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

Chapter one

Keera

I looked forward to pain these days. It meant I was awake, and when I was awake, I could ask to speak to the queen and Aderyn again.

The rest of the time, I drifted in a state of numbness, like floating in the warm water of an oasis.

It could have been pleasant, but I found myself drowning in it.

I waded through the thick malaise, trying to grasp for the thread in my gut—to reach out and touch it, just to check if it was still there.

Sometimes, the haze would thin. Just as I was about to pluck at the fragile bond that connected me to Erix, the pain would rush in. What started as a dull ache coating half my body would quickly build into a raging inferno, as if my limbs were dipped in molten rock.

Sometimes I remembered that they almost had been, as I was crushed by the lava wyrm Erix and I felled.

My eyes would spring open, a scream dying in my throat, to find worried healers hovering over me—sometimes moving my limbs despite my broken protests that motion made it feel as though my skin were splitting open. Other times, they spread cool poultices over me, burning my flesh like ice.

Every time, I tried to speak .

“Queen Ginevra,” I croaked, turning my face away from the cup a wizened old man held to my lips. My voice rasped with disuse, but I put what little strength I had into my words. “It’s important.”

The man smiled, not unkindly, but something wary flashed in his eyes. My head swam too much to decipher the expression.

“You rest,” he insisted, bringing the cup to my lips once again. “Lord Alasdar no longer threatens Kelvadan because of you. Just worry about getting better.”

My ability to protest fled as he poured liquid down my throat, and I was forced to swallow to avoid choking. It was another sentiment I wished to argue against, although it was one I’d heard murmured often by the Kelvadan healers.

They called me a hero. The words were said to comfort me and tell me that my injuries were not in vain.

Apparently, in my absence, word of the threat of the united clans led by Lord Alasdar had spread through the city.

Then, I had been found holding a bloody sword with the cruel lord dead beside me.

It hadn’t been my loyalty to Kelvadan that had given me the strength to run Kelvar’s old saber through his black heart, but the way he had tortured and manipulated Erix.

The people of Kelvadan didn’t know that, though.

The healers seemed convinced that I had slain the grasping lord to protect the Great City.

It was not enough, though, to get my requests to see the queen treated with any weight.

None of it sat right with me, but every time I tried to grapple with the reasons in my mind, the threads of consciousness slipped through my fingers, and I tumbled back into oblivion once more—into a darkness haunted by stone rooms and handprints burned into flesh.

The darkness around me thinned. It took me several slow blinks to recognize that it was not the empty blackness of unconsciousness but the veil of night I saw. I was awake, and for the first time I could remember, there were no tittering healers to ply me with more pain-relieving herbs .

I took stock of the situation, finding my pain present but bearable—a far cry from the agony that had been my existence since the lava wyrm’s corpse crushed me beneath its burning weight.

Instinctually, I reached for the tether that would connect me to Erix, but it eluded me, remaining distant and fuzzy despite my unprecedented alertness.

Perhaps it was the distance between us. Or perhaps it weakened as time passed with us separated.

I didn’t know how long it had been since that night in Lord Alasdar’s tent—when I had slain the lord of the united clans that threatened to destroy Kelvadan—but from the significance of my injuries and their apparent healing, I guessed it had been weeks.

It would mean Erix and I had been apart for longer than we’d spent journeying the desert together.

The thought caused an ache in my chest that nearly overshadowed the burning in my right side, which was already beginning to pulse with the beat of my heart.

Not knowing how long I would be conscious against the building pain, I hurried to investigate my surroundings, panic rising to choke me.

I needed to speak with the queen—demand an audience before the healers could send me back into unconsciousness.

I couldn’t fathom why they hadn’t yet, but the doubt turned the panic bitter in my throat.

Turning my head to the side, I was surprised at how sluggish the motion was.

All the strength born from months of combat training seemed to have fled, leaving me as weak as I had been as a malnourished exile, languishing at my oasis.

However, my concern about my sorry state fled when I caught sight of a figure seated in the chair by my bedside. She hunched over, face cradled in her hands and hidden from my view. The thick black line inked over a shaven head was unmistakable, though.

