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It was as if he’d swallowed a flaming serpent. Which coiled and writhed in his throat. Its venom seared through his veins like molten steel, a suffocating and agonising demise that was all-consuming.
It was seeping out but taking its time to do so.
However, his hawkstone delivered a miracle in just twenty-four hours, fighting fiercely against the last of the dark, pulsing energy.
It took him a day to sit up and eat and another for the hawkstone to cleanse him entirely, but he still sensed a weakness in his body.
However, the worst was over. It was as if a raging storm had been quelled, a turbulent sea calmed.
The third day since the poisoning was when he realised how much he adored Sana’a’s eyes.
How he longed for her gentle hands as they smoothed a cool cloth over his feverish forehead.
He reached for the fall of her hair, which cascaded down her shoulders like silk, while she fed him soups and teas to nourish his weakened body.
He tracked a finger along the soft smile gracing her lips as she soothed him.
He clung to her voice, a soothing melody that lulled him to sleep and whispered words of comfort and reassurance.
Even the gentle tread of her boots and the clink of trays as she tended to him brought a sense of normalcy and safety to his world.
With each touch, she infused him with a new vitality and renewed hope and purpose. It was a healing balm for his aching heart.
‘Sante, khany’s,’ he rasped when his scalded throat allowed him to speak.
‘I’m just ensuring we don’t lose another good king.’
He caught the emotion in her eyes and a sheen of tears that moved him.
He thanked her with kisses pressed into the palm of her hand.
‘What of Kultur?’ he grated.
‘Don’t worry about him now, love. Rest, Kaxim is taking care of him.’
With a ragged sigh, he laid back in bed. The fear and horror of his close death experience he’d been holding back slammed into him.
His limbs trembled.
Sana’a must have caught it because she leaned over him and placed a hand on his shaking shoulder.
‘You survived. You healed yourself.’
‘It could have gone either way,’ he rasped.
She pulled back and aimed her unusual diamond-flecked eyes at him. ‘For a mere mortal perhaps, but not you. What’s your name?’ she whispered.
His brow furrowed, confused. ‘Killen Sable.’
She shook her head and leaned in.
‘I’m not just Sana’a. I am Sana’a - first daughter of the Selassie and Sinqueda,’ she paused for a second before completing her nomenclature. ‘Of the Siltan Clan of the Seven Wonders of Shotel. I am also the much feared Switchblade, a ‘shikari’ - a SHärd-blader, a slayer of drákons and a dagger woman. So again, I ask you, my love, what is your name?
His eyes flashed with understanding. ‘Killen, son of K’Elisa Djan and Riv Sable. The Kíríga - the rightful King of the Katáne, the Titan of Raptors, the wearer of the hawkstone, the reincarnation of the Thunder Eagle, and the Ka?'m??r? Sab?r Hunter, Storm Pale.’
‘A mouthful?’ Sana’a teased.
‘Tis,’ he rasped.
