Chapter Twenty
I once found a book on the different creatures that exist in the desert. It was so long it made me realise that there are very few things out there that will not try to eat you.
Tabitha Wysteria
The small group of six travellers pressed on after surviving the attack of the two sandwyrms. It was Arena who warned them first that the air had shifted, and a sandstorm was rolling in.
Without shelter, their skin would be flayed raw from their bodies; they were woefully unequipped to withstand such fury.
Fortune, at least, had not entirely abandoned them.
Arena and Isla had scouted ahead and discovered a range of mountains riddled with caves, vast enough to shelter them, the eleven dragons that now followed in their wake and the golden phoenix.
The beasts settled restlessly, sensing the coming storm.
Alina had not spoken since one of her dragons had been devoured. She moved apart from the others, wrapped in her silence, turning a blind eye to their concerned glances and unspoken questions. Grief clung to her like sand to sweat.
And yet, she was never truly alone.
Hessa walked beside her, as she always did, offering that gentle, familiar smile, the kind that softened something deep within Alina’s chest. Even here, even now, even lost amid storm and death, Alina felt a fragile sense of home.
Alina tensed the instant Mareena’s hand brushed her arm in greeting, once they had settled within the shelter of the cave.
No fire burnt, for the day was still bright, the air too warm, and the stone walls held the heat like a held breath.
Alina had chosen a place by the mouth of the cave, where she could watch the sandstorm gathering on the horizon, a distant wall of gold and shadow.
It was still hours away, yet her skin prickled with restless unease.
They were so close now. Close enough that she almost thought she could scent Hessa’s homeland on the wind.
At times she closed her eyes and let herself drift back to days spent hunting with Hessa, riding great serpents across the dunes, or wandering beneath starlight with their fingers entwined.
Memories clung to her, sharp and aching.
Seeking distraction, Alina reached for the enchanted staff, determined to examine it properly at last.
Only then did she realise that it no longer responded.
‘It’s run out of magic,’ Mareena explained, lowering herself to sit beside her. Alina could not help but notice how the faint, comforting presence of Hessa seemed to retreat each time Mareena appeared, vanishing beneath that familiar edge of worry.
‘What does that mean?’ Alina asked. Her skin itched where sweat and sand clung stubbornly together. They had not bathed in days, and it was beginning to weigh on her more than she cared to admit.
‘It means we need more,’ Mareena replied.
As if bound by the same thought, both women glanced over their shoulders towards Kai and the witch, who stood some distance away, clearly embroiled in yet another quiet disagreement.
Frustration twisted in Alina’s chest at the sight.
Not because she still cared for Kai as a lover, that wound had long since closed, but because he had chosen to feel something for a witch. And not just any witch. That one.
‘The witch won’t give me more blood,’ Alina muttered, brushing sand from her white trousers, already dulled and stained from travel.
‘She will if our survival depends on it,’ Mareena said calmly.
‘Are you so sure?’ Alina shot back, her tone sharpening. ‘I think she’d be delighted to see us dead.’
Mareena tilted her head thoughtfully. ‘Then perhaps it is him we need to convince.’ She nodded subtly towards Kai.
Alina frowned. ‘Kai?’
‘Perhaps you ought to… seduce him.’
Alina let out a short, incredulous laugh. ‘I doubt he can be seduced.’
Mareena leaned closer, close enough that Alina caught her scent—honey and rosemary, impossibly gentle in the heart of the desert. Noticing her curiosity, Mareena drew a small pouch from her pocket. ‘I rub it on my neck.’
Alina smiled despite herself.
‘All men can be seduced,’ Mareena said, inching closer still, until their breaths mingled. For a fleeting moment, Alina forgot the storm, the staff, the blood, the danger. Her gaze dropped, unbidden, to Mareena’s lips. ‘One simply needs to know the art of seduction.’
Alina’s breath hitched the instant Mareena pressed a kiss to her cheek, those lips lingering close enough to her mouth to leave a ghost of warmth behind.
With a knowing smile, Mareena straightened and walked away, leaving Alina sitting there, heart pounding far too loudly in her chest. She wondered, dazedly, whether Mareena had turned that art of seduction upon her instead simply to prove a point.
