Chapter Fourteen
If the desert isn’t trying to kill you, it means you are already dead.
Tabitha Wysteria
One of Alina’s dragons began to falter. She had driven them all relentlessly—people and beasts alike—but the instant one broke from the formation and descended to the ground, she knew she had gone too far.
Alina guided her own dragon down beside it and leapt to the earth, rushing to the creature’s side.
Its eyes were shut, its great chest heaving with laboured breaths.
‘It needs rest,’ Mareena said gently, laying a steadying hand against the dragon’s flank as she examined it. Seeing that they would be halted for a while, the two Dunayans—Arena and Isla—unsheathed their weapons and moved off at once to survey the surrounding terrain.
‘Alina!’
She ignored the sharp edge in Kai’s voice and fixed him with the coldest look she could summon. The witch hurried to his side, her hand closing around his arm in a quiet plea for restraint. He must have felt it, because his posture eased. He exhaled, then turned his attention back to the dragon.
‘We should make camp,’ he said, choosing his words carefully over whatever he had first intended to shout.
Alina nodded, teeth catching briefly on her lower lip as irritation rushed through her. She stared towards the horizon, measuring the distance still left between them and the king.
‘We’ll reach him sooner or later,’ Kai added, stepping closer and giving her arm a light, playful pinch. The simple gesture loosened something tight in her chest.
She nodded again.
They were right. She could not keep driving them all so hard. The king would still be there whether it took another day or two. She needed to still her racing thoughts, to temper her hunger for vengeance. Her revenge would come. It would be answered, one day.
She only needed to learn patience.
The ground shuddered beneath their feet.
Alina saw Arena and Isla sprinting back towards them, desert blades raised, their movements sharp with urgency. She did not hesitate. Snatching her own dagger, she stilled herself and listened. Not with her ears, but with her body, as the tremors rolled through the sand.
‘What is that?’ Kai demanded.
‘Raise a barrier to protect my dragon!’ Alina commanded. She glanced skyward, where several of her dragons wheeled above them, circling in tight, frantic arcs, their roars heavy with distress.
She did not know what to expect, but the instant she caught the flash of fear in the Dunayans’ pale eyes, she understood it would be nothing good.
The dune before them erupted.
Sand exploded outward as something hauled itself free from the depths—a creature Alina had never seen before.
Something so grotesque and abhorrent that even nightmares would have recoiled from shaping it.
It was long and sinuous like a colossal worm, but its maw was a gaping circle lined with countless jagged teeth, yawning wide in hunger.
Spikes studded its body, and as it moved, sections of it rotated independently, grinding and twisting in a lethal dance that could shear a person in two.
‘Sandwyrm!’ Arena shouted.
The beast surged towards them.
Alina retreated instinctively, placing herself between it and her exhausted dragon, which still lay panting on the ground.
Her grip tightened around her dagger, the blade suddenly feeling pitifully small.
She had no idea how she was meant to defend her beast with nothing but a desert knife when the creature before them towered like the great desert serpents she had once ridden with Hessa.
And yet, she would try.
Dawn and Mareena surged forward together.
Dawn did not hesitate. She raised her tattooed hands and green smoke unfurled from her palms, thick and poisonous.
Mareena was already moving, golden glove secured, magic igniting at her fingertips.
In unison, they hurled blasts of green power at the beast. The sandwyrm recoiled, retreating a short distance, visibly stunned and confused by such force unleashed by prey it had deemed insignificant.
Arena and Isla were already in motion, fanning out and circling the creature with weapons poised, their movements precise and deadly.
And Kai was charging straight towards its gaping maw.
Alina swore under her breath.
He was going to get himself killed.
Before she could shout a warning or rush to his aid, the ground behind them erupted. Another dune exploded outward. Alina stumbled, her foot catching in the shifting sand, and she fell hard to her knees. Pain flared, but it vanished the instant she looked up.
Another sandwyrm burst from the earth, impossibly close to her fallen dragon.
Alina opened her mouth to scream.
The sound never came.
The creature lunged, its monstrous jaws tearing into her dragon, ripping flesh as though it were nothing more than cloth. Alina’s heart shattered at the sight. Her soul fractured as her beast shrieked in agony, the sound cutting off only when its spirit finally tore free from its ruined body.
Alina did not pause to grieve.
She spun towards her belongings, seized the staff Mareena had prepared for her, the one steeped in magic, and ran. Rage drove her forward, grief burning hot in her chest. She raised the staff, aiming it straight into the nightmare mouth that had stolen her dragon.
Green magic exploded from the staff, pouring directly into the creature’s throat. The sandwyrm reeled as its mouth tore wider, blood raining down over Alina like a violent storm.
But it was not enough.
The beast let out a horrifying, grinding cry and surged towards her.
Alina lifted her staff once more.
Her breath caught the instant she realised how close the sandwyrm truly was. Too close. Before she could will the magic to answer her call again, the creature loomed over her, vast and dreadful, its circular maw yawning wide, ready to swallow her whole.
She did not scream. There was no time.
She curled inward on instinct, one hand clenching the staff, the other still gripping her desert dagger, as though steel and magic together might be enough. Sand and shadow closed in.
And for the first time in a very long while, as the sandwyrm descended and darkness consumed her, Alina prayed for salvation.
