Page 45 of The Cruel Dawn (Vallendor #2)

This landscape looks utterly unfamiliar to me.

I don’t recognize these dead blue firs scratching up from the parched earth to the early morning sky, nor the clumps of chaparral and sage clustered in this clearing.

The sandy trail I walked last time to Malik Sindire’s settlement?

The dirt wasn’t this orange. Even the path itself feels more brittle and crooked than it did days ago.

The air is thick with dust, and something smells like it’s burning.

And even the horizon feels different. The hills look like they’ve shifted away from us, leaving gaps in their place.

None of this looks familiar, and not only due to the holes in my memory. No, Vallendor is falling apart every time I blink.

My chest feels tighter with every breath; time is twisting my insides as it’s twisting the realm. Everything that I thought I knew about this province, and even about my own body, has changed since three dawns ago.

It is also possible that I’m just losing my mind.

With my hands on my hips, I try to orient myself, using the Temple of Celestial as a starting point. But I’m still lost.

“Why is it so hot ?” Elyn asks, sagging onto a boulder. “It’s still the early morning.”

“Feels like we’re sitting on the top of the daystar.” Crouched, Jadon lowers his head, his sweaty hair now a limp curtain. “Feels like all the heat decided to come and live here.”

“And you like this weather?” Elyn asks. She fidgets with the buckles on her breastplate, tempted to shuck her armor altogether.

I glare at them both. “Stop whining—it’s a dry heat. It’s usually not this arid or hot, but the world is dying, remember? So move the fuck on.” Yes, the weather is weird, and my already-sensitive skin is broiling. By the end of the day, I’ll look like a roasted pig.

“You sure this Malik’s house is up here?” Jadon asks, sitting down against a boulder.

“No, I’m not sure,” I admit. “This time, we came by Spryte instead of walking the trails, but that shouldn’t matter.” I turn again to the Temple of Celestial, but nothing rings true here.

“Maybe we should start where you walked from the last time,” Jadon suggests.

“The Sanctum of the Dusky Hills.” I bite my bottom lip, reluctant to start over on that path when we are already racing against time. Instead, I wander toward the cliff and peer out at the valley.

There’s the bridge to enter the city. There’s the canal that circles Gasho. There’s the Howling Wolf Inn with the floor of crushed date pits. There’s the grove of date palms.

Elyn comes to stand beside me and whispers, “There’s something you’re not telling us.”

“Two problems. First: the Sanctum is the dwelling place of the gods,” I whisper back. “No mortals may enter there—and if they try, they die.”

Elyn glances back at Jadon. “He isn’t completely immortal. Shit. Is that also true of the Yeaden’s dwelling?”

“No idea, but at least I won’t have to worry about the second problem.”

“What’s the second problem?”

“Zephar.”

Elyn gasps as she realizes the danger of my old lover meeting my new lover, who is the son of two traitors, a deadly disease, the scion of a corrupt emperor, and a demigod whose very existence threatens the realm, which, by default, threatens me.

“Zephar may just kill Jadon on sight,” Elyn says now.

“And while the thrill of two men fighting over me is kinda sexy,” I say, “we can’t allow Jadon to be harmed, at least not until…”

“We have Danar Rrivae’s amulet.” Elyn nods. “So you thought we could just pop up the mountain and find this Dindt’s settlement without—”

“Having to risk our necks? Yes. Because he is of the Dindt order, which means he’s explored other realms and he’s observed life and will know more than what we know now.”

“Can we at least find some shade?” Jadon complains from behind us.

Elyn studies my face. “Your skin… You need to…”

I sigh. “Yeah, I’m cooking.”

Behind us, Jadon lifts his tunic to wipe his sweaty face. “How do people live in this oven? There’s nothing here except sand and—”

“Nothing here?” I snap, marching over to him. “Before your fathers fucked everything up, everything was here.”

“Kai,” Elyn starts.

“Sweet-water rivers that made fertile land,” I say, standing over him, “which meant abundant food, which meant abundant trade. Trade brought people and people brought new ideas. Writing and craftsmanship gave them poetry and mapmaking.

“And these people knew how to worship a god. They built that fabulous temple and those breathtaking gardens, and the daystar kissed their skin with love and colored them until their bodies said, ‘Enough.’” I bend down until Jadon and I are eye to eye.

“So… nothing here ? These people, this land, is everything . Everything is here.”

Jadon holds up his hands. “Sorry. Relax.”

My skin fucking hurts, and I’m fucking lost. I won’t be relaxing for a long time.

Elyn points out across the valley. “Look.”