Alina had never been adept at such things. No matter how many elaborate gowns her mother had draped her in, no matter how carefully her blonde hair had been brushed, braided, and adorned, seduction had never come naturally to her. She had never known how to wield it.
No. Alina was not like women such as Mareena, who could sway their hips and draw every stare in the room, who could still men with nothing more than a look. She was not made for that kind of power.
Alina was something else entirely.
And Alina would do what she did best.
She would bend others to her will through manipulation and deceit.
…
The sandstorm had been raging at full force for the past two hours, and Dawn had kept herself as far from the cave’s mouth as possible, away from where the desert howled and clawed.
The caverns branched and burrowed deep into the rock, some tunnels dipping low into the earth and opening into hidden chambers where small, natural pools gleamed like secret jewels.
Since discovering them, the group had taken turns washing their clothes and bathing, grateful for such rare mercy in the midst of the desert.
Dawn had waited patiently for her turn. Now she sat submerged in the pool, eyes closed, her body slack with relief, the warm water easing aches she had carried for far too long. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, she was at peace.
Until someone stepped into the water and shattered it.
Dawn snapped her eyes open and sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of Alina standing in the pool, naked as the day she was born, water sliding over skin as if she had no shame of it at all.
‘I thought we were taking turns,’ Dawn said, struggling to keep the edge from her voice as she stared at Alina’s unexpected intrusion.
‘I wanted to talk to you.’
Dawn let out a humourless huff. ‘Of course you did.’
Alina smiled, a slow, knowing curve of her lips that spoke only of trouble.
Dawn studied the Fire Princess with care.
She had changed, irrevocably so, from the girl Dawn had once known, back when she herself had hidden behind the drakonian noble’s name, Adara.
In those days, Alina Acheron had been sharp-tongued and arrogant, a know-it-all princess cushioned by privilege, living beneath a crown in a kingdom that quietly crushed its women into obedience.
Now… now Alina was something else entirely.
Dawn could not yet name it.
‘What do you want?’ Dawn asked at last, unwilling to dance in circles or waste breath on pleasantries.
‘Why do you want to kill Hagan?’ Alina asked.
The question struck like a blade.
Dawn’s body went taut, every instinct flaring.
How could she possibly answer that? She would not confess that Hagan was her half-brother.
She would not admit that her hatred was rooted in something far more poisonous—that their mother had chosen him over them.
Nor would she reveal the deeper truth: that she did not truly care whether Hagan lived or died. His fate meant nothing to her.
She wanted someone else’s head.
Ash Acheron’s.
But Dawn would rather bite her own tongue out than bare any of that to Alina. Not to the same girl who had once been her closest friend. The girl she had whispered secrets with in the dark, giggling beneath blankets, talking of boys and futures that had never come to pass.
‘Never mind,’ Alina said lightly. ‘I don’t particularly care whether you wish to kill him or not. Everyone else seems convinced you do, but I know you too well for that.’
Dawn’s eyes hardened. ‘What do you want, Alina?’
‘I want you to teach me blood magic,’ Alina replied, her brown eyes locking onto Dawn with unnerving focus. ‘I want you to teach me how to fight it. So that no witch can ever use it against me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’ Alina’s voice turned glacial, sharp enough to draw blood all on its own.
‘Because I don’t know how to use blood magic.’
Alina’s expression twisted, a smile unfurling across her beautiful face. It was not a kind smile. It was the sort Dawn imagined would grace Death itself when it finally came calling.
‘We grew up together, Adara,’ Alina said softly. ‘I know you inside and out, whether you like it or not.’ She stepped closer, until there was no space left between them, until Dawn could feel the heat of her. ‘And because of that, I know exactly when you’re lying.’
Dawn’s already rigid body locked completely still, as though she had turned to stone.
Alina stepped back, humming to herself as she twisted away and let her fingers trail through the water. She glanced over her shoulder and offered one last sweet, almost innocent, and so achingly familiar smile. The kind of smile she used to wear years ago.
‘Why do you want this?’ Dawn asked at last, her voice finally finding its way back to her.
Alina froze. Her hands remained lifted as droplets slipped from her fingers, falling back into the pool one by one. She stared at them as if they held the answers she had been chasing all along.
‘Because,’ she said quietly, ‘I want to become invincible.’