Chapter Forty-Five
Jealousy can be so destructive.
But it’s almost impossible to control. It is a growing sensation in the pit of your stomach that branches out across the entirety of your soul.
Until all you can do, think or believe are the sick and twisted thoughts your mind has conjured.
It never is real, these poisonous words that slither into you.
But they are there, nonetheless. Twisting you.
Breaking you. Until you no longer know what is real and what is not.
Tabitha Wysteria
Dawn smoothed the thin blanket across the narrow cot she had been assigned during her brief stay in this forsaken stretch of desert.
The chamber was modest; three cots arranged side by side and a shallow stone basin in the corner where the desert folk washed their faces and feet before prayer.
The air still held the faint scent of sand and sun-warmed stone.
She had been made to share the room with Alina and Mareena and had pointedly ignored them the night before, silence wrapped around her like armour. By the time she had woken, their belongings were gone, as though they had never occupied the space at all.
Kai appeared at the archway, which held no door, only a curtain meant to grant the illusion of privacy. He leaned against the carved stone frame, arms folded across his chest, a slow smile stretching over his face as he watched her.
‘Is something amusing you, commander?’ Dawn asked, folding the blanket with careful precision before placing it neatly at the foot of the bed.
‘I’ve never seen you make a bed before,’ he replied.
Dawn rolled her eyes, though she did not look at him. ‘And that is somehow entertaining to you, is it?’
‘Didn’t think you’d know how.’ He gave a casual shrug, a quiet laugh rumbling in his throat. ‘With all that magic of yours. Thought perhaps you’d simply command the blankets to fold themselves.’
‘It isn’t as though I can use that here,’ Dawn muttered, lowering her voice instinctively. Even the walls in this place felt as though they might be listening. She turned to him then, arching a brow. ‘Are you going to help me, or are you content to stand there looking like an idiot?’
She had not expected him to obey. Kai Blackburn was not a man who followed orders easily, least of all hers. So when he laughed and pushed himself off the archway to join her, finishing the last corners of the bedding with surprising diligence, she faltered.
For a moment, she simply watched him.
He was infuriatingly beautiful.
She had noticed the way eyes followed him through the mountain corridors, how women paused mid-step, conversations faltering as they stared.
Partly, perhaps, because he was wyverian and exotic in a land of sand and sun.
But that was not all. There was something about Kai, something reckless and bright, something that pulled attention like a flame drew moths.
‘You’re drooling again,’ he said lightly.
Dawn snapped her gaze to his face, narrowing her eyes. ‘I do not drool.’
‘I’m truly not complaining,’ he replied, mischief glinting in his dark eyes. ‘I just wouldn’t want you soaking the bedding I’ve just so carefully folded for you.’
Heat flooded her cheeks before she could stop it. Her attention dropped traitorously to the cot, to the neatly laid sheets.
And for a fleeting, treacherous second, she imagined him there. Stretched out across them. Bare.
‘Are you picturing me naked right now?’ he asked, far too perceptive for her liking.
Dawn hissed under her breath and snatched one of the folded blankets, hurling it at his head. He moved with effortless grace, stepping aside so it fluttered uselessly to the floor.
‘Are you not picking that up?’ he called after her as she muttered a curse and strode out of the room.
She needed air. Cold water. Anything to cool the fire beneath her skin.
She would not allow him to see how easily he unsettled her, how his teasing slipped beneath her armour and curled there, dangerous and warm.
‘Stop following me,’ she snapped the moment she sensed him behind her—the faint shift of air, the warmth of his presence far too close.
‘I’m not following you,’ he replied easily. ‘We’re leaving in five minutes. I’m heading outside. We just happen to be walking in the same direction.’
‘You’re insufferable.’
‘And you’re beautiful.’
The words struck her mid-step.
Dawn nearly stumbled, catching herself against the rough stone wall. She looked over her shoulder slowly, suspicion sharpening her stare.
‘Don’t do that.’
His brow furrowed. ‘Do what?’
‘Play these ridiculous games.’ Her voice tightened. ‘It isn’t funny.’
‘I’m not playing.’
She stopped altogether and turned on him, pressing her fingers hard into his chest. ‘Do not lie to me. Why do you keep saying things like that?’