I follow the line of her finger.

A sandstorm. It looks like a living thing in the desert, dark and swirling, a chaotic mass of dust and grit blurring the horizon. It is a living thing.

Zephar and the Diminished are fighting otherworldly now.

I smile the tiniest smile. “Perfect.” The nightstar hides behind a thick veil of swirling sand. I heave a sigh of relief. “Let’s head to the Sanctum. I’ll be able to find Malik Sindire’s dwelling from there.”

Elyn smooths her unraveling braid. “So that solves one of our problems. What about…?” She looks back at Jadon.

Still overheated and miserable, he’s now tucked his head between his knees. If Elyn and I leave him here alone, the heat and otherworldly will take him. If we bring him with us, the Sanctum itself may crush him.

I think for a moment, then say, “I know a place.”

…

The smallest chamber in the Temple of Celestial is tucked away, not frequented by the priests or the Sisters of the Dusky Hills.

Its narrow entrance is hidden behind a cluster of stone columns weathered by the passage of time and by sandstorms like the one now raging across the valley.

The room smells of frankincense, and the only light comes from a single, flickering oil lamp.

A dense film of dust covers the cool stone floor and the intricate carvings on the walls.

The space feels claustrophobic. A person is not meant to live here for long.

Without windows, there is no sound from the outside world, just the steady drip of water from a hidden bath.

In one corner sits a low stone platform draped with a thin, faded cloth.

This ledge served an unknown purpose once upon a time.

This chamber meets our current need: keeping Jadon safe from being killed by otherworldly or by Zephar.

Ancress Tisen and the Sisters of the Dusky Hills quickly tidy up the space, leaving behind gifts for Jadon once they finish: clean tunics and loose pants, wine, soft towels and scented soaps and oils for a dip in that hidden bath. Once a prince, always a prince.

Elyn wanders around the chamber, worry in her eyes. “Last time we left him in the abbey’s dungeons,” she says, “gods perished, and he’s changed even since then.”

The markings on Jadon’s hand have spread, and his eyes have turned an eerie violet, and even his voice makes me shiver—and not in a good way.

“There’s nowhere else, Elyn. This has to work.”

She says nothing.

Jadon settles on the pillows and sighs. After telling Jadon not to go anywhere or touch anything, I close the door.

“Don’t worry,” he says from the other side. “The air hurts out there. And there’s food, water, and wine in here.”

“No one crosses into this chamber,” I instruct Ancress Tisen. “If they do, they will die. Understand?”

Ancress Tisen nods, then turns to bow before Elyn. “Lady of Law and Light! It’s an honor to be in your presence.”

…

The rising god Lumis has started his ascent above Doom Desert’s slot canyons, and his golden light slices through the dust. The rock face resembles the gods who have visited this place: a crag resembles the nose of the Lady of Storms on the realm Camua; a wide, uninterrupted span of rock resembles the forehead of the Lord of Dreams and Despair on Realm Sthury.

The sandstorm roars in the distance, which means that Zephar continues to do battle down in the valley.

Elyn follows me up the trail that ends at the pavilion.

As we near the Sanctum, the blended aromas of roasting meat, caramelized sugar, and strong drink grow stronger. They awaken my senses, and the hunger gnawing in my stomach sharpens. My belly rumbles. Have I eaten today?

The distant hum of voices and clinking cups grows louder, far more pleasant than the screech of Zephar’s sandstorm.

“Stop right there.” The Diminished archer Carana stands at the entrance of the pavilion, bare-chested, and lifts his bow, a tall weapon made of blackened fierer wood. A twisted-metal arrow is nocked, ready for a trespasser.

I look behind me: is a trespasser following Elyn and me? No one else is on this road.

So who is he addressing? The Adjudicator?

“She’s with me,” I say to Carana. I slow down but don’t wait for his approval.

“Stop right now,” Carana repeats, his golden eyes cold. “Take another step and I’ll shoot.”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Do you know this man?” Elyn whispers.

“Yeah,” I say, “and I don’t understand why he thinks he can prevent me from entering my own dwelling.”

Carana pulls back the bowstring—it’s so tight that I can hear it hum.

I cock my head. “Have you lost your mind, Carana? You dare to draw your—”

His arrow whizzes in the air, that twisted tip aimed at my neck.

I swipe my hand, batting the arrow away with a breath of wind. The bolt drives into an oak tree, and the trunk cracks like a peal of thunder from the impact.

Elyn shouts, “What the fuck ?”

Blood roars in my ears as I stomp toward that asshole.

Carana pulls another twisted-metal arrow from his quiver.