Chapter Twenty-Five
Many years ago being a witch was a thing of pride.
Our purple eyes were a distinction to be proud of.
But then everything changed. All I wanted was to hide these purple curses that marked me as different.
As wrong. That made the other kingdoms despise me for no reason but the colour of my irises.
How could something so small, so insignificant, be so powerful?
Tabitha Wysteria
‘Alina, do not run! We mustn’t run, someone will see!’
But Alina only laughed, wild and unrestrained, as she flew through the corridors of the drakonian castle, her joy echoing off stone and marble.
She wore, as ever, one of her ridiculous red-and-gold gowns, laced so tightly at the waist it looked entirely impossible to breathe in.
Yet Alina had been raised in such finery; if it hurt, she had long since learnt not to notice.
Dawn had not.
Still, she chased after her, skirts gathered in her fists, laughter spilling from her despite herself.
For a fleeting, treacherous moment, she forgot that she was a witch in borrowed skin, that she was meant to be watching, waiting, plotting against the very people she had begun to care for.
One day, she would have to hurt them. Perhaps even kill them.
The thought vanished as Alina burst into one of the castle’s courtyards and tilted her face to the sun, squinting against the light. Without so much as a warning, she seized the stone and began to climb.
‘You are far too old for this, Alina Acheron!’ Dawn shrieked, then groaned as she hiked up her own skirts to follow. ‘If your mother—’
‘My mother is in bed with one of her headaches, Adara,’ Alina called back over her shoulder, already halfway up the wall. ‘Hurry, before one of the Red Guards spots us!’
Dawn muttered a string of curses under her breath, but she climbed all the same, a reluctant smile curving her lips. When they finally hauled themselves onto the top of the wall, they collapsed side by side, breathless and laughing, the sheer absurdity of it all ringing brighter than any alarm.
‘We can see the sun fall from here,’ Alina said softly. ‘I love it. The whole sky burns bright orange, just before the sun decides to disappear.’
‘All of this just to watch the sunset?’ Dawn asked.
Alina shrugged, unbothered. ‘Some things are simply worth it.’
‘Not if your family catches us,’ Dawn muttered under her breath.
Still, she did not want to dull Alina’s joy.
Instead, she leaned closer and reached out, carefully fixing a loose strand of her friend’s hair.
Alina let her, as she did with only a handful of people, those she trusted without question.
Lately, Alina’s brown eyes had held a constant sheen, often reddened, as though she lived on the edge of tears.
Dawn suspected she knew why. Hagan had left in the dead of night to train with the Red Guard, vanishing without a word.
He had told Dawn of his plans beforehand, and of his intention not to tell Alina at all.
It had been deliberate, meant to wound, to make her ache.
He had always been capable of such cruelty, of small, precise acts designed to make Alina cry.
Once, Dawn had taken a bitter satisfaction in it, watching from the shadows as Hagan chipped away at the princess piece by piece. But time had changed her. Years among them had softened something she had not realised could soften. Alina was no longer just a target. She was her best friend.
And Ash…
Dawn’s chest tightened at the thought of him.
She was hopelessly, irrevocably in love.
Dawn had toyed with the temptation of keeping this life, of shedding her past as a witch and wearing this drakonian face forever.
She could marry Ash, she could stay, she could pretend that happiness was something meant for her.
The fantasy was sweet, fragile, and utterly impossible.
Hagan would never allow it. He would tear such a future apart long before it had the chance to breathe.
And so Dawn had resolved to tell Ash the truth.
He loved her. Of that, she was certain. And surely, surely, if love was real enough, strong enough, it could survive a lie. He would forgive her. He would still choose her.
Wouldn’t he?
‘We won’t ever let anything come between our friendship, will we?
’ Dawn asked suddenly, the words tumbling out before she could stop them.
Fear clenched around her heart, sharp and suffocating.
Lately, the thought of confession had made her feel ill, haunted by endless what-ifs.
What if she was wrong? What if they could not forgive her?