“Aderyn,” I croaked.

Her head shot up with a startled jerk, as if she had been asleep before I had spoken.

“Keera,” she breathed, her voice almost as raspy as mine.

She leaned forward, letting me get a good look at her face.

Her proud features were the same as ever, her icy-blue eyes just as sharp as I remembered, but there was something different about her: a hollowness under her eyes and a hard set to her mouth.

She rarely fully smiled—except for at Neven—but there was always a softness at the edges of her lips that indicated she knew how.

Now, she just seemed tired. The only softness in her expression was that of relief.

I opened my mouth, full of so many questions and demands and explanations. None of them came though, only a weak cough escaping my lips.

Hastily, Aderyn reached for a pitcher on the table beside my bed and poured some liquid into a cup. She held it to my lips, but I hesitated. Now that I had her here—I didn’t remember seeing her since she found me in Lord Alasdar’s tent—I was loathe to be drugged again. There was too much to say.

“It’s just water,” Aderyn assured. “Unless you want something for the pain?”

I shook my head as hard as I could muster, despite the wave of dizziness it caused.

She raised the cup to my lips, and I let her pour the water into my mouth.

It was blessedly cool, and I tried to drink too fast, droplets spilling over my cracked lips.

Thirst was a memory that never really left you when you lived in the Ballan Desert.

After a few healthy swallows, Aderyn pulled the cup away.

“Thank you,” I said, my voice coming with a little more strength now. “I want to be able to think for once.”

Aderyn didn’t meet my eyes as she turned to set the cup back on the table. “I’m sorry we had to keep you unconscious for so long. The healers… We thought it would be safer to keep you sedated until your control returned.”

I blinked as the meaning of her words set in, then shrunk back into my pillows.

Aderyn shook her head wryly. “You nearly brought down the entire palace the first time they tried to change your bandages.”

A lump rose in my throat, and I tried in vain to swallow it down.

Out in the open wilds of the desert with Erix, my unleashed powers had not been as much of a liability, and his touch could always bring me back to myself.

Here in the city though, lives would be at stake if I lost control.

I wanted to rage against the fact that I had been forcibly drugged, but I couldn’t.

Not when I knew what it was to have my emotions cost innocent people their lives.

It was the reason my parents left me .

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

“Don’t be,” Aderyn insisted firmly. “After what you endured at the hands of the Viper and Lord Alasdar, I would be more concerned if you weren’t spitting fire.”

“This wasn’t Erix,” I said immediately. As soon as the words were out of my mouth though, doubt reared its head in my gut, swirling with my resolve in a nauseating mix.

Erix had not caused my injuries, but he had taken me to his cruel lord—delivered me to a would-be conqueror when I was in no state to fight.

But I had fought, nonetheless. Lord Alasdar was dead, but the fate of the desert was still in peril as long as she was missing her Heart.

The Heart that remained locked in the tomb in the highest tower of Kelvadan.

“I need to talk to the queen. We can prevent a war.”

Aderyn scrubbed a hand over her bare head, exhaustion written deep in every line of her face. “There may be more than one war knocking on our door these days.”

Her answer was cryptic, and I frowned, pleased to find that the expression was possible. The burns on my face had apparently healed enough to stretch without cracking.

“Even more reason for me to speak with Queen Ginevra immediately.”

Aderyn looked at me solemnly. “Keera… the queen is very ill.”

The thud of the cane against the stone floor of the courtyard radiated up my arm. I dragged my foot forward in another step, grateful that the design of the palace left the floors without any lips or obstacles to trip on. Walking was turning out to be a difficult enough task as it was.

I tottered through another step, bracing most of my weight on the cane in my hand to keep it off my injured leg. The bone seemed to have healed well, but after weeks of immobility, it was weak and wobbly .

In fact, all of me was weak and wobbly. Neven seemed to sense this, hovering just off my elbow as I trudged doggedly in another circle around the courtyard that abutted the palace infirmary.

His hands fluttered as I swayed, as if he wanted to reach out and stabilize me but was afraid I might bite off his fingers if he tried.