Page 17 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

The queen raised her hands from her lap, and the crowd before her quieted.

I scanned their faces, finding them wearing a variety of frowns and furrowed brows.

Still, they respected their queen enough to give her the opportunity to address them.

It struck me as a reminder that she had been a good leader, even when she hadn’t been a good mother.

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked.

A man near the front stepped forward, seeming to be the chosen leader of the group.

“Rumors have been running through the city that you were dead. Word had it that the new ambassador from Doran had assassinated you, just like the last one tried to interfere with the Trials and kill a rider. Nobody had seen you in weeks, and we became concerned that our city had fallen into enemy hands.” He shoved his hands in his sash and lifted his chin as he spoke.

“As you can see, I’m not dead.” Queen Ginevra spread her arms in demonstration, a hint of levity in her voice reassuring me, even though I knew the direness of the situation better than most. “I have just been ill and taking some time to recover.”

The crowd rippled, apparently assuaged, but a current of concern still undercut their murmurs.

A flash of copper in the back of the crowd caught my attention.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to find the source, but it was swallowed by the churning of the throng.

In a moment, my attention was drawn away from my search by more shouting.

“If you are ill, who is responsible for Kelvadan?” asked the crowd’s spokesperson. “You…” He hesitated as if second guessing himself, but then squared his shoulders and soldiered on. “You have no heir to rule in your stead… Not since Prince Erix died.”

My fingers, still wrapped around the handles of the wheeled chair, tightened so forcefully the wood creaked. In my peripheral vision, I saw Alyx glance at me, but nobody else paid me any mind.

Words bubbled up in my throat—a scream ready to burst forth that Erix was alive and he had been taken from me. Instead, they stuck like a ball of lava, bubbling and festering beneath my breastbone.

There was a living, breathing man beneath the mask of the Viper—one who was beautiful and broken and had held my beating heart in his scarred hands.

But he was not Prince Erix of Kelvadan—he was not the man these people needed to be a beacon of strength when the ground seemed to shift beneath their feet.

In fact, he was an earthquake that threatened to raze this city to its roots.

I bit my tongue so hard that copper filled my mouth, and I fixed my gaze on the twist of braids on the back of Queen Ginevra’s head.

She used the arms of the chair to lever herself up and stand. Aderyn’s hands fluttered, as if she wanted to steady her, but she clenched them at her side.

“I am still capable of ruling this city,” she announced, her tone brooking no argument.

Despite the fact that her flowing dress hung off her shoulders, much thinner than they had been, she still held them with a decidedly regal bearing.

“This city is also home to many other capable people, who would never let it fall into enemy hands,” Queen Ginevra continued.

“Aderyn commands Kelvadan’s riders as well as she ever has.

And our very own Champion, Keera, has proven herself capable of protecting this Great City from threats of all kinds, from grasping lords to threats of nature. ”

She gestured back to me, and the eyes of the crowd settled on me like a physical touch. I itched to flinch away, like I had at foreign contact months earlier. Instead, I met the queen’s gaze and saw the plea hidden behind her proud posture.

I took a step forward to stand beside her and Aderyn, squaring my shoulders and tucking my hands into my sash.

More titters ran through the crowd as they took me in. I could almost feel my scars rippling on my skin, and I feared finding pity in their eyes—or even worse, disgust and fear. The expression my parents had worn before riding away from me forever.

Instead, I met the eyes of the group’s leader and found something unexpected: respect.

He raised his hands to his temple and tapped his fingers against his brow.

In unison, the crowd behind him echoed the action.

Rows upon rows of people offered the gesture of reverence without hesitation—to me, a former exile, who still felt like an outcast in so many ways .

A burning lump rose in my throat, so thick it was almost painful. For years, I had ached to belong, and now I would not back away from their respect, as much as it scared me. I refused to squander the faith they had put in me, even if it left me facing down an army led by Erix.

My resolve crystallized, hard as blood glass in my heart as I raised my fingers to my temple and saluted the residents of Kelvadan in return.

