Page 16 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

Chapter five

Keera

P ain lanced up my side as I lifted my dulled practice saber, and Cail’s hooves clopped against the stone ground of the courtyard. I wished for the tenth time that I rode Daiti—who had a much smoother gate than the placid mare—or that we were able to go outside the gates to ride on the softer dirt.

Aderyn had convinced me that my first few times training with a sword on horseback after my injury, I should stay close by—at least until I was sure I wouldn’t injure myself.

We rode in one of the private yards normally reserved for training riders.

Aderyn had cleared it for me, and when I protested that I could share, she looked at me appraisingly.

“Once your strength is back,” was all she said.

I yearned to ride outside the city walls again, like I had with Calix, but I needed to train with my saber—to feel like I was doing something to protect this city, even if a sword did no good against hunger.

In reality, I was grateful for the privacy. As I ventured out of the infirmary more and more, I found all the servants and officials I passed in the palace hallways rapping their knuckles to their temples deferentially and calling me “hero” as I stretched my legs, trying to regain my strength.

Thankfully, my mare, Cail, did not put me on the spot with such greetings .

As we finished another loop of the courtyard, practicing slashing at imaginary foes, I looked up to find Aderyn at the edge of the courtyard.

She stood watching me with hawklike eyes, arms folded as she appraised my progress.

I appreciated that she didn’t try to coddle me through my recovery, as much as she still urged me to be careful.

She watched me just like she had when I was first training with the riders.

The way her gaze lingered on the finer points of my technique lent a sense of normalcy to a situation that otherwise felt foreign and unbalanced.

However, Aderyn was not alone right now, and my stomach dropped like a stone as I caught sight of the wheeled chair next to her.

Queen Ginevra folded her hands in her lap as she observed me.

I hadn’t spoken with her since my outburst on the terrace.

After the avalanche, I had ignored her requests to speak with me, informing her messengers that I was indisposed after such a display.

In reality, I didn’t know how to face her or where we stood.

I convinced myself it would be better to maintain our silence than to face her ire—to see my parent’s faces in place of her own when she raged at me for destroying so many crops in my efforts to stop the avalanche.

Now, I shifted my weight back on my sit bones, prompting the horse below me to amble to a halt.

She stood patiently as I sheathed my practice saber and levered myself off her back, pleased that at least my arms didn’t shake as much as they had the day before as they held my weight after so much exertion.

Still, I endeavored to land on my feet as lightly as possible.

I patted the horse on the flank in thanks, and a bit of apology for my frustration. It wasn’t her fault she wasn’t Daiti. The mare flicked her ears at me, as if accepting my gesture.

Knowing I couldn’t delay the inevitable much longer, I took a deep breath, bracing myself to face Queen Ginevra.

Part of me wished I could just stick to horses, where most grievances could be fixed with a gentle hand or a pilfered treat, and the disagreements weren’t nearly as complicated as they were with people.

But that was the cost of living among others, I supposed. Isolation was the only way to truly avoid conflict, and it was not a pleasant alternative .

With one final pat to the mount’s flank, I turned and walked toward the edge of the courtyard where the women waited, dread and guilt roiling in my stomach. I no longer needed the cane to help support my weight, but I was still working on eliminating the limp from my gait.

The queen’s appraising gaze raked over me, and the beginnings of a smile on her face surprised me. Apparently, she wasn’t so mad at me that she couldn’t be pleased to see me improving.

“It’s good to see you on a horse again,” she said by way of greeting.

“It feels good to ride again too,” I admitted.

Silence fell, and I looked at the ground.

“I want to apologize,” the queen spoke first.

My gaze snapped up from where I had been glancing down at my boots.

“I know you want to save the Ballan Desert as much as I do. The more you care, the hotter tempers seem to run,” she continued.

I nodded, unsure what to say. The significance of a queen apologizing to a former exile was not lost on me.

“I hope I can still ask for your help,” she prodded.

“You have it,” I said.

“I thought on what you told me about the Heart. I do want to heal the desert, even if it might not assuage the wars on our doorstep. The avalanche only proved that the desert is angry, and I need to take action if I am to be able to feed and protect our people.”

