Page 60 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)
Chapter twenty-three
Keera
W e did not pause to rest until beams of sunlight peeked over the horizon, painting the sands in the muted gray of the moments before dawn.
As the flaming orb of the sun came into view, its heat began chasing away the chill of the moonless night, and I pushed my hood back to bask in the feeling of the morning air without the barrier of stone walls.
I had taken to doing my morning forms on the balcony before the palace was fully awake, but their meditative nature paled in comparison to the peach of the wilderness.
Lord Dhara dismounted and walked to the top of a nearby dune to survey our surroundings.
As she did, she braced her hands on her lower back and bent backward, stretching the stiffness of a long ride from her muscles.
She was a good riding companion, not speaking just to fill the silence, but not hard to converse with either.
Erix climbed down from Alza’s back as well, looking toward the sky as Zephyr wheeled overhead, apparently having followed us from the encampment now that he was reunited with Erix. I watched as the falcon settled on his arm and he whispered to him under his breath.
As I slid off Daiti’s back I considered for a moment before trailing after Dhara, leaving Erix with the horses and his feathered companion. I stopped beside Lord Dhara, both of us looking out at the endlessly shifting dunes before us.
I tilted my head side to side, and my joints popped loudly. Dhara snorted in what sounded like amusement.
“It seems like being a queen means you aren’t accustomed to spending long hours on horseback these days,” she commented, her words seeming more like a question than a jab.
“Unfortunately, being a queen of a stationary city does not come with the same benefits of leading a nomadic clan.”
She glanced at me sidelong.
“You were not raised in the city.” She did not phrase it as a question.
I shook my head.
“I could never give up clan life, even for a palace as beautiful as the one I have heard lies at the top of Kelvadan. I prefer my tent and my horse,” she admitted.
A bittersweet mix of longing and guilt coated my tongue at the thought that I might prefer a tent and horse as well. I tried my hardest to strangle those thoughts, just as Ginevra had warned me I would have to.
“I don’t get enough time with Daiti,” I admitted. “But you are loyal to the people of Clan Otush. I saw it when you called on Kelvadan to protect your people from the lava wyrm. The people of Kelvadan need a protector too. To make it the haven it was meant to be.”
Dhara didn’t look at me, her gaze very far away as she tilted her head in thought.
“It can be hard to be both a woman and a leader. It means a war between a loyalty to your people and a duty to your own heart sometimes,” she said, tucking her hands into her sash. The movement made her many knives jangle.
One corner of my lips pulled up. It was similar to something Queen Ginevra had once said on a balcony in Kelvadan. Lord Dhara couldn’t have looked more different, from her simply slicked back hair to her intensely practical brown clothes, but the sentiment was achingly familiar.
“It’s a war I fear to lose more than almost any,” I admitted, a strange kinship with Dhara settling into my bones .
Now she did look at me. “Perhaps your two loyalties do not fall as far apart as you thought they did. After all, Lord Koen saw you and the Lord Viper fighting for the desert together. Kelvadan is part of the desert.”
I smiled and raised a brow. “Perhaps your heart and the needs are your people don’t have to be in conflict either.” I thought of the way Lord Elion had smiled at her as she taunted him before the game of kaman and how he had sat so close to her at the fire that their shoulders constantly brushed.
Lord Dhara just scowled at me. “My heart only belongs to my sword and my horse.”
“As any lord’s heart does,” I conceded.
We fell into a comfortable silence, listening to the dry brush of wind over sand. It was only a moment before a sharp whinny behind me made me jump. I spun on my heel to find Daiti stamping and posturing at Dhara’s dun mare. I sighed heavily as I jogged back toward them, the moment of peace broken.
We had parted ways with Lord Dhara hours ago when we stopped to rest the horses for the hottest part of the day. She had turned off our path away from the rising sun to head back to her clans, as we continued on toward Kelvadan.
“Clan Otush would welcome you, if you ever have need of our aid in your mission to restore the desert again,” she had said before tapping her temple and riding off into the rising sun.
Now Erix and I used some short poles and a sheet of canvas to create some shade against the side of a rocky rise.
Once it was secured, I crawled under it on my elbows, settling myself with my back pressed to the rocky wall.
I sighed in relief at the few degrees of temperature difference offered by the shade.
