Page 49 of A Kingdom of Shadow and Ash

‘Ha.’ Mal dipped her head. ‘Kaafran Sandhii manaa dunaa.’Yes. I have studied Sandhii for many years.

Hessa’s lips curled into a smile. ‘It is very impressive,’ she said, her accent thick, shaped by the winds of the dunes. ‘Why did you learn our tongue for so many years?’

Mal’s gaze drifted past her, to the golden sands beyond the castle walls, to the lands she would never know. ‘My brother once told me of a language that had no word for ‘I’—only ‘we’—because it did not believe in individuals, only in community. I didn’t believe him.’

Hessa laughed, a rich sound like shifting grains in a warm breeze. ‘The desert folk have always been rather philosophical about life.’ She cast a glance over her shoulder, to where the drakonians were beginning to approach. A shadow passed over her face. ‘Good to knowtheydo not speak my tongue.’ With fluid ease, the princess reached up and pulled down her karash, unveiling a face as striking as the desert moon—smooth skin kissed by sun and shadow, sharp fangs gleaming in the flickering sunlight. ‘It is bad enough that the Fire Queenseesa little too much.’

Mal frowned.

‘Is it true, what they say about your eyes?’ Hessa asked, blunt as the desert winds that stripped flesh from bone.

Mal lifteda brow. ‘That depends, what do they say?’

Hessa tilted her head, searching her mind for the right word. ‘That you are a… what is it? Brahaa?’

Mal’s stomach tightened. ‘I am not a witch.’

Hessa hummed, as if she had expected that response, as if it meant little. ‘Then you are what the prophecy speaks of.’ Without warning, she latched onto Mal’s arm, guiding her forward as if the drakonian castle was theirs.

‘Have you heard of the prophecy?’ she continued, voice a low murmur laced with something unreadable. ‘The Chasaa and the Krasaa. The chosen one and the cursed one. Two children, born in the same dunaa, the same year. One marked by the gods, the other by their wrath. Together, they will bring the world into order.’

Mal had heard whispers of that prophecy before, an old legend murmured between wary lips. Two children woven into fate’s cruel tapestry—one destined to raze the kingdoms to ruin, the other bound to prevent such devastation and restore balance. Most who spoke of this tale cast her as the cursed child, all because of her eyes. Yet Mal had long since resigned herself to a different role, one foretold to her by the Seer—the slayer of the Fire Prince.

But doubt, insidious and relentless, had begun to creep into the cracks of her certainty. If the marriage between them was the fragile thread weaving the kingdoms together, then would not severing it—murdering the prince—unravel everything? Would it not bring about the very collapse she was meant to prevent? The weight of the paradox pressed against her ribs, an invisible hand tightening around her thoughts.

Mal needed to truly understand the prophecy before she went cutting hearts out.

‘Now all that remains to be seen,’ Hessa said, her white eyesflashing like lightning on distant sands, ‘is whether you are the Chasaa or the Krasaa.’

Mal’s heart thundered in her ribs.

What if I’m neither?

Worse still—

What if I’m both?

…

By the following day, every noble House had arrived, their banners unfurled like splashes of colour against the golden sky. At least one prince or princess from each kingdom had travelled to the Kingdom of Fire to bear witness to the union that would bring an end to years of strife. Few genuinely believed that the drakonian prince and wyverian princess were the chosen and cursed souls whispered of in prophecy. Yet among them, there were always true believers—those who clung to the idea that the gods were weaving some grand design from the threads of fate. Most, however, were simply relieved to put an age-old conflict to rest, its origins long since buried beneath the dust of forgotten history. Others found solace in the unification of kingdoms, knowing that a greater threat loomed beyond their borders—an imminent assault from the witches.

Few lent credence to such ominous warnings, yet rumours had wings, and they flew swiftly from noble halls to the doorsteps of common folk, settling like shadows in their hearts. Fear took root at the mere thought of witches creeping from the darkness, poised to snatch their children away. And why wouldn’t it? Witches were the monsters of bedtime stories, their sorcery both feared and reviled, their legends steeped in blood and betrayal. But what most did not realise—what they couldnever suspect—was that witches walked among them.

Vera, the wyverian princess’s ever-dutiful maid, hurried through the winding corridors, her tasks completed just in time to assist in the Grand Hall. Seven kingdoms would feast together that evening, bound by an uneasy peace, their first gathering under the same roof after generations of isolation. Never before had Vera seen such an array of creatures in one place.

The wyverians stood apart with their onyx-black horns and near-translucent skin, but their distinction lay not only in their appearance. It was in the way they moved—sharp, fluid, predatory. They walked like whispers, like assassins trained to tread unseen. And their dark eyes—voids that swallowed light—missed nothing.

Vera’s gaze landed on her own reflection as she passed a mirrored surface and faltered. For years, she had trained herself to avoid such glances, yet it was impossible to do so when tending to the princess’s hair. It had unsettled her when Mal, with those keen purple eyes, had questioned where she was from. Could she see through the glamour?

Her drakonian horns were short, befitting her station, their shade a subdued gold, verging on brown—nothing like the radiant adornments of the royal family. Her skin bore the faint texture of scales, as all drakonians did, and her eyes mirrored those of a drakonian bartender she had once met. But Vera missed her true eyes.

Her purple eyes.

She had long grown accustomed to the act of glamour, to wearing a lie as easily as one wore silk. It never faltered. Never wavered. And yet the wyverian princess had sensed something. How?

Never before had Vera encountered another withpurple eyes who was not a witch. Rumours had spread, whispered in shadowed corners, of a cursed child born with witch’s eyes. Could Mal be one of them? A blasphemous union of wyverian and witch? Such creatures had not walked the earth in over a century. It was impossible.

And yet…

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