Page 52 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

Chapter twenty-one

Keera

I clucked my tongue as Daiti pointedly ignored me. With a huff of frustration, I slipped into his stall.

“One would think he didn’t even miss me,” I griped, slapping his flank lightly. He didn’t turn to face me, instead leaving his neck arched over the barrier between his stall and the next.

“I can guarantee you he did,” Erix murmured behind me, keeping his tone quiet to avoid disturbing the sleepy quiet of the stables at night. “He wouldn’t let anybody besides me or Alza approach. More than a few members of Clan Katal earned hoof-shaped bruises before they learned.”

I stood on my tip toes to look over into the next stall to see what had transfixed Daiti. If we had not been in a hurry, I might have laughed.

“He seems to have made a new friend now,” I commented.

The familiar mare, Cail, that I had ridden during my convalescence, lay on a smattering of hay. Despite Daiti’s fervent interest, she kept her nose tucked and dozed lightly. Apparently, her calm patience extended to persistent stallions as well as injured riders.

I put my hand on the far side of Daiti’s neck and hauled his gaze away from Cail. He let me, although he let out a snort of annoyance .

“You find another pretty female and all of a sudden I’m not interesting anymore?

” I asked as I finally gained his full attention.

He blew out a breath over my face in reassurance.

I smiled despite his stubbornness. While I had found a few minutes to come visit him every day, I had not had time for a proper ride since the coronation.

Now, I was just a few minutes away from having Daiti out under the open sky, among the sands where he could let loose.

He suffered me to strap the few packs I had brought with me to his back, although one of his ears turned back to indicate that he disliked the process. Indiscernible murmuring drifted from the stall on the far side as Erix did the same with Alza, talking quietly to her as he did so.

After just a few moments, we both led our mounts out of their stalls into the stable.

Kaius, made aware of our plans, had made sure none were present to witness our departure in the dead of night.

He would ensure nobody noticed that Erix was absent from helping him in the stables for a few days.

Aderyn was the only other person who knew of our plans, concocting a story of how I was dedicating a week to private study, setting myself to the problem of the approaching famine.

It was not completely untrue.

Still, Erix and I both wore the nondescript tan of a Kelvadan rider, with hoods pulled low and the free ends covering the lower portion of our face. We were not a queen and her prisoner, but two anonymous riders headed out into the wilds.

Both Daiti and Alza seemed to sense the need for quiet, setting their hooves carefully as we filed out of the stables and passed through the gate leading out of the palace courtyard.

As we descended through the city, a quiet rushing began in my veins.

Despite the gravity of our mission to recover the lost pages from Kelvar’s journal, I couldn’t help the growing excitement blossoming in my chest.

After months of sleeping within the palace walls, constrained by responsibility and expectation, I was about to be free among the dunes.

Erix and I slipped through the city gates and exchanged a glance as we paused there.

The mountains stood like a wall at our back, and the horizon stretched out endlessly under a velvety sky, lit only by a narrow crescent of silver moon.

In unison, we mounted our horses and rode out into the night.

I surreptitiously rubbed my legs with my clenched fists, trying to relieve some of the ache from my hips and thighs.

Erix and I had ridden for days on end before, but it had been weeks since I had spent this long on horseback.

Daiti’s back was far broader than Cail’s, and my body protested the posture.

I bit my tongue though, not wanting to stop. The sun had now risen high in the sky, its intensity burning away the lingering sense of mental tension that lingered within the palace walls. Out here, your only true opponent was the elements, and they had no ulterior motives.

Erix glanced at me sidelong. “I can tell you’re uncomfortable. You don’t have to try to be sneaky about it,” he said.

I sighed, my shoulders slumping. “While we were apart, I could barely feel your presence. Now you can apparently read my mind.”

“The more time we spend together, the more clearly I can feel your magic,” Erix admitted. “But I don’t need to be in your head to tell you’re sore. You’ve adjusted your seat twice in the last minute.”

“You could lie to me and tell me that only whatever this connection is between us gave me away,” I grumbled.

“Can you feel my presence that clearly?”

I cocked my head, gently plucking the tether that ran from the well of magic in the pit of my stomach.

It shivered as he tugged at it in return.