Though the heat was still oppressive at this time of day, in the shelter I no longer felt like any inch of exposed skin might boil off my bones.
I already had the slight headachy feeling from squinting at the unrelenting brightness, but something about it felt comforting.
It was a familiar sensation that had been infrequent during my time in Kelvadan .
Erix slid in after me, mirroring my position, the top of our makeshift shelter barely high enough to accommodate his head.
Once we were settled, I inclined my head toward him, the anticipation that had been simmering in my chest rising to a fever pitch. “I want to see what they say,” I started without preamble.
Understanding my meaning, Erix reached beneath his tabards to pull out a sheaf of papers. The edges curled with age, but I recognized the same harsh handwriting from the journal Erix had shown me. These pages were written in Kelvar’s own hand.
We leafed through them, and my stomach dropped to see how many they numbered. Alasdar had stolen more information than I’d guessed, and I could only imagine the secrets he had uncovered. I held out my hand, and Erix separated out part of the stack for me to begin studying.
I hadn’t made it very far on the first page, moving slowly due to the cramped handwriting and my own ineptitude, when Erix inhaled sharply.
“I think I found something,” he said. Laying the paper on his lap, he smoothed it out beneath his hands. I leaned forward so I could look.
He traced a line of words, reading aloud.
“The blood glass will keep us safe from those who oppose the creation of a Great City in the Ballan Desert. I called forth these walls to protect Alyx, and I will see that she is safe. The oldest and wisest among the clans say that the only substance that could unmake blood glass can no longer be found, as it was born of the desert’s fury and disappeared when the first man crossed her and conquered her heart. ”
Apprehension made my heart stutter. “What we need can no longer be found?” I echoed.
Erix frowned at the paper before him. “It couldn’t be found in Kelvar’s time, but the desert’s fury rises again. Perhaps it has reemerged with the creatures of legend.”
“Any idea what it might be?” I asked.
Erix let his head fall back against the rock with a thunk , screwing his eyes shut. “No,” he admitted. “Why am I so utterly unprepared for something I’ve been trying to accomplish my whole life? ”
“It seems to be the desert’s pleasure to shove us into roles we aren’t prepared for,” I commiserated, reaching into the pocket of my flowing pants and finding the small fruit that I had stored there.
I pulled it forth and inspected the dimpled skin before gouging a fingernail into the thick rind. The citrus smell quickly permeated the small space, and I breathed it in happily.
Oranges had quickly become my favorite during my time in Kelvadan; brought in from Viltov and not readily available among the clans, they seemed like an incomprehensible luxury.
Despite the palace attendants quickly picking up on my proclivity for them, and putting one on my breakfast plate every morning, I had never been able to break the habit of squirreling them away.
The hungry exile who hid under the skin of a queen whispered in my ear to shove them in my pockets and save them for later.
I found myself counting them and resisting the urge to hide them under my pillow.
The habit became harder to break as every day, the archon’s updated me on the dwindling grain supplies, and the rationing that already pinched the citizens of Kelvadan.
For now though, I peeled away the thick skin and separated the segments. I popped one into my mouth and my eyelids fluttered happily as the tart, juicy flavor exploded in my mouth. I sucked on the tip of my fingers so as not to waste any of the fruit.
Erix made a strange grunt next to me, and I glanced over to find he no longer had his eyes shut in frustration, but instead they fixed on me as I ate. Curiously, I separated another piece of fruit and held it out to him.
He plucked it carefully from my fingers, but to my surprise, he didn’t eat it. Instead, he reached out to hold it to my own lips. My pulse hammered as I met his eyes. Slowly, holding his silver gaze, I opened my mouth.
He placed the piece of fruit on my waiting tongue, and my lips brushed his fingers as I closed my mouth and slowly chewed. A drop of juice dripped down from the corner of my mouth, and Erix didn’t hesitate before swiping it with his thumb and pressing it into my mouth .
I sucked gently, and an unearthly growl rumbled in his chest. The already hot temperature in the small space ratcheted even higher, and I feared I might burst into flames.
Erix’s gaze, so intense that the world seemed to fall away around us, didn’t waver as he plucked the rest of the fruit from my slack fingers. He held it in one hand as he looped his other arm around my waist, using it to pull me into his lap.