What if love, once tested, proved too fragile to endure the truth?
What if she truly was unworthy of being loved at all?
‘Of course not,’ Alina replied without hesitation. She reached for Dawn’s hand and squeezed it, warm and certain. ‘We are sisters, Adara. Nothing will ever change that.’
Dawn jerked upright, her skin slick with sweat, her heart still racing from the remnants of the dream, or perhaps the nightmare. Something struck her face with a soft slap. She swore under her breath and glanced down to find a length of cloth crumpled in her lap.
Lifting her gaze, she spotted Alina standing at the entrance of the tent, already half-turned away.
‘Cover your face with that. It’ll keep you from breathing in the sand. Follow me,’ Alina said briskly, offering no explanation before disappearing into the darkness beyond.
Dawn sat there for a moment, blinking, her thoughts sluggish and tangled.
Then she rolled her purple eyes and did as she was told.
She didn’t want to. A part of her longed to storm out of the tent and hurl the cloth straight back at the princess’s head.
But she had made a promise. A foolish one, perhaps, but a promise all the same.
She had agreed to help Alina learn how to fight blood magic, no matter how dangerous the path ahead might be.
They had decided to keep it from Kai. So they would slip away in silence, seeking solitude in the hours before sunrise while he slept. Dawn didn’t know how long it would take him to notice their absence, but she knew without doubt that when he did, chaos would follow.
She wrapped the cloth tightly over her mouth and nose and followed Alina out into the desert. The safety of the caves had been left behind two days earlier, traded for endless dunes and unforgiving wind. They were now deep in the twelfth region of the Desert Kingdom.
Soon, far too soon, they would stand face to face with King Siroc.
As they marched on, Dawn’s gaze drifted to the far distance, where faint figures moved across the dunes like mirages given form. A chill crept beneath her skin.
‘Ignore them,’ Alina said without breaking stride. ‘They’re ghulas.’
‘Ghulas?’ Dawn echoed, unease tightening her chest.
‘Ghosts of the desert,’ Alina explained calmly. ‘Souls trapped here, doomed to wander. They lure others into joining them by wearing the faces of those you love, whispering familiar words, until you’re lost with no water and no way back.’
Dawn stiffened, her eyes flicking towards one lone figure staggering through the sands as though marching towards nothing at all. When the man suddenly turned, his attention snapping to her, she hurried forward and dropped her gaze to the ground, her pulse hammering.
Alina stopped at last and sank down onto the sand with deliberate ease. Dawn turned, only to realise she could no longer see their camp, nothing but endless dunes stretched behind them.
‘Aren’t we too far?’ she asked quietly.
When her eyes met Alina’s, a knot formed in her stomach. There was something there she didn’t like at all. Satisfaction. A faint, unsettling pleasure in Dawn’s fear.
‘I belong to this desert now,’ Alina said softly. Her hand rose instinctively to the necklace resting against her chest.
Dawn’s eyes lingered on the white stone, luminous even beneath the rising sun. She wanted to ask who had given it to her, wanted to know what claim the desert truly held over the Fire Princess, but she bit her tongue.
Some truths, she knew, Alina would never willingly share.
Dawn lowered herself onto the sand opposite Alina. They watched one another in silence for far too long, the kind of quiet that prickled beneath the skin. At last, Dawn cleared her throat.
‘Teach me how to beat blood magic,’ Alina said, her tone sharp with command.
‘Say please.’
Alina frowned. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I do not work for you, Alina Acheron,’ Dawn replied, straightening her spine. ‘We are not in the Kingdom of Fire, and I am not your servant. Out here, we are equals. So if you want my help, you ask for it. Politely.’
For the briefest fraction of a second, Alina’s brown eyes widened. Then they narrowed, and she smiled.
‘Very well,’ she said smoothly. ‘Please help me, witch.’
‘And don’t call me witch,’ Dawn replied. ‘My name is Dawn.’
