Page 95 of Lore of the Tides

The next two days were a blur of sun, sand, and the distant peaks of the Golden Cascades—behemoths whose giant, foreboding bodies didn’t appear to be any closer, no matter how many miles they covered.

They passed no one (demonic wastes, indeed), but on the third night, Lore swore she heard the cry of a griffin, a small thrill amid the monotony. However, Hazen complaining about the dirt under his nails for the thousandth time immediately soured the situation again.

Pytheah had been sure they would reach the basin of the mountains the following day, so on the third night, Lore laid out her bedroll next to Finn’s, excitement thrumming through her bones. There had been no sign of Syrelle. Could he really have just gone home to deal with matters there and given up? Lore didn’t believe it. He’d dedicated his entire life to finding the set of books his grandfather had made.

He wasn’t going to give up that easily, but still, he was nowhere around. At this moment, Lore was free of him.

Hope stirred in her belly.

She lay awake long after the others’ breaths had softened intothe rhythmic sighs of slumber, marveling at the boundless expanse of sky. It was so different from home, where the stars above Duskmere, though swaths of bright, swirling constellations, were always framed by the shadowy silhouettes of trees. Here, nothing obstructed her view. Lore felt an unexpected closeness to her ancestors, a yearning forZiara, the sacred skyglass. The stars’ formations were unfamiliar, their positions shifted, and she could swear there were entire constellations she’d never seen before. How she longed to map this sky for her people, to bring it home for them to see.

Finally, she drifted off.

Lore dreamt ofAuroradel, the Book of Sunbeams, which felt contrary to its name.

Its haunting voice whispered in her ear, telling her tales of griffins and their sharp beaks that could snap a human in half on a whim. It whispered of the power of dragons, whose ability to breathe rock-melting fire derived from the sun too. And it pushed darkness onto Lore’s mind. A suppressing weight of the earth. Lore tried to pull in breath, but when she opened her mouth, gasping for air, it filled with the taste of decay and mildew; a thousand insects slithered inside, scampering on her tongue and scuttling down her throat.

Lore tried to scream; she tried to snap her jaw closed, to stop the horde of disturbing, swarming insects, but there were so many of them, and her jaw was lodged open even as eras passed, and the earth crushed her. The insects filled her belly, laying their eggs in her organs. She tried to scream as larvae hatched and began eating their way out through her rotting flesh.

Lore jerked awake.

Finndryl was crouched by her side, his grip soothing, unwavering on her shoulders.

“Lore! Alemeyu, wake up.”

Lore opened her eyes to the dusky violet hues of the desert just before dawn.

She was not trapped under the earth being devoured from the inside out by insects. She was on her back underneath the sky as the stars winked out one by one to make room for the day.

Frost clung to Lore’s blanket, and her breath was a cloud that mingled with Finndryl’s.

Her hands were clutched at her throat as if she had been screaming outside of her dream, clawing at her throat.

“I had a nightmare,” Lore choked through a sob, the relief that it was all a dream flooding her system.

“I know.” Finndryl’s presence was so calm. Steadfast and sure. Had he ever had a nightmare?

“Thank you for waking me.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Lore shook her head. But then she confessed, “I dreamt I was dying.” An understatement, but close enough.

“I won’t let that happen. I promise.”

Lore believed him.

She scooted over on her bedroll, and Finn slipped in beside her. She molded her body to his, and he cradled her to his vast chest. His large hand clasped her head and looped in her hair. She breathed him in, letting the steady drum of his heartbeat calm her own.

Despite the warmth and safety of his arms, she dared not fall asleep. Instead, she recited stories to herself, the few she knew with happy endings.

An hour later, the sun blazed bright, chasing away the cold and the others’ sleep. Today was the day she would findAuroradel, despite that ominous dream warning her away. She pushed down the worry, hoping the nightmare wasn’t a portent of things to come.

They banked the coals of the fire and ate a breakfast of hardtack, a brick of nutrients that tasted like ash on Lore’s tongue but filled her belly nonetheless. At least it wasn’t remotely slimy, a small mercy considering the phantom sensation of bugs still crawling on her skin. No amount of water could wash away the taste of rot.

Finally, in the early afternoon, they crested a dune, and Lore’s breath caught in her throat as she saw it: the land rising steadily until it became the first mountain of the Golden Cascades.

This was where the hard part began.