before whistling for her hounds. ‘Perhaps it’s time we took a break,’ she announced, breezily stepping forward. ‘Let’s walk the gardens until we’re summoned for luncheon.’
She looped her arm through Alina’s with effortless charm, whisking the princess away before anyone could protest.
The moment they were beyond earshot, Kai turned sharply on Dawn.
‘You’ve been avoiding me.’
‘Have I?’ she replied, beginning to follow the others. But she faltered as he raised a hand, halting her path. Her gaze dropped to it briefly before lifting, one brow arching with poised indifference. ‘What is it you want, commander?’
‘I want to know if we’re all right,’ he said, the words rough with sincerity.
He meant them. The thought that something between them had fractured made his stomach twist unpleasantly.
Though he couldn’t quite define what ‘it’ was.
She was a witch. He was wyverian. Her kind had orchestrated his sister’s death. And yet...
She stared at him, but there was no fury in her face. No heat.
Only a cold, quiet absence.
Indifference.
‘I mean nothing to you, commander,’ she said, voice steady but low, like the first hint of a storm on the horizon.
‘And you mean nothing to me. We are here for one reason, and one reason alone. To retrieve those dragons. If seducing the dragon princess is the cost, then by all means, do it. I couldn’t care less. ’
She made to move past him, but Kai stepped forward, catching her arm before she could slip away.
‘Don’t lie.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Then the next time you say I mean nothing to you,’ he whispered, his voice softer now, darker, ‘try looking me in the eye when you do.’
And with that, he let her go.
…
‘Can Isla and Arena join us for lunch?’ Alina asked as Mareena led her into the phoenixian gardens, a place so stunning it seemed conjured from a dream.
Lush palms swayed in the golden light, and flowering shrubs of every hue spilt their perfume into the warm air.
Birds of brilliant plumage sang from the branches, their melodies echoing softly through the tranquil space.
Alina’s attention drifted to a cluster of serpopards lounging beside a fountain, its marble carved into the shape of two phoenixes mid-flight.
The creatures were unlike anything she had ever seen, sleek and feline in build, yet with serpentine necks and tails that curled and slithered like living vines.
She was reminded suddenly of what Hessa had once told her, long ago: that phoenixians had a penchant for meddling with nature through strange forms of alchemy.
There were whispers too, of an underground city hidden beneath phoenixian soil, where unnatural things stirred.
Perhaps it was there such beasts were born.
‘You don’t like them,’ Mareena observed, her crimson eyes resting on the lounging creatures. ‘Most don’t. We fear what we do not understand. That which is unfamiliar becomes, by instinct, something we reject. But sometimes change, however strange at first glance, can offer more good than harm.’
Alina looked back over her shoulder, her brow furrowing slightly. In the distance, she could just make out Kai, his figure rigid as he exchanged heated words with the wyverian woman.
‘Do you love him?’ Mareena asked softly.
Alina slipped her arm from Mareena’s, suddenly needing the distance, space to think, to breathe.
‘I did… I suppose a part of me still does. That part where the old Alina lingers in quiet corners of my soul, the girl who once dreamt of a life by his side. A life where I followed him instead of forging my own path. But I’ve come to realise that life is rarely so simple.
The things we want don’t always find their way to us. ’
She exhaled slowly, turning her focus to the fountain, where the water glistened like liquid crystal beneath the sun.
‘Kai belongs to my past. He was the one who shattered the shell I’d hidden within, who taught me to raise my voice, to stand tall.
For that alone, a fragment of my heart will always remain his. ’
‘But?’ Mareena prompted gently.
‘But he is not my present,’ Alina said, clasping her hands together. ‘For a time, I believed Hessa was. But she was taken from me.’
Mareena inclined her head, her expression touched with quiet sympathy. ‘The threads of fate weave strange patterns.’
‘They do,’ Alina agreed. ‘And yet… something about it all seems curious.’
‘What is it?’ Mareena asked, her crimson eyes narrowing with intrigue.
Alina found herself momentarily entranced by her.
There was something arresting in Mareena’s presence—her elegance, the way the sunlight kissed her smooth brown skin, how her raven-black hair, pressed straight each morning, shimmered like the starlit skies over the desert.
And those eyes, impossibly red, impossibly beautiful.
But the spell broke as movement in the distance caught Alina’s attention.
Kai and Dawn were approaching, the wyverian twirling a strand of her inky hair around one finger.
There was something oddly familiar about the gesture, something quiet and haunting, that made Alina feel, if only for a breath, like she had returned home.
‘My mother once had a vision,’ Alina said, ignoring the painful twist in her chest that always came with thoughts of the woman who had given her life. ‘She foresaw me becoming a queen.’
‘And you will,’ Mareena replied gently, her smile as radiant as a rising flame, warm with encouragement.
But Alina shook her head, her expression distant. ‘She didn’t mean a drakonian queen.’ Her gaze met Mareena’s for a heartbeat, just long enough to speak volumes. Within that brief exchange, understanding passed silently between them.
‘I was meant to become a phoenixian queen.’
Before Mareena could respond, the soft hum of a melody tugged at Alina’s attention. She turned, and her breath caught. Dawn was braiding her hair absentmindedly, her lips moving to a quiet tune that floated through the warm air like an echo from another life.
A song Alina knew.
A song from her past.
A song once sung by someone she had called her dearest friend.
Alina stepped forward, her hand darting out to seize Dawn’s arm, fingers wrapping tightly around the wyverian’s wrist. The world seemed to still.
Their eyes locked. Alina searched the depths of Dawn’s stare, desperate, no, determined, to unearth some buried truth.
She felt Kai shift beside her, his posture tightening, ready to intervene.
But she didn’t care.
‘Where did you learn that song?’ Alina asked, her voice brittle with disbelief.
Dawn blinked, confused. ‘I don’t know. It’s just… something I’ve always known.’
As though stung, Alina dropped the wyverian’s arm and took a stumbling step back. She looked up at Kai, eyes wide with something like dread. Was she imagining things? Was her mind beginning to unravel?
Because if not…
Then there was only one person who knew that song.
One girl who had once braided her hair while humming that very melody. One who had stolen Ash’s heart only to crush it beneath lies and betrayal.
A girl who had worn friendship like a mask.
A witch hidden in plain sight.
Adara.