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"I...can't."

"Then you are not Shalkek. You've defiled sacred water. You will be punished...with death."

"Whoa, whoa,whoa!" says Jackson. "Wait just a goddamn minute! It takes energy to command theUthur, and we're fresh out. Give us food and rest and we'd be happy to show you whatever you want."

Niah's eyes narrow. "Or, perhaps you and your mate are the darkness-bringers. Perhaps it is you who corrupt theShimat."

Another word I don't recognize.

Jackson recoils like he's just been slapped in the face with a rotten fish. "Yo, he and I arenotmates. We're barely even friends."

I'm more offended than I would've expected to be. "Barely even friends?"

Niah watches us bicker with an unwavering gaze. She turns to Azin and begins to give him a command. My mind races for a solution, but each concludes in demise or terrible trouble. Even if we somehow are able to leave this place alive without a dozen riders pursuing us, we won't get very far on what we have left to sustain us. But then I feel a change in the air—a surge of power that I instantly recognize as Jackson's.

"Wait," I say to him. "Not with the baby. You haven't recovered?—"

The pile of sand begins to swirl around like a whirlpool. Jackson's face is trembling and his hands are squeezed into tight fists on his lap, and perspiration gathers across his forehead. The matriarch's body straightens when she sees the moving sand, and she moves herself away from it with the same kind of cautious reverence one might take to a snake crossing their path.

On the other side of the tent, the rider Azin gasps and drops to one knee. "Shalkek," he mutters. "Shalkek."

Then, Jackson's power vanishes from the air and the sand settles back into a lifeless cone. I quickly catch him as he wavers, and he slumps against my shoulder, his eyes drifting around in a dazed stupor.

Niah utters a command to Azin, who moves quickly across the room and fetches a large skin bulging with water. From it, he fills up a small clay pot with a reed spout, which he hands to me.

"Jackson, drink this," I say.

Supporting him with one arm, I hold the pot up so that he can drink from the spout, and slowly tilt it as he gulps down the water until it's drained.

"I'm good," Jackson says in a gravelly voice.

Niah signals to Azin to refill the pot, but Jackson refuses it with a shake of his head.

He pushes away from me and straightens his posture with clear difficulty. He turns to Niah. "There. Happy?"

"It is my turn to apologize," she says to us. "It was the only way I could be certain it is you who will cleanse theShimat."

Jackson's patience has vanished with his remaining energy. "Look, ma'am, I don't have the slightest clue about what the hell you're talking about, but we aren't gonna be able to do anything until we've had some food and a chance to rest. So can you help us, or not?"

A tense silence fills the tent as Niah fixes her unreadable gaze on Jackson.

"We will provide whatever is necessary to the honored Shalkek."

Both of us breathe a sigh of relief.

"Awesome," Jackson says with a grateful smile. He looks at me. "Problem solved."

Yes... But what have we just gotten ourselves into?

9

JACKSON

“Could you not have waited?” Airos says to me as we follow Niah and Azin through the camp.

"She said the punishment wasdeath, bro," I mutter. "Somebody had to do something."

"I would've thought of a way out. It's not wise to allow your energy to deplete so thoroughly."