I nudged Cail forward at a brisker pace, ready for the hot wind in my face to scour away my tumultuous thoughts. City politics and the constant threat of war overshadowed every other moment of my life these days, but I wouldn’t let it take the peaceful joy of my daily rides from me.

Stump and Calix automatically kept pace next to us, although the gelding did let out a discontented sigh.

As usual, we rode in comfortable silence for a while, the motion lulling me into a sense of relaxation, even though my muscles would still protest mildly when we returned to the stables.

Thankfully, Calix seemed to have picked up on my preference for quiet early into his habit of joining me for rides.

As thankful as I was that he didn’t interrupt my peace with mindless chatter, I was equally grateful that he still came with me. I had had enough solitude in my life.

I was still wary of him—of the threats still posed by both Doran and Viltov—but he had wormed his way beneath the outermost layer of my distrust after the avalanche.

His voice had helped bring me back to myself, and neither fear nor judgement had entered his gaze as he helped me back to the city, covered in dust and grime.

Now, as my breaths came deep and even, I allowed my consciousness to drift toward the shifting well in the pit of my stomach. My mental fingers stroked the living power there hesitantly, and it perked but didn’t lash out.

I let out a quivering breath between my lips .

On horseback was the only time I dared do this.

My magic had been relatively dormant since I had returned to Kelvadan, suppressed by pain and sedative draughts, but every day it awakened more within me.

Part of me had hoped it would stay asleep, but I also knew I was likely to need its aid in the event of an attack on Kelvadan.

Now though, lyra leaf tea was no longer an option in helping me gain control, and I couldn’t rely on Erix’s touch to pull me back to myself should I lose my way in the tide of magic. It seemed the only time I could draw on it without paralyzing fear of catastrophe was when I rode.

So focused was I on gently dipping my fingers into the current of magic coursing gently within me, that I didn’t realize how far we had ridden until Cail ambled to a stop. We had ridden all the way to the half-decimated grain fields and now were almost back to the city entrance.

“What is all that?” Calix asked, pointing just to the far side of the city’s gate. I followed the line of his arm to a milling crowd outside the walls.

It was my turn to frown. These days, only those who tended the irrigated fields ventured beyond the walls, too scared of an impending attack or the monsters whose return could no longer be denied.

I urged my mare faster, and the wind started carrying angry voices to me. Although I couldn’t make out their words, the harsh tones and cadence of people all talking over each other made the hairs on my arms stand at attention.

As I drew closer, harsh black lines on the wall behind the angry crowd became visible. I squinted as I approached, and the lines formed themselves into words.

I finished reading them a full second before their meaning sank into my mind, slowly, like dry soil packed so tightly it was unable to absorb the occasional rain shower in the desert.

When it hit me, I tensed so suddenly that my horse skidded to a stop beneath me, nearly launching me over her neck and onto the ground.

Prince Erix is alive. The Viper is the true heir to Kelvadan.

I murmured the words under my breath, as if that could help me understand how they had come to be here—why anybody would do this .

“The queen has been lying to us!” a voice from the crowd cut through the general chaos, penetrating the storm in my skull.

“She didn’t know!” I shouted.

A hush fell, heavy in the air like the crackle of lightning before a storm. The stillness was only broken by Calix appearing next to me.

He looked at me curiously, a calculating look in his eye that reminded me that he was raised a prince, while there was so much about the games of politics I didn’t understand.

I shouldn’t have spoken up, but I couldn’t take my words back now, just like the news getting out that The Viper was Queen Ginevra’s son was irreversible.

Whoever had done this knew the chaos they would unleash—that this would be a rock thrown into a calm pool, causing waves that could not be calmed. They had wanted chaos—the only question was what they stood to gain from it.

“So, it’s true?” A woman from the crowd yelled, stepping forward and setting her hands on her hips.

I swallowed, finding it difficult, as if something sharp and painful were lodged in my throat.

The man I knew under the mask was not the Prince Erix these people referred to—just a man who desperately wanted to shed the weight of being Kelvar’s heir—but I could not lie to them.

Not if I wanted to deserve the sense of belonging they had offered me—belonging that Erix had once offered me, but now seemed more distant every passing minute.