Chapter Thirty-One
Love can so easily turn poisonous.
Tabitha Wysteria
After luncheon, Kai took his leave with a clipped nod and strode swiftly through the corridors towards Dawn’s chambers. She had failed to appear at the table, and though he could not say why, a gnawing sense of dread had rooted itself in the pit of his stomach.
He could not forget the way Alina had reacted earlier, the sudden grip she’d placed on Dawn’s arm, the sharp, whispered question about that old melody. It had been more than suspicion—it had been recognition. And later, the words she’d hurled at him, veiled beneath a half-smile: truth.
His pace quickened. By the time he reached the door, he barely paused before slamming it open.
‘Dawn!’ he called, voice echoing off stone and silence. The room stared back at him, still and hollow.
‘She’s not here.’
He spun around sharply, muscles tensing as he saw Alina leaning against the threshold, arms crossed, expression carved from fire and steel.
‘What did you do?’ he demanded, voice low with warning.
‘What did I do?’ she snapped, pushing off from the doorway with the grace of a desert storm.
‘What did you do?’ In a blink, she closed the distance between them, her desert blade drawn, its curved edge gleaming in the golden light.
‘You brought a witch into this palace, Kai! And not just any witch. Her.’
‘Alina, just let me explain—’
‘You will not explain anything to me,’ she cut in, raising her blade until it pointed accusingly at his chest. Her voice trembled. Not with fear, but with betrayal. ‘I trusted you, Kai. From the moment we met, I believed in you. And you’ve shattered that trust like it was nothing.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Is it not?’ she shot back, her eyes wide with disbelief, blazing with fury. ‘The witches murdered my parents. Your sister, Haven. And the witch you now shield with your silence was part of that slaughter!’
‘You’re right,’ he said, lifting his hands in surrender as she advanced. ‘I’ve hated her for it, loathed her for months. But then…’
‘She’s a witch, Kai.’
‘I know.’
Shock crossed Alina’s face before it hardened into suspicion. ‘Don’t you dare tell me you have feelings for her.’
Kai’s jaw tightened like a trap set to spring.
‘She’s a witch!’ she cried, her voice rising. ‘There is no changing that.’
‘She’s different.’
‘Her eyes are purple, Kai! Purple! That’s the mark of what she is. There is no difference.’
‘My sister Mal has purple eyes,’ he replied quietly. ‘Would you call her a monster?’
He stepped closer, the blade in Alina’s grip brushing the fine white silk of his shirt, the edge whispering against flesh where no armour protected him.
Alina turned her face away. ‘Then ask your witch if her hands are clean. If they are not slick with the blood of innocents.’
‘And are yours?’ he asked, voice low, steady. ‘Are mine?’
Her jaw clenched, her fingers tightening around the hilt. ‘She—’
‘She was once your friend, Alina.’
‘And she betrayed me,’ she breathed, her grip so tight her knuckles turned white. Her eyes dropped to where the blade had pierced fabric, pressing against skin. ‘What’s to stop her from doing it again?’
‘Nothing,’ Kai said with a small, sorrowful shrug. ‘That choice lies with you, whether or not you dare to trust her again.’
‘I will never trust a witch.’
‘And I respect that,’ he said, gently wrapping his fingers around the blade and lowering it from his chest. ‘But don’t damn me for being the fool who still might.’
Alina stepped back, slipping her blade into its sheath with a finality that stung more than steel.
Her shoulders were taut, her brown eyes gleaming.
Not with anger, but with the quiet ache of disappointment.
Pain lingered in her stare like a shadow at dusk, and whether Kai had meant to or not, he had put it there.
In that moment, as surely as the moon would rise in the desert sky, Kai knew something within their bond had splintered.
She would never look at him quite the same again.
Never trust him with that unguarded vulnerability he had once been privileged to see.
Whatever future might have lain in the space between them had turned to ash in his hands.
A crack split through the fortress of his wyverian heart.
‘Where is she?’ he asked, though his voice faltered like wind through broken glass, for fate was merciless in how it wrenched people apart.
‘Gone, I imagine,’ Alina said softly, arms folding across her chest like armour.
‘She must’ve left hours ago—’ But Kai didn’t wait for her to finish.
He turned on his heel and bolted through the open doorway, sprinting towards one of the palace terraces.
The wind met him there, sharp with urgency as he scanned the endless horizon.
If the gods held even a sliver of kindness, he might still glimpse the witch.
‘Kai!’ Alina’s voice rang out behind him, stopping him in his tracks. ‘She could be anywhere.’
‘I’ll find her,’ he vowed.
‘Take one of my dragons.’
He froze, turning slowly to meet her gaze. He could see it written across her face. The bitter hurt, the betrayal. But layered beneath it, like the memory of spring beneath snow, was still care. Still love. Still something that hadn’t been fully extinguished.
‘Alina, I—’
‘Oh, shut up, wyverian,’ she muttered, waving him away with a weary hand. ‘You had better be right about her. If not, I’ll feed her to my dragons.’
A grin tugged at the corners of Kai’s lips, and before she could stop him, he stepped forward and wrapped her into a sudden embrace, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
A polite cough made him glance up. Mareena stood nearby, her expression unreadable. But Kai did not release the princess.
It was Alina who pulled away first, putting space between them once more.
‘I have a better option for you,’ Mareena said, stepping forward with the quiet confidence of someone holding a secret. ‘A swifter one.’
She strode to the edge of the balcony, the golden light of the descending sun casting long shadows across her flowing white gown.
Lifting her arms, she released a sound from deep within her throat, neither whistle nor song, but something ancient.
It echoed like a war cry from forgotten lands, resonant and raw.
