Page 80 of Crown of the Dunes (The Ballan Desert #2)

Chapter thirty-three

Keera

I twisted in Calix’s grip, gritting my teeth against the searing pain in my scalp. I could barely feel it over the burning fire in my lungs. It had built to the point it was akin to being crushed beneath the lava wyrm.

My gaze fixed on the green vial in Calix’s fingers, but my vision blurred.

The riders had surrendered Kelvadan to Prince Calix’s rule, and I was a fallen queen on death’s door.

I had failed this city. Already, Calix’s men forced the riders to their knees and bound their hands.

As soon as Erix handed Calix half the Heart, I would have failed the whole desert too—the clans that I had promised Lord Dhara I would not forget about.

Erix didn’t trust himself to be able to heal the Heart.

I could tell from the hollow feeling in my gut and the despair on his face as he took in the broken gem.

As long as Calix held the power to heal me, Erix would be willing to give up the Heart.

But I knew him—I knew his strength better than I knew myself.

Erix would do whatever it took, and I trusted him.

I trust you.

I pushed the thought down the tether at my core as Calix raised the vile to my lips. A sharp, pungent aroma drifted to my nose, and even the smell of it seemed to clear some of the haze in my mind.

It was just enough for me to pull my lips back into a snarl. “Get eaten by a bone spider.”

I swung my fist up in an uppercut, knocking the antidote from Calix’s hand. As my fist connected with the underside of his jaw, he dropped me. My legs collapsed, and I slid to the ground.

“No!” Erix shouted, diving forward, but he was too late. The green glass shattered on the stone, splintering into tiny fragments and spilling the concoction over the ground. The dry stone soaked it up, the chance for my salvation disappearing like smoke on the wind.

“Take the Heart and run,” I gasped at Erix as he froze, fingers outstretched toward the shattered glass as if he could will it back together.

“Save the desert and then save Kelvadan,” I insisted, forcing every bit of strength left in me into the plea.

The riders of Kelvadan were already disarmed and bound—at Calix’s men’s mercy.

With so many hostages, it was too late for them to turn the tide and retake the city, but Erix still had the Heart.

He looked up, shaking his head. I could barely focus on his silver eyes as my vision swam, but I grit my teeth and tried to focus on them. It would be the last chance I ever had.

An angry shout sounded from my right as Calix regained himself after my lashing out caught him by surprise. My muscles responded too slowly for me to respond to his attack—the flash of a blade the only warning I got in my peripheral vision.

Calix’s cry of rage turned into a scream of pain, and he collapsed to one knee.

I flopped over onto my side to see Neven, propped up on his knees, one of Aderyn’s knives in his left hand, with his mangled right one still clutched to his chest. He must have snuck the blade from her belt as she held him, and now it dripped with Calix’s blood, a deep gash in his calf.

Erix lunged toward him, grabbing him by the front of his billowing white shirt. “How do we fix her,” he demanded.

Calix groaned, still obviously shaken by the blow to the face and the stab to his leg. Erix shook him violently .

“Tell me,” I snarled. “Or I’ll chop off your limbs and feed them to a bone spider myself.”

Calix shook his head. “That was all of the antidote I had.” A dry laugh escaped him. “This city is still mine. Your riders are my hostages, and she is going to die for nothing.”

A roar of rage tore from Erix, and I tasted magic on the air as he raised his fist. He didn’t even bother with magic, punching Calix so hard he instantly went limp in his hold. His fist fell again and again, and blood splattered the ground.

“Stop or we execute your riders!” one of Calix’s men shouted where he stood over an unarmed kneeling warrior, but either Erix didn’t hear it or didn’t care. I tried to tell him that he needed to stop, but all that escaped me was a wracking cough.

Erix raised his arm again, but it was caught in a firm grip. He looked up to find Aderyn had caught it. Her gaze was icy again, hard enough to crack iron.

“Keera needs your help, and we are running out of time,” she insisted, her voice brooking no argument.

Erix grip in the front of Calix’s shirt loosened, the fabric that had once been white now splattered with blood. The prince crumpled to the ground.

