Chapter Forty
I’ve never told anyone this.
It is a secret I have kept, and will keep, until the end of my days. But I write it in this diary as a confession.
I had grown distant from my mother for many years. Especially when I was older and discovered that I was in actual fact, a goddess named Hecate. My mother and I never saw eye to eye. And in the end, I ended up despising her.
I don’t know why I did it.
I’ve always been good with poison.
Tabitha Wysteria
Mal stared at the abundance laid across the long stone dining table in the main hall, her brows lifting in open surprise.
Platters and parcels covered the surface in uneven clusters, their scents thick and heavy in the air.
Only minutes ago, Morthos had returned, unloading packages from the back of his wyvern with the ease of a man long accustomed to travelling between skies and kingdoms.
‘I’ve also brought some fresh produce,’ he announced, clapping Ash on the back with a grin. ‘So the Fire King might not starve to death.’
‘I appreciate it,’ Ash replied, polite as ever.
‘Where do you get it from?’ Mal asked, leaning forward to pluck a handful of grapes already soft with decay.
She rolled them between her fingers before popping one into her mouth.
To outsiders, the sight of wyverians eating was often unsettling; their food had to be rotten.
Touched by time. It was said that Hades himself had once cursed them to consume only spoilt fare, hoping to drive Hecate from mortal lands and back into his waiting arms. The curse had not worked.
Mal had meant to ask her father whether the old tale was true.
Something in her bones told her it was.
She brushed her hand along Ash’s arm, offering him a small smile.
He barely glanced at the food before them.
The weeks spent stranded in the Kingdom of Darkness had carved him thinner, the sharpness of his cheekbones more pronounced.
Back in the wyverian castle, securing fresh provisions for him had been simple enough.
Here, isolated and reliant upon whatever Morthos could scavenge or barter, it had become a quiet, gnawing struggle.
‘There’s a little village not far from here,’ Morthos explained, motioning for them to sit and make use of the feast. ‘I travel there once a month for supplies. I may have to go more often…’ His gaze lingered on Ash. ‘Your food doesn’t keep very long.’
‘How do you pay for it?’ Mal asked.
She ignored the faint crease that formed between Ash’s brows at her bluntness. The question was not just plain curiosity. She needed to know whether her father, King Ozul, still ensured his younger brother wanted for nothing or whether he had truly cast Morthos aside.
Morthos seemed to hear the unspoken weight beneath her words.
‘I supplied the village many years ago with one of my wyverns,’ he said. ‘It allows them to travel between settlements, to trade with those who cannot journey themselves. In return, they’ve kept me fed all these years.’
Mal leaned back slowly, a grape poised between her fingers before she let it fall into her mouth. She studied her uncle in silence, tasting both the fruit and the answer.
She could not decide whether she felt relief or disappointment.
Morthos had once attempted to murder her. She understood why her father might sever such a bond. And yet…King Ozul had always been attentive and fiercely devoted to his kin. The thought that he had truly turned his back on his own brother unsettled her.
It made her wonder whether she had ever truly known her father at all.
‘I read to mother this morning,’ Mal announced, brushing the conversation aside as though it were nothing more than smoke. ‘She seems a little more herself lately.’
‘Reading to her must help,’ Morthos replied quietly.
Mal gave a small shrug. ‘Perhaps.’
Ash reached for her hand beneath the table and squeezed, grounding and warm. ‘Mal and I will s-spend the mor-morning with the wy-wyverns.’
‘I wish to fly,’ she added.
Morthos’ dark stare drifted, almost instinctively, to the gentle curve of her stomach. ‘Is it wise, in your condition?’
Mal snorted softly. ‘Uncle. Wyverian queens have flown with child since the dawn of time. I believe I shall survive a short flight.’
He inclined his head and returned his attention to his plate, long strands of hair falling forward to shield his expression.
‘I could cut your hair for you,’ she offered suddenly.
The words surprised even her. She did not quite understand why she felt compelled to extend such kindness. Perhaps some small, inconvenient part of her did not hate him entirely. Perhaps she recognised in him, what it meant to be shaped and twisted by their mother’s will.
Morthos looked up sharply. Surprise flashed in his eyes, followed by something warier. As though he could not decide whether her offer concealed a blade.
‘It must be difficult to cut your own,’ Mal continued lightly, tilting her head, a crooked smile ghosting over her lips. ‘I’m not planning to slit your throat, Morthos. If that is what troubles you.’
She ignored the subtle warning tug Ash gave her hand.
‘I know,’ Morthos said, clearing his throat.
‘Are you certain?’
Ash cleared his own throat more firmly and rose, gently pulling Mal to her feet.
He pressed a soft kiss to the side of her neck before turning to Morthos.
‘We will go to the wy-wyverns now. Ignore my wi-wife. She likes to tease.’ His smile was almost painfully sincere as he regarded the wyverian, who looked both mournful and uncertain beneath the curtain of his hair.