…
Dawn had been hurling magic alongside Mareena when she felt the ground rupture behind them. She spun on her heel, purple eyes widening as another sandwyrm tore free from the earth, rearing up behind the wounded dragon. And then she saw Alina, all alone, charging it.
And Dawn, rotten as she was, hoped for a single, shameful heartbeat, that the creature would tear Alina apart.
The thought lasted no more than a second.
Revulsion followed immediately. She cursed herself for it, crushed it down, erased it as best she could.
Yet it lingered, the echo of something twisted and ugly.
It was so hard, sometimes, not to hate her.
Not to hate the girl who had once been her closest friend.
The girl who had broken her. Who had made her feel smaller. Lesser.
Unworthy.
Unlovable.
How was Dawn meant to forgive someone who had made her believe she deserved every terrible thing that had ever been done to her?
How was she meant to care for someone who had sworn they were sisters, who had promised it was them against the world, only to shatter that bond and turn away as if Dawn had never mattered at all?
As if Dawn’s heart were incapable of breaking.
Because witches were not meant to feel.
And though Dawn sometimes wished that were true, wished she could be empty—the truth was far crueler.
She felt too much.
And she cared far more than she ever should have.
And so, without pausing to think, Dawn ran towards Alina, her hands blazing with green smoke, magic rising to the surface, ready to defend the girl who had once been her best friend.
But she was too late.
The sandwyrm reared up, then smashed back down into the earth, dragging Alina with it. Its vast mouth split open and swallowed the Fire Princess whole.
Dawn screamed.
She froze where she stood, purple eyes stretched wide with terror. When the sandwyrm lifted its head again, Alina was gone, vanished without a trace. Dawn scanned the ground desperately, searching for blood, for torn fabric, for anything that proved the princess had been there at all.
There was nothing.
Her hands rose again, trembling as her teeth clenched hard.
‘Kai!’ she shouted, her voice tearing free of her chest. She hoped and prayed that he would hear her.
He was at her side within seconds, his gaze sweeping over her, checking her for injuries. Dawn forced herself to ignore the warmth that bloomed in her chest at the realisation that he was worried for her.
‘It’s Alina,’ she said, breathless. ‘She’s been—’ Her words faltered as she glanced back at the creature, eyes wide.
Before Kai could demand an explanation, the sandwyrm surged towards them, its massive body writhing, spikes rotating in a lethal dance.
Then it stopped.
Dawn frowned, tilting her head at the unnatural stillness. The sandwyrm let out a sound unlike anything she had ever heard, a noise that did not belong to life, but to death itself. Kai’s grip closed around her arm as he pulled her back, instinct sharp and urgent.
Whatever was happening…
It was not over.
The sandwyrm collapsed in on itself, thrashing and writhing across the ground, its hide shuddering as its mouth hung wide, spewing those dreadful, otherworldly sounds. The noise grew louder, more frantic, as though the creature were tearing itself apart from the inside.
Dawn could not comprehend what she was seeing. Every instinct screamed at her to run forward, to tear Alina from the beast’s body, but what would she find if she did? A lifeless corpse? Shattered remnants of the Fire Princess? The thought lodged in her throat like a blade, stealing her breath.
She took a step, muscles coiling, ready to fight whatever remained.
Kai stopped her.
He pulled her back against his chest, arms locking around her with unyielding strength. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he warned.
‘Alina…’ Dawn whispered.
‘What?’ Kai stiffened.
‘That thing ate her!’
Before he could answer, the sandwyrm convulsed violently. Its flesh split apart with a wet, thunderous rupture, chunks of it bursting outward in all directions. A blinding light flared from within its body, brilliant and searing, and more of the creature’s ruined flesh was flung into the air.
Dawn gasped.
The sandwyrm let out one final, hollow sound before falling still, its massive form collapsing into silence.
And there, at the torn centre of its body, stood Alina Acheron.
She was drenched in blood and viscous fluids Dawn did not wish to name, standing amid the remains of the creature that had tried to devour her. Dawn stared, eyes wide, heart hammering, scarcely daring to believe the sight before her.
Alina raised her staff once more, and magic tore through the air. Flesh exploded away from her in violent bursts, raining down as she forced her way free.
She stepped out of the sandwyrm’s corpse, grip locked tight around both staff and desert dagger.
Her brown eyes were narrowed with a hunger Dawn had never seen before, not even in Hagan.
A hunger to survive.
To avenge.
To claim power.
Kai and Dawn could only watch as Alina emerged fully from the creature’s ruined body, blood trailing behind her. She took two unsteady steps before collapsing to her knees, breath tearing in and out of her chest.
She looked up at them, chest heaving, dragging a hand across her face only to smear it with more blood and filth.
And then she laughed.
Kai rushed towards her at once. Dawn did not move. She stood frozen, eyes wide, staring at the woman before her, the woman she had thought she knew. Perhaps she once had.
But this was no longer the Fire Princess.
This was something else entirely.
Something forged in teeth and darkness.
Something dangerous.
Dawn swallowed, unease tightening her throat, as Kai knelt beside Alina, gripping her shoulders and checking her for wounds. Alina remained on her knees, laughing softly, staring at nothing at all, as though some unseen door had opened inside her, and there was no closing it again.