Page 13 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)
A vibration traveled from the soles of my boots to the top of my head, growing in strength until I had to throw my arms out to either side to keep my balance.
My footing slipped as the ground began to roll.
A solid form hit my side as Calix staggered into me.
I managed to grab him by the shoulders, barely keeping us both upright.
I gasped as pain shot up my leg, my still-healing injury protesting the jostling.
By now, the earth shook so hard that a deep rumbling filled the air, rattling my teeth in my skull as the earth pitched. It was as if the desert were heaving, trying to expel something toxic.
Even as the booming threatened to drown out my racing thoughts, a scream cut through the cacophony. I spun around as best I could, nearly taking us to the ground in the process.
Through the chaotic haze of rising panic, it took me a second to discern what was happening. For a moment, I had the crazy thought that the mountains were racing toward me, until I realized that the jagged side of one had begun to collapse.
Gray rocks raced down the mountainside, gaining speed and numbers as they went, looking like a stampeding herd of wild horses.
From this distance, they seemed to be no more than pebbles, but my churning stomach dropped like a stone at the realization that many of them would likely be boulders as large as horses themselves.
The screams grew in pitch and number as the workers in the field spotted the incoming rockslide. The figures in the distance fled toward the city, but the growing avalanche was too fast.
I began to run. My steps were uneven, and my weakened muscles protested, but I couldn’t stop.
My heart leaped into my throat, and Calix shouted after me, voice carried away on the crescendoed chaos of the air, but I didn’t stop.
I flung my arms out, tearing through the crops, trying to get to the farmers at the base of the mountain as the ground tossed me side to side.
Tears gathered in my eyes at the lancing pain shooting through my injured side, but I blinked them away.
A cloud of gray dust raced down the mountainside, like a dirty sandstorm, but I knew it concealed something even more devastating.
Retreating farmers ran past me, some of them screaming and shouting at me to get out of the way, but I couldn’t. All I could see was the figures closest to the mountain—those who wouldn’t be able to run fast enough to escape even if the ground wasn’t trying to knock them down with every step.
My eyes caught on one figure, crumpled on the ground almost one hundred yards away.
A mass of curly hair obscured their face until they looked up, revealing a woman not much older than myself.
Terror was etched in every line of her face as she tried to stand, but her leg gave out under her, ankle clearly broken from taking a bad step on the heaving ground.
She would be buried in stone—a fate worse than starvation or death at the end of a sword. A fate I feared more than nearly anything else.
The rumbling sound stopped, and I thought for a moment that the earthquake had subsided, until I recognized the ground still shaking under me. Next, my vision blurred, turning the sight before me into a swirl of golden crops and gray dust.
The current of magic washed through me and over me, even more powerful than the rockslide racing toward us. A scream tore its way out of me, burning my throat like fire, but I didn’t hear it as I lashed out blindly.
Breath exploded out of me as I took what felt like a punch to the gut.
I thought I clenched my fists, but I couldn’t be sure.
All I could be sure of was the roar of magic through and around me in a never-ending wave.
My entire existence was an uninterrupted scream, as every boulder and pebble and speck of dust that came crashing down the mountain fought against me.
But I held the avalanche back.
I had to hold it.
The mountain shook, and I shook with it, as I let myself become a conduit for the desert’s magic.
My vision was gone, my consciousness scattered from my skull and into a million tiny pieces across the desert.
I couldn’t tell how long it had been or see if the farmers had gotten out of the way of the oncoming rockslide, so I just kept pushing with every fiber of my being.
I wasn’t entirely sure I knew how to stop.
“Let it go.”
The voice came as if it were at the end of a very long tunnel.
“You can let it go now, Keera.”
I frowned. The voice wasn’t the one that normally pulled me back from the edge of insanity, but I could still hear it. Even more, I was back in my body enough to tell that I had frowned.
“You did it. They’re safe now. Put it down.”
Calix’s voice beside me wasn’t enough, but I knew what would be.
I reached for the buried thread within me, so thin and quiet these days that I almost feared it would snap under the onslaught of power surging through me.
As soon as I brushed against it though, it brightened.
I wrapped my mental fingers around the bond, and felt a responding heave , as if it were a rope pulling me up the side of a cliff.
My vision returned, instantly filled with the sight of a gray wall.
I blinked, realizing it was not a wall, but the gray dust of the rockslide, frozen in place halfway across the fields.
A full body shudder ran through me, nearly as violent as the preceding earthquake had been, and I wrenched my magic back within the confines of my skull.
As the last of the desert’s power relinquished its hold on the mountainside, I gave one more mental push, shoving the rocks to the side instead of letting them fall toward us, lest the rockslide start anew.
The suspended rocks crashed to the ground, sliding to a grinding stop. My hands flew up to cover my ears at the earthshattering boom , that seemed like it might never end as the side of the mountain found its new place in the fields.
And then there was silence.
An arm came across my shoulders, and at first, I thought it was an embrace of thanks or congratulations, until I felt how hard I pressed into the grip. I swayed where I stood, and Calix’s arm was the only thing keeping me from crumpling as my knees trembled .
I nodded my thanks at Calix, who acknowledged me with an inclination of his own head.
Something flickered through his expression as he met my eyes, and I braced myself for the sharp sting of his fear as he witnessed how far from myself I went when the desert’s magic took me.
His expression wasn’t fear though, although my mind was too frayed to place what the strange emotion was, and it was gone as quickly as it came.
Still, a tight knot in my chest loosened infinitesimally to find that he did not shy away from me now.
Feeling more stable, now that my consciousness seeped more fully into my body, I stepped out of his supportive hold, distantly surprised that his touch hadn’t made my skin crawl, but glad to be rid of the contact nonetheless.
I took in my surroundings more fully, seeing the farmers huddled nearby in fear. The woman who had been directly in the path of the rockslide caught my eye where she sat on the ground cradling her ankle, having apparently been dragged to safety as I held the avalanche at bay.
I trudged over to the farmers where they circled around her, hoping to check if anybody else was injured.
The dark-skinned man who had fallen just as the earthquake started saw me approaching and took a few large steps forward.
“You saved us. Maybe there is hope for Kelvadan yet.” He tapped his fingers to his brow.
I swallowed thickly around the dust in my throat, knowing it wasn’t the only thing behind the burning in my eyes. The wave of warmth washing over me turned frigid in an instant as another farmer chimed in.
“Try as we might, we can’t eat hope.” The man who had spoken stood with his arms folded, jaw tight as he jerked his chin at the now still pile of rocks.
I followed his gaze, nausea roiling in my belly as I truly took in the aftermath of the avalanche. The path of destruction cut across the grain fields, like a gruesome scar, leaving nothing but a crust of dust and rocks in its gigantic wake.
Almost half of Kelvadan’s grain was destroyed, all in a matter of minutes.
If another source of food couldn’t be found, it wasn’t just war that would threaten Kelvadan, but another threat I knew far too well: starvation.