She remained seated on the cold earth, lids sealed, spine anchored while the timeless hush of the Underworld wrapped around her. And in that unmeasured stretch, memories seeped in to fill the void. She was carried back to the living realm, to the wyverian castle in gentler days, days when her sister still breathed the same sunlight and laughter still clattered between stone walls.
She saw Kai on the lower terrace, his hook-sword a dark arc as he swung and laughed with careless grace. She saw Kage by the hearth, the blue flames dyeing his already pale skin an unearthly hue. Drawn by a longing she barely understood, Mal slipped into the memory and settled beside him, listening as he murmured lines he had tried, surely a thousand times, to drum into her skull and which she, just as faithfully, had forgotten.
When he lifted his eyes—those fathom-dark eyes, forever older than the rest of his face—he asked, ‘Shouldn’t you be training?’ His long fingers turned a page with scholarly precision. On an impulse, Mal reached across the table and clasped his hand. It was a clumsy gesture of affection, and it startled him; she read the small betrayal of tension in hisshoulders even though his expression never shifted.
Kage freed his hand, using it at once to turn another page. ‘Shall I read to you?’ he offered, in the quiet way he had of showing love, through words, through distant melodies rather than embraces.
Mal nodded, a smile stealing across her lips.
Kage re-arranged himself, cleared his throat, and began to read.
They whisper still of the shadow-born throne,
Where the king of shadows once walked alone.
From the Underworld's forgotten gate,
He rose, not for conquest, but tethered by fate.
He bore the mark of a witch’s breath,
A vow entwined with life and death.
He strode through shadows, slipped through stone,
No wall could hold what night could own.
And at his side, with wings unfurled,
A wyvern dark as a cursed world.
Its cry could curdle blood and prayer,
It carved through skies like whispered fear.
The stars recoiled, the sun grew pale
For hell itself rode on its tail.
The living knelt, the brave did flee,
When the shadow-king came through the sea.
But not for wrath, and not for war
He watched the world for something more.
Awitch had called, her soul his chain,
He bore her love like sacred pain.
Yet kingdoms feared what they could not bind,
And forged an end to peace designed.
The battle broke beneath a crimson moon,
Steel rang like thunder, doom came soon.