Her voice betrayed her and she hated herself for it. She had shown him too much already. Too many fractures. And now he was prying at them.
‘Because it’s true,’ he said quietly, and there was no teasing in him now. No smirk. ‘Dawn, you’re beautiful.’
She stepped back as though burnt.
‘Of course I am like this.’ She gestured at her borrowed wyverian form—the perfect skin, the polished features, the illusion of belonging. ‘But not when I’m a—’
The word lodged in her throat.
Not when I’m a witch.
Not when I’m just me.
Kai’s expression changed. The lightness drained from him, replaced by something harder.
‘I hate it when you do that,’ he said, jaw tightening. ‘When you speak about yourself like that.’
She gave a hollow laugh. ‘Why? It’s the truth.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ He took a step closer. ‘Do you think I like it when you glamour yourself?’
Her heart thudded. She glanced up and down the narrow corridor, suddenly hyper-aware of stone and shadow and the possibility of listening ears. But they were alone.
‘I hate that you feel you have to hide,’ he continued, voice low. ‘I hate that I don’t get to see your real face. I wish you never had to do it. I wish I could always look into your purple eyes.’
She retreated another step, the wall pressing warm against her back.
‘Stop,’ she whispered. ‘Stop doing that.’
‘Why?’ He moved forward again, not touching her, but close enough that she felt the heat of him. ‘Why does it scare you so much?’
His gaze held hers, unwavering.
‘Does it frighten you, Dawn,’ he asked softly, ‘that someone might actually like your true form? Your real you?’
Dawn felt the sting before the tears could even fall. They gathered, traitorous and hot, but she swallowed them down and sealed herself shut. She would not unravel. Not again. She had once allowed herself to be soft, and the world had devoured her for it. She would not make that mistake twice.
And besides, whatever Kai believed he felt for her was built upon a lie.
Because when they found Ash, and she drove a blade through his heart, everything would change. Kai would look at her the way the rest always had. With disgust. With betrayal. With that quiet confirmation that she was exactly what they said she was.
‘Stop it,’ she said.
But every word she spoke only brought him closer.
‘Why?’ he pressed. ‘Why do you want me to stop?’
‘Because I don’t even like myself, Kai!’ The words tore out of her before she could cage them. ‘So how could you?’
Silence struck between them.
She watched him falter, watched the certainty shine in his eyes, replaced by something rawer. She huffed in frustration at herself. Fool. Weak. She had handed him the blade.
She expected laughter. Mockery. Pity.
Instead, he reached for her.
His hands closed around her arms, not harshly, but gently, as though she were something breakable.
‘You shouldn’t hate yourself, Dawn,’ he said, and his voice was no longer sharp. It was soft. Almost reverent.
She shoved him away.
‘Well, I do.’ Her voice trembled despite her efforts.
‘This is what happens when you’re told your entire life that you’re vermin.
This is what witches have always had to endure.
We’ve had to look at ourselves and despise what we see.
Hate our purple eyes. Hate what we are.’ She swallowed, throat burning. ‘What did you expect?’
The corridor felt smaller now. Colder.
As though the stones themselves were listening.
She saw the flash of hurt in his eyes. Not anger. Not mockery. But pain.
Pain for her.
And somehow that wounded her far more deeply.
She did not want his pity. She did not want his gentleness. She did not want that fragile, terrifying possibility that he might truly see her and not recoil.
No. Hate she understood. Contempt she could survive.
But this?
If he was different… if he truly was different…
‘Stop trying to save me,’ she spat, her voice sharp enough to cut. She stepped back as though his concern might scorch her. ‘I don’t need you to save me. I don’t need you at all.’
The words tasted bitter. False. Necessary.
‘You always do this,’ she continued, each sentence building a wall between them. ‘You play the hero to make yourself feel better. To compensate for whatever guilt you’re carrying. You don’t actually care about me.’
There it was. The final blow.
She saw it land.
For a heartbeat, he looked as though she had struck him.
And that was why she could not stay. Because if she remained another second, she might see something in his face that would undo her completely.
So she turned.
She fled down the narrow stone corridor, boots echoing against the mountain’s hollow heart. She did not look back. She did not slow.
Running was easier.
Running meant she did not have to find out whether he would follow.
