Page 29 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

Finally, the door swung open, and my heart stuttered in my chest.

I had expected Aderyn or Keera to come see me first and inform me of my fate, although I could tell the latter was not in the immediate vicinity.

Instead, the soft gaze of my father knocked the wind out of me.

For a moment, I was young again, sneaking into the stables to work with my father when sitting still for lessons with my mother began to make me want to peel off my own skin, and only the soft noises of horses could fix it.

But the differences I found in him shattered the illusion that no time had passed.

The broadness of his shoulders had diminished, and now they slumped as if he were perpetually exhausted.

Worse though, the twinkle of mischief in his gaze that I always remembered whenever I dared think of him was nowhere to be found.

I tried to swallow as he stepped further into the room, but my throat was dry as a sand dune.

Part of me wanted to back away, press myself into the far side of the cell to escape the depth of feeling in his expression.

Another part of me wanted to rage and snarl, but I planted my feet and stood firm.

My mask had been lost in the fray, and my bare face itched as he searched my expression.

He stopped a few feet away from the wooden lattice before me.

“What should I call you?”

I jerked. It was not the opening I expected from him.

“You were there when I was named. I assume you remember it.” My words came out with unexpected bite, and I suppressed a grimace. I had surrendered, and seeing my parents was the price of my actions.

“Last I heard, you weren’t using the name I—we—gave you.”

“It’s as good as any.” I shrugged .

Kaius blinked, and then sighed heavily, the sound tremulous. Something about it unbalanced me more than if my father had charged in full of wrath at my actions. I almost wanted him to yell—to rage at me for marching into battle against my mother’s riders. This was worse.

“If I use your name, it will give me hope that I might get my son back. I don’t…” He spread his hands as if trying to get me to understand. “I know you’re not the young man I remember. But I’m not sure I have the strength to weather one more loss right now.”

At that, I bared my teeth. “You don’t have the strength to weather a loss? What losses have you suffered? I’m the one who just surrendered everything I have bled for over the past decade—who has given up my one chance to escape the burdens of my heritage.”

I wanted to spit the words like fire, but they rang hollow in the barren stone room. I could not throw my anger at him when I was the real target of my rage—my feelings twisting in on themselves in a swirl of uncertainty.

My father closed his eyes and inhaled deeply as if to steady himself.

“Erix.”

My name on his lips stole the breath from my lungs, but his next words sucked all the air from the room.

“Your mother is dead.”

The words soaked into my mind slowly, like rain penetrating earth that had been dry for too long. From there, it spread out to my chest, as icy cold as the spring water that flowed down from the mountain tops.

“The queen…” I started but couldn’t continue.

“Last night.” Kaius’s voice was reedy and thin, as if saying the words was physically painful. “She had been ill, and she and Keera tried to get into Kelvar and Alyx’s chambers. The effort was just too much for her.”

My mouth opened, but no sounds came out. There was no anger. No grief. Just a horrible, empty cold now spreading from my chest out to the tips of my fingers.

I had pictured marching into Kelvadan again and again over the past decade.

What it might be like to meet my mother as the conqueror of her city and show her what the weight of her family’s legacy had wrought.

I wondered if she would shun me, or if she would welcome me back with a heart full of regret and apologies—I simultaneously feared and yearned for the latter.

It had never occurred to me that I would return to Kelvadan but she would be gone.

Even when the deserters from Kelvadan had referred to me as the heir to the throne, it hadn’t seemed like a real possibility that there would come a time she would need a successor.

In my mind she was a permanent fixture, in the way parents are an immutable fact in the mind of a child.

And even more so as a queen, she seemed untouchable.

Even when I saw her at the Trials, every hair had been in place and her regal carriage had been impeccable, as if she could not be touched by the passage of time or the unrest of the desert.

Comparing the violence of my own inner turmoil to her unshakable poise had always driven home how much of a failure I was.

I had almost not believed that beneath the mantle of the perfect queen I had built in my mind, there had been a soft, beating heart. And now she was dead.

At some point in my turmoil, I had walked to the edge of the cell, gripping the bars so hard they creaked.

“What of Kelvadan?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“She named Keera as her heir a few weeks ago,” my father said. He watched me warily, as if he expected me to rage at this revelation.

I just nodded. “Good.”

I never wanted to be king, and I was sure that the people of Kelvadan wanted me as their monarch even less.

“Erix…” Kaius began hesitantly, taking a step forward as his hand lifted slightly, as if he were going to reach out to me.

I shook my head. “Leave.”

The word came out more violently than I meant it to, but I couldn’t muster the strength to say anything else.

I stared down at the stone floor, my vision turning to a gray blur as footsteps retreated and a door closed, marking me as alone once more.

And I was truly alone, as for a moment, even the voices of the desert left me in silence.