Page 7 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)
“More like what Hell has he saved us from,” Lord Elion cut him off before my temper could rise, although it still tugged insistently at its leash, an itch to lash out flaring under my skin.
He walked over to the misshapen heap of the felled spider and prodded it with his toe.
“If our Lord Viper had not already known they feared flame, we may have lost many more riders. But he had already saved Clan Tibel from one of these beasts before.”
“It came from the pit he made,” Lord Nathaira sneered. Despite the fineness of her features—her high cheekbones and the rich olive tone of her skin accentuated by smooth dark hair shot through with tiny strands of silver—the constant disdain she wore on her face made her unappealing.
I bared my teeth in a snarl, glad that my mask would be able to help me keep the appearance of composure. Even now, it took an iron grip on my consciousness to keep my focus on the words of the lords before me. I wanted to throw myself down the bond in my mind, Keera’s end quiet once more.
“And I will protect us from them,” I declared before any more discord could be sown, raising my voice so that the rapidly growing crowd could hear. “Fire will keep the spiders away. We will build bonfires at regular intervals around the pit and keep them burning night and day.”
Titters ran through the crowd, words swirling in the air like a squall of sand whipped into a whirlwind.
“What will we burn?” Lord Nathaira asked. “We already don’t have enough wood to build a bridge to carry us out of this trap. We won’t be able to feed the fires for very long, and then where will we be?”
I took a deep slow breath as I considered the truth of her words. Metal, sweat, and charred flesh filled my nose. My gaze darted to the still smoldering pile of flesh to my left.
“Burn the spiders,” I commanded. “If fire is not enough to dissuade them, then the warning of what happens to the monsters that threaten these clans will.”
I was greeted by nods of approval from several Lords, and Izumi, who had stridden up to join us as we spoke.
Still, the firelight from the torch she held flickered over heavy shadows in the faces around me—both Lords and clansmen.
The light could not chase away the darkness of fear and doubt that lived in the hollows beneath their eyes.
We were running out of time.
Spinning on my heel, I marched toward the two felled spiders, drawing my saber once more to hack them into makeshift kindling.
I would do anything in my power to save these people from the dangers wrought by my actions.
My grandfather had destroyed the desert and left her people to suffer for it, and I was determined not to fall to the same fate I had spent my whole life running from.
I had plenty of practice fighting against the price of the desert’s magic, and I would keep the clans safe from my own failings until I could heal our home.
Blood coated my hands. I wasn’t wearing my gloves, and the liquid warmed my skin. I spread my fingers, feeling how the coagulating blood stuck them together.
There was so much of it that it ran up my wrists, soaking into the cuffs of my robes.
“You did so well,” said a familiar voice, slippery but strangely soothing.
I lifted my head, intending to look up at the speaker, but instead my gaze caught on the horrible sight in front of me.
Keera lay on the ground, her golden eyes a dull yellow as they stared lifelessly up at the ceiling.
It was the same heart-shaped face I saw every time I closed my eyes, but it contained none of the life that pulled me toward her since the first time I saw it.
In the center of her chest gaped a ragged hole, deep and dark as the chasm around the camp.
Blood spilled from it to cover the sands—the same blood that covered my hands.
Icy horror gripped me. I wanted to scream, but I was paralyzed, forced to stare into her face—the one that wore her every emotion without shame, from bared teeth to contortions of pleasure. Now it was slack and would never hold life again.
A rustle indicated movement on the far side of Keera’s body, but I still couldn’t look away.
Slowly, a familiar hand plunged into the hole in the center of her chest. A wet squelch filled my ears as the hand pulled free.
Even worse than the nauseating sound was what was clutched in its spidery fingers.
Keera’s human heart. Silent and still.
Finally, my neck unfroze, and I could look up, past the heart into a face I knew better than my own.
Lord Alasdar smiled at me, holding out the heart in his hand as if it were a great gift.
“The desert is pleased with her blood. Now restore her heart.”
Consciousness flooded into my brain so fast that I barely had a chance to roll over before I was retching. My stomach fought to turn itself inside out as I heaved on the sand in my small tent. Only acid came up, burning my throat like fire and making my eyes water.
After several minutes, I was left hunched on the ground, shivering in a cold sweat. The chattering in my head shattered the silence of the night, but it was still not enough to distract me from the image of Keera’s bloody heart clutched in Lord Alasdar’s hand.
I tried to breathe deeply, reminding myself that I couldn’t smell the blood from my dream. Just the familiar scents of hot earth and horseflesh. No matter how real my nightmare had felt, it was just that—a dream.
Of course, my prior dreams of Keera had been more than just nighttime imaginings.
I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing for just a moment of peace.
I almost wished that I could go to Lord Alasdar’s tent and find him sitting there, ready to brand a fresh line into my back. The burning of fire would be less painful than my nightmares, which taunted me with perversions of my purpose.
If Lord Alasdar was there, he would lift the burden of leadership that I had run from my whole life but somehow seemed to find myself yoked with anyway. He would be responsible for the death and destruction sweeping across the desert, and I could return to being an instrument for his machinations.
But he would have ripped out the heart of any who opposed him—even Keera.
If I missed a monster like him, what did that make me?
Another shudder wracked my body as I heaved again and again, until unconsciousness finally claimed me.