The tiny trickle of magic between us that had begun the first time his skin touched mine had formed into a halting flow when we laid together.

Now, it was a steady current of power between us.

“No,” I admitted. “I think I can only feel your magic. Not your thoughts and only hints of your feelings, aside from the rush whenever it slips your control. And the dreams ”

“It’s the same for me,” he said, squinting at the horizon. “And when you were cut off from the magic of the desert, it was like the connection was gone.”

His fists clenched on his thighs.

“We need to find a place to rest for the afternoon anyway. The horses could use a rest as much as you could.”

“I don’t want to make us stop before we have found shade or water,” I said.

Erix raised a hand to shield his eyes. “There looks to be a ridge over in that direction.”

Indeed, a darker patch indicating a rock formation distinguished the otherwise unremarkable stretch of sand.

“Hopefully there will be a spring or a natural well nearby.”

We continued on and I relished the gentle quiet of the wilderness around me.

Mice skittered through dry scrub, the scarce vegetation becoming more common as we approached the rocky outcropping.

Somewhere in the distance, a caracal trilled, signaling a successful hunt.

I turned my face up to the sun, despite the near-painful intensity of its heat, just to enjoy the momentary burn on my cheeks.

“Do you see that?” Erix asked, pulling me from my reverie.

I lowered my gaze to the cliff we rode toward and squinted. Against the burnt orange of the cliff face were splotches of tan and brown. As I stared, they turned into recognizable shapes—tents and fire pits.

“Is it one of the clans?” I asked, searching for the color of a flag atop one of the tents but finding none.

Erix frowned. “I don’t see any horses.”

The back of my neck prickled at the eerie emptiness of the encampment, apparent even at this distance. We should be able to hear the barking of hunting dogs or the clash of training sabers by now, but none of the normal sounds of an encampment drifted on the quiet wind.

I nudged Daiti into a canter, and Alza followed suit. Horror slithered up my spine as we passed through the outer circle of tents. Many were collapsed or the canvas ripped, cut in large swaths as if by a swinging saber. Some bore stains—the reddish brown of old blood .

We slowed our horses, picking through the wreckage toward the center of the camp. Abandoned fire pits made black pock marks throughout the sand, which had been churned as if by dozens of people running this way and that.

“Was it a lava wyrm? Or bone spiders?” I shivered, remembering the horrifying creatures Erix had described to me when recounting our time apart. The right side of my body tingled and burned where the lava wyrm had crushed me, and I shivered despite the heat.

We stopped in the middle of the encampment before the largest tent where the Lord would live. One side was caved in, the supporting poles shattered beyond repair, with an entire panel of canvas shredded.

Erix shook his head and dismounted. “There are no burns, so it couldn’t be a lava wyrm. And there are no corpses. I don’t think the monsters of the desert would bother to burn the dead.”

I turned Daiti in a circle, taking in the carnage. Erix was right. There were no bodies. Besides the ruined dwellings, there were some marks in the sand where other tents had been, but apparently had been packed up and moved away. I furrowed my brow.

The caw of a bird cut through the heavy lifelessness. I craned my neck to look up at the sky, squinting at a familiar set of brown and white barred wings.

“Zephyr,” Erix exclaimed, the grimness in his tone replaced with excitement.

The falcon fluttered down and tried to alight on Erix’s shoulder. He winced as talons dug into his tunic. Quickly, Erix grabbed a leather glove from his pack and donned it before shifting Zephyr’s weight to his arm.

“Where did he come from?” I asked. Despite my concern for what had happened at this encampment, I couldn’t help the slight warmth in my heart as Erix stroked the top of Zephyr’s head gently with two fingers.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I assumed he stayed with the clans when I came to Kelvadan. He prefers being around people. I wouldn’t expect him to be out on his own.”

I glanced around us. “Maybe he’s not. Maybe there is another encampment nearby. They could know what happened here. ”

“Or they could be the ones who did it,” Erix pointed out grimly. He was right; this looked like the carnage of a battle wrought by humans.

Erix lifted his arm, and Zephyr took to the air, flapping his wings hard to lift himself over the ridge his encampment sat in the shade of.

“I guess we’ll head that way,” Erix said, jumping back onto Alza’s back.