Chapter One
When I discovered that I was with child, with Hadrian’s child…
The world changed for me. In that moment, nothing else mattered.
Everything I did, everything I became, was for this child.
The love of a mother is unlike any other.
And yet…Why did I have so much love for one child, and for the other, none at all?
Why could I not love the child Hades and I shared?
Why could I never love Melinoe?
I always wondered, deep down, what this would do to the world.
Surely it would ruin it. For a mother is meant to love her child.
No matter what.
Tabitha Wysteria
Mal Blackburn closed her eyes and drew a long breath of her homeland’s air.
Even without sight she smiled, for she could feel the presence that lingered behind her.
Instinctively, her hand drifted to her stomach, where the swell had begun to show.
Soon, her gowns would no longer conceal her secret. She did not mind.
When she opened her eyes and turned, the forest greeted her.
It was a quintessential wyverian wood: shadow-drenched and sinister, veiled in a perpetual mist that devoured one’s feet from view.
Its branches, black as pitch, reached skyward like skeletal arms, and when the red moon ascended, all was steeped in the hue of spilt blood.
And there, but a few paces away, stood Ash Acheron—the Fire King, sovereign of flame, a man wrought of light.
Everything about him called to mind the sun: from the bright fall of his cropped golden hair, to the burnished glow of his skin, to the molten yellow of his eyes. He was all that she was not.
And she was cursed to love him.
Ash smiled that rare, unguarded smile reserved for her alone, yet his attention was swiftly claimed by the wyverns encircling him.
The colossal beasts loosed their thunderous roars in salute, and Mal felt it resonate within the marrow of her bones: the man before her was far more formidable than the world could ever fathom.
Leaving the wyverns in his wake, he crossed the distance with unhurried grace. When he reached her, his hand rose to cradle her face, and his molten-gold eyes—so achingly familiar—locked upon her own purple stare. He spoke no word, nor needed to.
It had been but a few weeks since Mal had defied Persephone and stolen Allegra away, returning thereafter to mortal soil, to the lands of her birth. Ash had followed swiftly, and she had wondered, why? Why did he not reclaim his own kingdom, reignite the fire of conquest that was his birthright?
The answer had been as terrible as it was tender.
If he left her side, the power of the God-Killer would begin to gnaw at her soul, consuming her until nothing of Mal remained.
Bound by a curse that twisted love into both salvation and ruin, Ash alone stood as the bulwark between her and madness.
And so he lingered faithfully at her side, shielding her from the darkness clawing within.
At least until their daughter drew her first breath.
‘My father is still away,’ Mal said as they walked slowly back towards the castle. ‘But I have had word he will not be long.’
Ash inclined his head and pressed a reverent kiss to the back of her hand.
‘I think I shall visit my mother for a while,’ she continued as they crossed the threshold into the castle.
She brushed a fleeting kiss against his lips before turning away, her steps echoing softly as she moved deeper into the familiar halls.
Yet the palace, though unchanged, felt oddly alien to her now.
Once it had been her whole world, but now it seemed both hers and not hers at all.
Each passing servant’s gaze only sharpened the dissonance.
She felt like an outsider in her own domain, a stranger returned to a house that no longer recognised her.
And in truth, she was.
She had not allowed herself to dwell on Persephone’s words.
Not fully. She dared not, not yet. She needed time, time to gather her thoughts, to shape her next move.
For Persephone would not relent; she would not permit Mal to keep Makaria in Hell without exacting a price.
Now that the goddess reigned as Queen of the Underworld, Mal’s heart trembled for Kage’s safety in that realm.
She must find a way to bring him out.
Even though he was already dead.
The thought pierced her chest with sudden violence. She faltered on the cold stone stairway, her hand clutching the railing as her breath caught in her throat.
When she glanced up, she found servants standing at the landing above, watching with quiet alarm. But they need not worry. She was no fragile thing to be undone by grief. She was a wyverian princess, a goddess and now, the God-Killer.
Nothing could touch her. Nothing could harm her.
And yet…
It felt as though someone had torn open her chest and plucked out her black wyverian heart, only to squeeze it tighter with each passing day, until the blood began to seep from its cracks.
She did not know how long the torment would endure, nor what might ever make it cease.
Mal climbed the vast stone staircase, her steps echoing in the silence.
Her attention drifted to the portraits lining the walls—solemn visages of long-dead kings and queens.
She paused before one, memory tugging at her: a night in the library, Kage keeping her there far too late, eager to recount some tale of their great-grandfather.
She had been restless, her foot tapping with impatience, for she could hear the clash of steel outside—Kai sparring—and she longed to be there instead.
Her chest tightened. Where was Kai now? Was he safe?
She pressed on, climbing the last steps and passing into one of the wide, shadow-drenched corridors.
At its end awaited the queen’s chambers.
The room was beautiful still, austere yet majestic, its towering black arches framing a sweeping view of the volcanic mountain upon which the castle had been built.
And there sat Queen Senka, as she always did of late: poised in a dark wooden armchair by the arches, her gaze fixed unflinchingly upon the ashen skyline.
She had once been the embodiment of a wyverian queen; radiant, regal and unfailingly kind.
