Page 1 of Tharn’s Hunt (Barbarians of the Dust #2)

JACQUI

It’s the petty victories that keep you going.

But hey, at least the view’s great. If you like sand. And despair. And more sand.

My sister, Justine, had vanished into this orange-hued wasteland weeks ago.

I’d followed, of course, because that’s what I do.

She’s the trailblazer; I’m the sarcastic cleanup crew.

The rest of the crash survivors thought I was insane to leave the relative safety of the transport bus, but they didn't know Jus. Stubborn doesn’t even begin to cover it.

“Jus,” I croak, my voice scraping past a throat full of sand as I shade my eyes. The massive sun above continuously bakes the sky a permanent shade of bruised yellow, indifferent to my pain.“If you’re alive—and you better be—I’m going to strangle you with my bare hands .”

I reach the rock formation she’d set out for and collapse in its shade. “Justine? Jus!”

Silence.

The only answer is the whisper of wind over dunes. Of course. Because why would my life be that easy?

My legs tremble. My lungs burn. The air is so thin and dry it feels like I’m breathing in glass dust. And my brain is too fried to think of anything except how good it feels to stop moving.

I scan the area, turning my head left and right, hoping to see Justine waltz around the corner with her usual “I’ve got this” grin.

“Jus?” My voice croaks out again. Still nothing.

Great. Just fantastic. I press my palms to my face, the sting of tiny sand grains making me want to scream. I do scream, but it's a silent, energy-conserving one, my head thrown back.

“Fucking COME ON! Why don’t you just fuck me and be done with it?!” I don’t know who I’m talking to. The sun? The planet itself? All I know is I didn’t walk all this way for more sand. At least give me a mirage. A hot alien with a water bottle would be nice. I’m not picky!

“Justine!” I shout for real this time, the name swallowed by the vast emptiness. The silence that follows is so absolute it feels heavy. Just me and the stupid desert.

I press my palms to my eyes again, forcing the tears back. Crying won’t help. Justine wouldn’t cry. She’d keep going. She’d find me if the roles were reversed.

So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll find her.

I push myself to my feet, legs wobbling like overcooked spaghetti. The shade of the rock formation is tempting me to sit back down and play dead for a while, but I can’t.

Then comes a dark thought . Justine’s been out here alone for weeks ? —

Nope! Not today, Satan. My sister isn’t dead. She’s annoyingly resilient. Like a cockroach, but prettier because hey, we’re family.

I shuffle around the rock formation, scanning the ground for any sign she was here. But there are no footprints. No discarded ration pack. No alien skeleton with a note pinned to its ribs saying, “Your sister went thataway.”

“Cool. Love this for me,” I mumble, kicking a tiny rock that barely moves because even my kicks are pathetic now.

But then, something catches my eye. A tiny glint in the sand. I freeze, my heart thudding in my chest. It could be nothing. It probably is nothing. But I’m desperate enough to investigate.

I drop to my knees, brushing away the sand with trembling fingers, and there it is. Tiny. Pink-and-gold.

My breath halts in my chest.

Justine’s earring.

The little butterfly one that belonged to Mom. The one with the impossibly flimsy clasp.

I clutch it in my hand and press it against my chest. Relief crashes over me so hard I gasp. She was here. She was alive. She made it this far. But the relief curdles into dread. Why would she leave this ? She’d sooner leave a kidney.

I glance around, my eyes darting between the rocks and the endless waves of sand. She wouldn’t just drop it for no reason. Not Justine.

“She’s smarter than this,” I whisper to myself. “She wouldn’t just… leave.”

Panic creeps in, threading along my spine, but I shove it down. Focus, Jacqui. Think . What would Justine do? If she had to leave, she’d leave… something. A sign. A clue.

I force myself to stand, tucking the earring into my bra for safekeeping.

The movement makes my head swim, and for a second, I think I might pass out right here in the sand.

But no. Not yet. I’ve been fighting this heatstroke, dizziness, and occasional weird dreams thing for weeks now. What’s a few more hours?

I stumble around the rocks, one hand bracing against the striated stone to keep myself upright, and scan the ground again, looking for anything out of place. A shoe. A water sachet. Maybe a middle finger carved into the stone.

That’s when I see it.

Etched into a flat stretch like a Post-it note.

“brB,” I read aloud. My laugh comes out as a choked wheeze, part relief, part pure disbelief.

Only Justine would casually leave a “be right back” note in the middle of an alien desert.

Like she just stepped out for coffee or something.

“An arrow. Just an arrow, Jus? Couldn’t spring for a map, huh?

Lucky for you, I love your stupid face.”

Still, it’s enough. A direction. A sign she was thinking clearly, at least when she left it.

I squint into the distance, shielding my eyes from the last rays of sunlight. Far ahead through the heat haze, I can just barely make out another rock formation. That must be where she went.

The muscles in my legs burn at the thought of walking any further, but I don’t care. I’ll crawl if I have to.

But not tonight.

The desert’s already growing darker, the sun sinking below the horizon to leave behind a sky streaked with orange and purple. Soon, it’ll be pitch black, and traveling at night without a light source is just another way to add “fall into a hole and die” to my catalog of desert deaths.

I stagger back to the shade of the rocks, my legs giving out beneath me. My body hits the ground with a thud. The stars overhead blur as exhaustion pulls me under. “Tomorrow,” I whisper, clutching the earring to my chest. “I’ll follow her trail tomorrow.”

It was a good plan. A sensible, human plan. It never occurred to me that on this planet, the things that hunt don't need light to see.