My heart jumped with the most hope I had experienced in weeks. The magic in my belly stirred in interest as well, but I directed all my focus to the queen’s words as she continued.

“I can’t be sure that it will work, but if it might save the people of this desert and my city, then it is a chance I must take.

” The queen dipped her chin, looking up at me gravely.

“Just like I couldn’t take the chance of my son destroying the city my grandfather built, even when I could tell suppressing his magic hurt him—when it hurt me to do it.

I knew it would haunt him more to live with any destruction he might have caused. ”

I clenched my fists at my sides and forced myself to look into Queen Ginevra’s steady brown eyes. They were sad but unyielding .

“I’ll help you get the Heart,” I agreed, remaining quiet about Erix.

It was not within my power to forgive her for how she had treated her son, and I would never forget the way Erix had screamed and clawed at his mask until his fingers bled when trapped within Lord Alasdar’s illusion of the room under the mountain.

I’m not sure Erix would be any more willing to forgive his mother than I would be to accept an apology from my own parents.

“You told me this Heart was at the top of the tower.” Aderyn joined the conversation for the first time, having observed the whole interaction with folded arms and an impassive expression. “Nobody has been able to get in for years.”

“We’ll have to break the blood glass,” the queen admitted.

A lump formed in my throat, but I swallowed it down. Erix and I had spoken of retrieving the Heart together, and making plans to do so with his mother felt like a betrayal. I shoved that thought aside and raised my chin. He was not here, and I had to protect Kelvadan despite him—or from him.

Aderyn tilted her head. “I could see if the guard can rig up some sort of battering ram.” The intense practicality with which she faced the challenge of retrieving an ancient magical artifact was enough to soften the hard set of my mouth with fondness.

Queen Ginevra shook her head. “Only the desert’s magic can break blood glass.”

Aderyn looked between the two of us. “Then one of you can open the doors?”

“It’ll take both of us,” I admitted. “Two panes of glass for two of the most powerful people in the Ballan Desert.”

An apprehensive silence fell.

Aderyn pursed her lips. “I will admit, I have not been touched by the desert’s power. Much of it is a mystery to me. But just healing Keera left you bedridden for a week, my queen. Using that kind of power seems dangerous.” She gestured to me. “Keera is still on the mend as well.”

Queen Ginevra unclasped her hands and spread them over her knees. “Then we will wait until we are both stronger. ”

“As if I didn’t have enough motivation to get better,” I grumbled under my breath, but Aderyn’s grimace told me that she heard my frustration.

She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, distant shouting cut through the air. All three of us turned toward the palace gates where the noise came from.

“Stay here,” Aderyn ordered, not wasting a moment before striding purposefully in the direction of the chaotic noise. As she rounded the edge of the courtyard heading toward the wall, the volume grew.

“Let us see our queen!”

“Show us Queen Ginevra!”

“The queen is dead. She has been assassinated!”

My heart accelerated to a gallop in my chest as the shouts traveled over the wall, growing more insistent by the second.

“Wheel me toward the gate,” Queen Ginevra ordered.

My hands fluttered, and I hesitated. Aderyn and Queen Ginevra had worked hard to keep her illness secret for a reason.

“Aderyn told us to stay here,” I hedged.

Queen Ginevra interlaced her fingers in her lap and fixed me with a serious stare. “I’m not accustomed to following orders. I got the impression you weren’t fond of those sorts of constraints either.”

Despite the direness of the situation, her mouth still quirked wryly at the corner as she spoke. “If they’ve reached the point of gathering at the palace gate, news of my condition has already gotten out. Hiding from them now would only feed the fires of their speculation.”

I nodded jerkily, but dread still settled in my gut, like a rock.

The wheels of her chair creaked over the stone ground as I pushed her chair toward the arched entrance to the palace courtyard.

As we rounded the corner, the shouting of the crowd abated, replaced by a wave of mutters that ran from those at the front to those who couldn’t see us approach.

Aderyn frowned as we stopped beside her, and I raised one shoulder in a small shrug at her expression. If anybody understood that the queen tended to set her own agenda, it was Aderyn .