‘You’re alive,’ he breathed again, his voice barely more than a whisper.
Mareena cleared her throat gently. ‘Perhaps we should leave you both to speak,’ she said, her tone gracious but firm. ‘I’ll show your companion to your rooms in the meantime.’ With a graceful sweep of her arm, she beckoned to the wyverian woman, who hesitated just long enough for Alina to notice the unease darkening her features. She clearly disliked being separated from Kai.
Kai cast her a reassuring wink. A familiar gesture, one that once upon a time might have been meant for Alina. She observed it now with quiet detachment, no longer moved by what had once stirred something warm within her.
When the doors closed softly behind Mareena and the wyverian woman, Alina reached up and gently removed Kai’s hands from her face, her fingers cool and steady. She could nolonger abide others touching her, especially not the skin once held, once worshipped, by Hessa. However, Kai’s touch had felt slightly different. A reminiscence of the past, and a small part of her craved for it.
‘All this time…’ Kai said, unsheathing his swords and propping them carefully against one of the room’s marble columns. ‘You’ve been here?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘And the dragons?’
She offered a slight shrug. ‘They just started to arrive.’
‘You look different.’
‘Is that a bad thing, wyverian?’ she asked with a faint smile, resurrecting the old nickname she used to tease him with in another life, one lost to time and fire.
‘No, princess,’ he replied, smiling back, though his stare lingered. ‘But you look sad.’
She nodded once, then turned away and strode towards the open terrace, stepping into the golden warmth of day. Leaning over the carved stone railing, she drank in the view of the sprawling city. High above, two large birds swooped in graceful arcs, descending with a flutter to perch beside her. Their bodies were pure white, but their heads and long, spear-like beaks were ink-dark.
Alina raised a hand and ran her fingers lightly over the feathers of one, her eyes narrowing as the sunlight spilt across the terrace and caught in her hair like flame.
‘Who is she?’ Alina asked, her voice cool, though her eyes gave her away. She nodded faintly towards the door through which the wyverian woman had just vanished.
‘Just a friend,’ Kai replied, a little too quickly.
Alina arched a perfectly sculpted brow. ‘Is that so? She didn’t look at you like you were just a friend.’
‘Alina…’
She sidestepped his presence and the warmth of his nearness, slipping back inside as if the sunlit air had suddenly turned stifling. ‘It’s all right, Kai. A great deal has changed. Months have passed since we last saw one another. You are entitled to… feel something for someone else.’
‘No. Not her.’
‘Why not?’ Her brows knit, a shadow appearing behind her gaze. ‘She’s a wyverian. The match would make sense.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘Then help me.’
Kai exhaled slowly, heavily. ‘I can’t.’
Alina said nothing. Instead, her eyes drifted towards the nearest wall where brilliant mosaics bloomed across the stone, depicting great phoenixes soaring over the city, their wings ablaze with divine fire.
‘They say the sparks from a phoenix’s wings can guide their people through the darkest desert nights,’ she said. ‘So that no phoenixian soul ever truly loses their way.’
‘Alina…’
‘Are you staying?’ she asked, her voice quiet but steady. She kept her eyes fixed on the mural. ‘Will you remain in Kairus or do you intend to keep travelling?’
‘Where you go, I go.’
She tensed, but let the words roll off her like a breeze across scorched sand. ‘Then you’ll teach me to fight. Like a wyverian.’
Kai gave a short laugh.