Moments later, the sky split with golden flame.
An enormous phoenix came hurtling through the dusky heavens, wings outstretched like blazing banners, scattering embers with every beat.
It alighted upon the terrace’s edge, talons gripping stone, feathers crackling with firelight.
Sparks drifted down like stardust as the creature folded its magnificent wings.
Kai and Alina exchanged a glance, stunned to silence, before turning slowly to Mareena.
‘This is Kaelis,’ she said, her voice threaded with reverence as she reached out to stroke the shimmering creature. ‘My phoenix.’
…
Dawn knew she ought to summon her magic, to will herself far from this forsaken desert.
It would be the wise thing—sensible, strategic—to return to her own kind.
And yet, another part of her, the bruised and hollowed part, longed to simply dissolve into the great emptiness of the world.
Out here beneath the endless sky, she was no one.
No lingering stares because of the hue of her eyes.
No whispered condemnations tied to a past steeped in betrayal and regret. Just silence. Just sand. Just solitude.
She was alone.
As the sun dipped beyond the horizon and the moon ascended like a watchful ghost in the heavens, Dawn kept walking.
She did not care where her feet carried her.
If she wandered far enough to never find her way back, so be it.
Perhaps this was her path. To vanish quietly into the dust, a forgotten whisper in the wind.
And who, truly, would miss her?
Hagan had never loved her. She had been a pawn in his schemes, little more. Her sisters loved her, in their own fractured, poisonous way. But even they would not shed tears if she were swallowed by the dunes.
Ash loathed her. Alina even more so.
And Kai…
She refused to allow herself the luxury of hope when it came to Kai Blackburn.
She had witnessed the softness in his stare, the way his dark eyes lingered on her when he thought she wouldn’t notice.
She had caught the silent glances, the subtle care in his voice.
And gods help her, she had basked in it.
She had let herself feel warmth where there should have only been caution.
But it was wrong. All of it.
Because if he ever discovered the truth, if he unearthed her purpose, her deception, there would be no warmth left in his eyes.
Only ruin.
Dawn trudged towards a gap nestled between two rugged hills, the landscape stretching out before her in true phoenixian fashion—sand-strewn and sun-scorched, scattered with craggy rocks and distant mountains like bones of the earth laid bare.
Perhaps there would be a cave tucked somewhere in the stone’s embrace, a place to rest her weary limbs and let tomorrow bring what it would.
Sooner or later, she’d have to crawl back to Hagan, empty-handed, confessing that she had failed to complete the task he had set before her.
Only the gods knew what punishment awaited her for such failure.
But that was a torment for another day. Tonight, she had simpler concerns. Like where she might sleep.
She passed between the stony hills, her boots brushing against loose gravel and her thoughts wandering as freely as her feet.
Maybe it was foolish not to disguise herself.
Wandering these lands with a witch’s face and witch’s eyes was a death wish.
But the desert seemed devoid of life, hollow and silent as a tomb.
There was no one to see her, no one to care.
As the shadows deepened and night took the sky, she lifted her hand to her lips and blew.
A flicker of green fire bloomed in her palm, floating like a ghostly ember, casting its eerie light over the sands.
She pressed on, frowning as her foot sank into a patch of loose earth.
Beneath it, hidden by the sand, yawned a narrow drop.
A hole in the rock that plunged deep into darkness.
She whistled softly at the depth, a quiet warning to herself. The desert, it seemed, had teeth.
She tread more cautiously until her gaze caught sight of a small cave tucked in the arms of the hill ahead. Relief blossomed in her chest, and she quickened her pace. Perhaps the gods had not wholly abandoned her. Perhaps she didn’t need anyone. Not her sisters. Not the witches.
Not Kai Blackburn.
The thought of never seeing him again struck like a blade. But no. She would not allow herself to feel such softness for him. What would be the point? He would only turn against her once the truth surfaced, just as Ash Acheron had done.
Ash, her first love. Her truest heartbreak. He had crushed what they’d shared, doused it in cold ash as though it had never burnt.
Her jaw tightened.
Her heart did not break. It steeled itself.
Ash had broken her in a way no one else ever could.
She had bared her true face to him, laid her soul naked in trembling hope that love might be enough.
That he would see the truth behind the deception and choose to forgive.
But he hadn’t. He had turned away, eyes colder than winter steel, and told her he would spare her life not out of mercy, but because of what they had once shared.
And then, like a blade against the throat, he had sworn that if he ever laid eyes on her again, he would sever her head from her shoulders himself.
Well.
There was one thing the Fire Prince had likely never foreseen.
Her love had curdled into venom. The heartbreak he’d dealt her had twisted into something dark, something vengeful. And from that ruin, she had risen again. Yes, she would return to him. But not in the way Kai believed. That had been a lie.
She would not go back to help Ash.
She would go back to destroy him.
He would pay. Oh, he would pay dearly for the agony, the betrayal, the ruin he had left her in.
Let the world believe she still loved him.
Only Hagan knew the truth. Only he had seen the depths of her loathing.
The way she despised the golden-eyed prince who had once held her heart and shattered it like glass.
Forgiveness was a foreign land she would never travel to.
A smile ghosted across her lips at the thought of killing him. She was grateful Mal Blackburn hadn’t finished the job when she’d buried a dagger in Ash’s side. That fate, that exquisite ending, belonged to her. She would be the one to watch the light flicker out in his golden eyes.
Dawn laughed at the thought, low and sharp, until her foot sank into sand with no stone beneath it.
The ground vanished. The world dropped away.
And her laugh unravelled into a scream. A single, piercing sound swallowed by the vast and indifferent silence of the night.