Page 140 of A Kingdom of Shadow and Ash

His chest did not rise.

Mal's breath hitched, the edges of her soul unraveling.

No no no.

A scream of anguish built inside her, but before she could unleash it, a voice cut through the haze.

‘Mal, we need to go!’

Kai.

He was running towards her, his sword dripping red, his armour battered, his voice urgent.

‘He’s dead.’

The words were a whisper, a plea, a wound.

Kai hesitated for only a moment before reaching down, hauling Ash over his shoulder.

‘No, he’s not.’ His voice was steel. ‘We are outnumbered. We must move. Cover me.’

Mal forced her shaking hands to obey.

She rose, her shadowed fingers curling around the hilt of her sword.

And then—she becamedeath.

Witches fell before her like leaves in a storm. Her blade sang, her power roared, bodies hurled through the air like dolls tossed aside by a petulant god. She was vengeance. She was fury incarnate.

A shadowed princess, a creature of war, wielding not just steel, but the very air itself.

By the time she reached the wall, Kai was already lifting Ash onto the dragon’s back, the beast wounded but still breathing.

Mal climbed up, pulling Ash’s body against her chest, clutching him as if by holding him, she could keep him tethered to this world.

She dared one last glance back.

Nyx lay still upon the battlefield, a body no longer home to the soul she had once loved.

Mal’s blackened heart bled out, her sorrow stretching across the sky, rumbling like thunder, vibrating through her bones.

And then she screamed.

It was not the sound of a girl mourning.

It was a war cry.

A curse.

Apromise.

The witches would remember this day as the moment they sealed their fate.

Valkyrians, wyverians, and drakonians took to the skies, fleeing towards the horizon.

…

Ash’s eyes fluttered open, a low groan escaping his lips as a searing pain tore through his side. The dull ache pulsed beneath his ribs, each breath a struggle, each movement an agony. His vision swam, the dark canopy of his bed framing his sight, heavy curtains drawn to cast the room in dim shadows.

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