…
Alina watched her dragons with undisguised delight, sunlight catching on their scales as they shifted and stretched against the wind. Pride swelled quietly in her chest. They were hers. Loyal. Terrible. Magnificent.
She turned her attention to King Siroc and the vast procession assembling behind him—banners snapping in the desert breeze, warriors mounting their colossal sand snakes, servants moving like shadows between coils of scaled muscle.
It struck her as faintly absurd that they must travel together at all, yet this had been one of the king’s unwavering conditions.
He would not have them beyond his sight.
So it would be thus: the king and his people gliding across the dunes upon their immense serpents of sand, and Alina with her small company soaring above on her dragons.
‘We’re going to waste too much time,’ she muttered, irritation sharpening her tone. ‘The snakes are fast, but not as fast as a dragon.’ She ignored the look Mareena sent her.
‘The important thing is that we arrive,’ Mareena said softly, her fingers brushing Alina’s as though by accident. The contact was fleeting. Intentional.
‘I know that,’ Alina replied, folding her arms. ‘I would simply prefer to reach our destination before I turn into an old, decrepit woman.’
Mareena’s laugh followed, low and warm, and it tightened something in Alina’s chest that had nothing to do with impatience.
But she quickly shoved it down, down into that dark, quiet part of herself that no longer felt anything.
Yet Mareena found reasons to touch her whenever she could: a gentle caress at the curve of her arm, a guiding hand at her back, fingers lingering just a heartbeat too long around her own. The touches were small. Harmless.
Dangerous.
Alina enjoyed them more than she wished to admit. But beneath that quiet pleasure lay a tremor of unease. Hessa’s presence, once so sharp and insistent, seemed to fade a little more each day. The ghost no longer lingered at the edge of her vision as often. The voice did not rise so readily.
And Alina did not know if she was ready for that final goodbye.
Some part of her suspected Mareena understood. That she saw the hesitation in Alina’s silences and chose not to push. Instead, she offered space and waited.
Waiting for Alina to decide when the next step could be taken.
Though Alina suspected she was so broken that she was now beyond repair.
And even though there was a little part of her that wanted to give in, to allow herself to feel something, anything, once again—another part wished to see it crushed, erased from existence.
If she no longer felt ever again…She could no longer be hurt.
And she’d become exactly what she wanted to.
Indestructible.
‘You’re late,’ Alina said the moment Kai appeared at her side, her tone cool as desert steel.
‘Were you all waiting for me?’ he drawled, raising a brow in mock astonishment. ‘I feel rather special.’
‘Where’s the witch?’
‘Her name is Dawn,’ Kai almost growled.
Alina ignored him with deliberate ease. ‘We ought to have left at least ten minutes ago.’
Kai leaned forward and flicked the tip of her nose.
‘You’re not turning into that insufferable drakonian princess again, are you?’
‘Fuck off, Kai.’ She slapped his hand away, eyes flashing. ‘If you’re going to be irritating and of no use…’
‘You wound me.’
‘I’m sure I do.’
Beyond them, King Siroc was already mounting one of the immense sand serpents, its scaled body rippling beneath him like living dunes.
His son followed close behind, the creature’s long shadow coiling over the sun-bleached ground.
The Saqar were positioned upon other serpents, their veils fluttering like dark banners in the wind.
Alina caught Isla and Arena standing beside the king’s son, speaking in low, hurried tones. The young prince listened intently before they dipped their heads and broke away.
They returned without explanation.
Alina gave them a sharp, questioning look, waiting for answers that did not come. Instead, they moved briskly towards the dragons and mounted in silence.
‘About time,’ Alina muttered when Dawn finally appeared.
‘Fuck off, Alina,’ the witch shot back, not breaking stride.
‘Well,’ Mareena murmured lightly, her lips curving with quiet amusement, ‘it seems everyone is in a mood today. This shall be a very interesting ride.’
Alina shot her a pointed look and then, despite herself, felt the corner of her mouth lift. She turned and grasped the scales of her dragon, hauling herself up onto the back as the creature’s wings flexed in anticipation.
The sand serpents began to move, vast bodies undulating across the desert.
The dragons unfurled their wings and Mareena’s phoenix let out a piercing cry, warning the heavens of their departure.
Yes.
It was going to be a very interesting journey indeed.