But the woman before Mal was scarcely recognisable now.
Since Haven’s death she had withered into something fragile, spectral, and none dared breathe a word of Kage’s fate, fearful that grief might shatter her utterly.
Drawing in a steadying breath, Mal stepped forward into her mother’s line of sight.
She sank to her knees, reaching to clasp the queen’s hand in her own.
She tried to ignore the lurking figure in the corner—a panther wrought entirely of shadow, its form fluid and insubstantial, its eyes a piercing blue that seemed to look straight through her, as if it knew precisely what she was.
‘Mother,’ Mal whispered, lifting her gaze into the black, hollow eyes that no longer truly beheld the world. ‘It is me. Mal. I have come for our afternoon reading.’
Her mother gave no reply.
She never did.
A servant slipped quietly into the chamber, carrying the queen’s tea.
With practiced grace, they set the porcelain cup upon the small blackwood table beside her.
Mal inclined her head in thanks before drawing a chair close and settling at her mother’s side.
For a long moment she simply sat, her gaze fixed upon the brooding mountains beyond.
From the distance rose the unmistakable cries of wyverns, their voices raised in exultation at her return.
Yet her heart ached when her eyes strayed to Haven’s and Kage’s beasts.
Their once-bright blue eyes had dulled, as though, in their wyvern hearts, they knew their riders would never come back.
‘Shall I read to you?’ Mal asked softly.
For the briefest heartbeat, the queen’s expression shifted. Though she had not spoken in so long, her lips parted and a whisper escaped, fragile as moth’s wings. ‘Kage is the one who reads to me.’
Mal’s wounded heart constricted until it seemed she could scarcely draw breath.
She rose and crossed to the far side of the chamber, where tall shelves of blackwood held the queen’s treasured tomes.
Her long, pale fingers trailed across their spines, seeking, hesitating until she caught a familiar title.
She plucked the volume free, letting her fingertips linger against the worn leather cover, as if by touch alone she might summon forgotten warmth.
Returning to her seat, Mal looked upon her mother once more, wondering if the light that once illuminated those eyes would ever find its way back.
‘It is a book of poems and short tales,’ Mal said softly, her eyes never leaving her mother. ‘Of the first wyverian king.’
Something flickered in the dark depths of the queen’s stare, but Mal chose not to press.
Instead, she lowered her eyes to the volume resting in her hands, her brow furrowing in quiet doubt.
Could the words within truly be trusted?
They were but tellings and retellings of the first sovereign of her people.
Stories that, in truth, were hers.
For it was she who had been the first royal of the Kingdom of Darkness.
Time and history had twisted the truth, reshaping memory into myth, erasing her. The chronicles proclaimed a man as the first ruler of these shadowed lands, but in truth it had been a woman. A goddess who had come to lay claim to the world her father had wrought.
A goddess who had ensnared Hecate, one who could never return their love.
Mal opened the book, unwilling to linger on Persephone’s revelations. She longed to dismiss them as venomous lies, yet one glance at Thanatos had been enough to unravel that hope. In her heart she had known: the Queen of the Underworld had spoken only truth.
Mal herself had been that first wyverian queen. A spy upon the mother who had abandoned her.
Drawing in a steady breath, Mal began to read.
In the era when stars were young and pale,
And dragons danced through storm and gale,
There rose a king from mountain stone,
Whose shadow walked, whose blood was throne.
His eyes were two flames of purple fire,
Lit hearts with awe and dread-inspired.
No forge nor sword could break his will,
A warrior that made the world stood still.
With blade in hand and a shadow as shield,
He carved his name on every field.
No army stood, no tyrant breathed,
Wherever he and darkness seethed.
He spoke to night as if to kin,
And it obeyed, that dark within.
From creeping mist to sable tide,
His shadows moved, his people’s guide.
A thousand wars, a thousand wins,
He bore no crown, but truth in sins.
A ghost to foes, to kin a flame,
The world would tremble at his name.
He led them not through light or lies,
But through the hush where silence spies.
His warriors learnt to walk the same,
To trust the dark without a name.
And so it was, from that great day,
A phrase took root that would not fray
When marching forth through skies of grey:
“May the shadows guide your way.”
Though time may grind the mountains low,
And stars forget their ancient glow,
His legend walks, still fierce, still near
Where purple eyes bring dusk and fear.
‘Purple eyes,’ Mal breathed, her chest constricting. ‘I had never heard that the first wyverian king bore purple eyes.’
At that, Queen Senka turned her attention upon her daughter.
She said nothing, for she had no need to.
In the silence that passed between them, truth unfurled like a shadowed banner.
Mal understood, without question, that her mother had known.
Perhaps the king had confided in her, or perhaps she had recognised it the moment she carried Mal within her womb.
Whatever the path of revelation, one truth stood immutable: the queen knew what her daughter truly was.
Mal reached for her mother’s hand and closed her fingers around it.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, though Senka’s attention had already drifted back to the ashen horizon. ‘Thank you for loving me.’
And though no words came in reply, the queen’s hand stirred against hers, tightening with the faintest pressure of a silent, tender acknowledgement.