I tried to reach for Erix, but my muscles weren’t responding. Each breath I drew was a concerted effort and came with a sensation like being stabbed in the chest. I could barely keep my eyes open, and I let them flutter.

“Keera. Keera, no .”

Erix’s voice came from very far away as I swam in a hazy darkness.

“Don’t let go, my feral little fighter.”

I wanted to tell him he was going to have to fight for me while I caught my breath. Another voice sounded nearby—a familiar rough grumble. General Warrick?

“I recognize this poison. Viltov has used it against Doran before. I carry antidotes to Viltov’s favorite poisons, and I can give you this one if you make me a promise. ”

I tried to peel open my eyes, but they were too heavy, and all I could do was listen as there was a scuffle and some snarling, followed by Aderyn’s clipped tone.

“What promise?” she asked.

“Two things. First, leave this place, and come back with an army,” he said. “The clans were loyal to Prince Erix before, and they can take it back. Your riders are surrendered and weaponless, and Calix already murdered the archons. You will need more support to retake this city.”

“And the second?” Erix asked, his voice a low rumble.

“Take that Heart far away from here,” Warrick demanded. “Don’t let it fall into Viltov’s hands.”

I tried to listen to the rest of the conversation, but my mind drifted, as if it were trying to float away from my body. My consciousness spread out to cover the entire desert, and I was connected to every grain of sand from the city to the ocean. I was the desert.

The rattling ache of my breath in my lungs and the burning of my skin slipped away, only to be replaced by a voice.

It was distant and powerful and spoke in words I couldn’t understand.

I reached out for it desperate to understand.

It sounded like my mother, but not, and I wanted to tumble headfirst into its hold.

A cool object pressed to my lips and a sharp taste filled my mouth. The pain in my body called to me and for a moment, I fought against it. I had to know of what the voice spoke. But the ache in my bones was too much, and understanding slipped from my grasp.

“Keera, come back.”

I sputtered and swallowed, and my eyes flew open to stare up into Erix’s piercing silver gaze.

“It’s working,” he breathed in relief.

“We have to leave. Now.” Aderyn’s voice was hard.

I screwed my eyes shut again as the world spun around me, familiar, strong arms hoisting me into the air.

My stomach lurched, but the nausea seemed to be abating.

Fluttering my eyelids open, I found that Erix carried me through the courtyard.

Calix’s men, still armed and standing over kneeling riders of Kelvadan, watched us warily as we weaved through their ranks.

A scraping sound came from my left, and I looked over to find Aderyn dragging Calix’s limp form along with a blade held to his throat, while Neven leaned on one of her shoulders for support.

Having Prince Calix at our mercy was all that kept his men from attacking us or the Kelvadan riders, and we were unlikely to make it far in this sorry state.

The clop of hooves broke me from my reverie.

“Kaius,” Erix breathed, and for once, he seemed grateful to see his father.

He appeared with four familiar horses in tow: Daiti, Alza, Cail, and Aderyn’s roan mare. They stood near the gate, across the courtyard from the stairs.

“I heard the commotion and thought horses might be in order,” he said, his face grim.

“I’ll take Keera,” Erix started.

I cut him off, patting his chest. “You can put me down. I can ride.”

Already, my breaths came much easier, and my vision no longer swam with each movement, although the copper tang of blood still lingered on my tongue. But I feared the fight wasn’t over yet, and I wanted Erix to have use of both his hands.

Carefully, he set my feet on the ground, keeping his hands on me as if afraid I would collapse. My knees only trembled slightly, and I quickly hid it by resting a hand on Daiti. He handed me my saber, which I hadn’t noticed him pick up from where Calix had dropped it and shove in his sash.

Aderyn grunted under the weight of two men. “Neven will have to ride with me.”

Where he had been alert enough to attack Calix minutes ago, now Neven’s eyes glazed in pain and he wobbled precariously. The look of numbness on his face and the limp way he held his shattered hand before him told me his mind was fleeing the pain of his body.

“I’ll help him up,” Erix offered, moving to Neven to help hoist him onto the horse’s back where he could sit in front of Aderyn as we rode. As he did, Neven’s injured hand bumped into its flank .