Alina tilted her head, amusement flickering across her face. There was something unsettling about her now. There was no hesitation, no fear. Only ironclad resolve burning behind those brown eyes.
‘Dawn,’ Alina repeated, rolling the name across her tongue as though tasting it. As though testing how it might break.
A shiver crawled up Dawn’s spine. She almost wished she had never corrected her. Witch had felt safer, less intimate. Less exposed to the quiet hunger of this princess who looked as though she might devour anything placed too close.
Dawn extended her hand and waited. Alina’s gaze dropped to it, one brow lifting in faint confusion.
‘Drakonians shake hands,’ Dawn said lightly, masking her nerves with a thread of amusement. ‘So I’m not sure why you look quite so lost.’
‘Why are we shaking hands?’ Alina asked. ‘Is this part of the training?’
‘No,’ Dawn replied softly. ‘This is part of new beginnings.’ She couldn’t stop the small smile that curved her lips at the way Alina’s eyes widened, just a touch. ‘If we are going to do this, we start again. You may continue to hate me if you wish, but from this moment on, we begin anew.’
Alina sighed, long and slow, then reached out and clasped Dawn’s hand, giving it a firm shake.
Dawn knew, deep down, that this changed nothing. Alina would never truly trust her, never fully forgive her. No matter how much the Fire Princess reshaped herself, at her core she would always remain the drakonian girl Dawn had met all those years ago. Still, she had to try.
Because even if she would never dare speak it aloud, Dawn wanted Alina’s forgiveness. She wanted her love again, fragile and fleeting though it might be.
She knew it would not last. She knew that when the day came, when Dawn drove a blade through Ash Acheron’s heart and stole his life, Alina would never forgive her.
And Dawn could live with that.
She could not quite understand why she yearned for Alina’s friendship again when her hatred for Ash still burnt so fiercely.
Why did the loss of one ache more deeply than the other?
Perhaps because Ash had been a lover, and Alina a friend.
Perhaps because friendship, once broken, left a quieter, hollower wound.
Dawn did not know. She only knew that whenever her thoughts strayed to Ash, rage coiled hot and merciless in her chest.
For so long, she had excused him. Had told herself he could never love her because she was a witch, because she was wrong in some essential, unchangeable way.
But then she had learnt the truth—that he had married Mal Blackburn, that he loved her, a princess with the same purple eyes Dawn herself possessed.
And in that moment, something inside Dawn had shattered beyond repair.
Because it meant it had never been about her eyes.
It had been her.
She was the flaw. The thing unworthy of love.
Every fear she had carried since childhood rose up and claimed its victory.
Her mother had left…why would she have stayed for Dawn?
Her sister Vera had left as well…why would she have chosen Dawn over herself?
Even Hagan had been incapable of loving her, despite the years Dawn had spent trailing after him, obeying and enduring.
And Ash…Ash had loved another without hesitation.
No one had ever chosen Dawn.
No one had ever loved her.
Dawn did not release Alina’s hand. Instead, her fingers tightened, knuckles whitening, until the Fire Princess hissed softly and winced at the pressure.
‘Are you ready?’ Dawn asked.
She had kept her blood magic buried deep, hidden from every watchful eye.
It had been Hagan who taught her in secret, forcing the knowledge upon her when she had refused to learn it willingly.
She had never used it. Not once. Not out of weakness, but out of defiance.
Blood magic was vile, corruptive. She had sworn to herself she would never touch it. Never let it stain her hands.
And yet here she sat, breaking that promise with full awareness of what it would cost her.
Alina nodded, drawing herself taller, squaring her shoulders as resolve hardened her gaze. Her grip remained firm around Dawn’s hand, unyielding, as if anchoring herself to the moment.
‘I’m ready,’ she said.
Dawn inhaled slowly, deeply, and summoned the magic she despised.
‘Good,’ she replied, her voice steady even as the power stirred beneath her skin. ‘Because this is going to hurt.’ Her purple eyes darkened. ‘A lot.’