‘Trust me. It’s a good sign if she t-teases you. It means she li-likes you.’
Mal reached for one of Ash’s dragon horns, but he ducked away with a laugh. She followed him out of the keep and down the narrow path that wound towards the beach. The wyverns had gathered there at dawn—Morthos’ wild beasts and her own—vast silhouettes against the restless sea.
Ash lingered only long enough to ensure Mal was securely seated upon Nyx before making his way to Daku. Mal stuck her tongue out at him, rolling her purple eyes in theatrical exasperation at his concern.
‘I’m a wyverian,’ she reminded him. ‘Perfectly capable of mounting a wyvern. Pregnant or not.’
‘I know,’ he replied, swinging up onto Daku’s back. ‘But I like fussing over you.’
Her eyes narrowed with dangerous amusement. ‘Is that so?’ A teasing smile curved her lips. ‘Let’s see if you can keep up.’
‘Don’t—’
She was already laughing as Nyx unfurled her vast, shadow-dark wings and hurled herself into the sky. Mal did not grant him a heartbeat more. The wind tore at her hair as the wyvern surged forward, and she heard Ash swear behind her, urging Daku into pursuit.
Mal’s laughter scattered across the beach like gull cries as she skimmed low over the sand before directing Nyx out above the storm-lashed sea. The air tasted of salt and freedom. It had been so long since she had felt this unbound that the sensation bordered on pain.
Ash caught up with her over the water, laughter still clinging to his lips as he twisted to ensure the rest of the wyverns followed in a loose, living constellation behind them.
She watched him, watched the way his golden eyes shone, bright with unguarded joy, and tried to carve the image into her very soul, so that even when she was gone, it would remain.
‘I love you,’ she mouthed when he glanced back at her.
It was both beautiful and unbearable to witness the way his entire face illuminated at those silent words.
Such a small confession, and yet it transformed him utterly.
In that suspended moment, she longed for the power to still time itself, to stretch this fragile joy thin and endless, so that the future could never reach forward and prise them apart.
They drifted back towards the beach at an unhurried pace, the wyverns descending in wide, graceful arcs before settling upon the dark sands. Ash was at her side within moments of leaping from Daku, his hand already reaching for hers, as if afraid she might vanish should he delay.
‘What if we stayed here?’ Mal asked when his arms wrapped around her. She pressed her forehead lightly against his chest. ‘When Medea is born… we could remain. The three of us.’
For a fleeting breath she saw it reflected in his golden eyes—a quiet life carved from storm and ruin, a fragile sanctuary untouched by prophecy. But the light in him dimmed almost at once, shadowed by something heavier. He shook his head.
‘Promise me you won’t ha-hate me,’ he murmured, his lips hovering so close to hers that his words brushed her skin. ‘For everything that is to co-come our way.’
Mal squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers tightening around his arms as though anchoring herself against a rising tide.
‘I promise.’
‘No matter what?’
‘No matter what.’
They walked back towards the keep hand in hand, their steps in quiet rhythm. Peace had become such a rare visitor in her life that she scarcely trusted it, and yet here, since their arrival, she had begun to feel something like her old self stirring beneath the weight of the God-Killer’s whispers.
She could almost see it: mornings spent reading softly to her mother while sea-winds curled through the windows; shared meals at the long stone table with Ash and her uncle; slow walks along the shore with Ash at dusk, wyverns crying in the distance like guardians of the horizon.
She could see their daughter too—Medea—safe in this forgotten corner of the world, untouched by gods and curses, unafraid of the vast, merciless world beyond the cliffs.
For a moment, she allowed herself to believe it could be enough.
Ash had stopped so abruptly that Mal nearly collided with him. She glanced up, confusion knitting her brow, only to follow the direction of his stare. Down the narrow path that wound towards the keep, Morthos was descending, his steps uneven, as though the earth itself resisted him.
They did not move.
Mal felt it before she understood it—the way her body went rigid, the way the air thickened in her lungs. There was something wrong in the way her uncle walked. Something broken in the way his shoulders sagged.
She swallowed, her fingers tightening painfully around Ash’s hand.
‘What is it?’ she asked, though her voice trembled before the words fully formed. ‘What’s happened?’
Morthos reached them, but speech seemed beyond him. His dark eyes flicked to Mal, then to Ash, then back again. His hands were shaking. Wyverians did not shake.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mal screamed, her voice splintering against the wind and waves.
For a heartbeat, there was only the sea.
‘It’s the queen,’ Morthos said at last, his voice so quiet it barely carried over the surf. He lifted his gaze fully to Mal’s, and in his eyes she saw it. Saw the truth before he finished speaking.
The world did not shatter.
It simply fell away.
‘Queen Senka is dead.’