A guttural cry of pain escaped him, and Aderyn jerked, her face a mask of distress. Her grasp on Calix faltered, and he wrenched from her grasp, his unconsciousness feigned. He stumbled out of her arms and toward the assembled men.

“Stop them!” he cried, narrowly avoiding Aderyn’s lunge.

The closest of his men leaped toward us. I flung my saber between him and Erix, who was unguarded as he helped Neven. My muscles, still weak, collapsed under the blow and I fell to one knee. A yelp of pain escaped me.

“Mount up. Hurry!” Erix’s shouts were clipped and cold—every inch the commanding warlord. Another of Calix’s men advanced, and my arms trembled as I tried to lift my sword to counter him.

A blast of heat warmed the top of my head as a gout of fire caught the man full in the chest. I looked up to find Erix, holding his outstretched palm out.

As Calix’s men hesitated in the face of his inferno, the air around us still shimmering with heat, he wasted no time hauling me to my feet.

With an arm around my waist, he hoisted me up onto Daiti’s back, and I helped the best I could.

Then he turned and threw himself onto Alza.

A shout of warning split the air, and I turned in time to see an arrow whizzing through the air straight toward Erix. Alza lurched beneath him, trying to get out of the way, but it was too late.

A sharp whinny cut the air and Kaius appeared in the arrow’s path, seated atop Cail. With a fleshy thud, the arrow buried itself in the front of his shoulder. He grunted in pain, and Erix’s eyes widened in horror. He reached for his father, but Kaius shook his head.

“Ride,” he demanded through gritted teeth, the word infused with the wildness of horses.

Daiti beneath me lurched into action, pulled by Kaius’s command—his undeniable connection to the favorite beasts of the Ballan Desert.

All four of us crashed through the palace gates, the horses galloping headlong through the streets.

Aderyn clutched Neven tightly before her, and I leaned forward over Daiti’s neck, gritting my teeth as I tried to get my muscles to cooperate as the remaining poison leeched from my blood .

“Father!” Erix shouted, looking over his shoulder at Cail and Kaius, who rode behind him.

Kaius slipped sideways on his mount, tilting dangerously toward the stone ground rushing by beneath us.

Erix sat back, getting Alza to slow. Once Cail and Alza were abreast of each other, Erix hiked his feet up onto Alza’s sides until he could crouch on her back.

It was all I could do to cling to Daiti as I watched him leap from one galloping horse to another, landing just behind his father and pulling him firmly back into his seat. Alza continued to gallop along beside us.

The movement of a horse under me and the wind whipping my loose hair shook the magic within me awake again, having been muted by the poison. Panic and rage hit me full force through the tether in my core, the force of Erix’s emotions nearly knocking the breath from me.

“Keera!” Aderyn shouted, though I could barely make out her voice over the thunder of hooves.

I blinked against the wind to see her concerns.

We charged headlong toward the main gate of Kelvadan, and where it had once remained open, now it stood closed and barred in our path.

Archers topped the wall, but they did not wear the traditional brown and tan of a Kelvadan rider.

My stomach dropped as they nocked their arrows, drawing their bows and pointing them toward us.

Over Erix’s fear and anger that still echoed in my belly, grew another rage—hotter and brighter and so much closer. Prince Calix may have stolen this city from me. He had stolen Neven’s hand from him and nearly stolen the Heart. But this was my family, and I would let him take no more from us.

I sat up and raised my arms. The flow of magic within me grew to a torrent, pulsing in time with Daiti’s hooves, but it wasn’t enough.

All the creatures and varied landscapes of the desert spread out before me in my mind, and I called on the power they held.

It rushed through me in a violent flood, nearly carrying me away with it, but I collected it all behind a dam in my mind until I felt that I might shatter.

Then, I let the dam collapse. An earth-rending boom split the air and the gate exploded—not just the wooden door, but the stone wall around it. The screams of the archers caught in the blast were buried in the sound of the chunks of rock falling to the ground .

The horses did not slow as we charged through the dust, barreling right past where the gate had once been. Then, we were out on the sands, galloping toward the horizon and leaving the city behind us—and in the hands of an enemy.