Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Erix

I ground my teeth and tried not to pace in my too-small tent. Zephyr had taken to squawking in disapproval at my antics as they’d woken him from his nap. Still, these days of rest between events grated. My sword was so sharp it could cut through a single hair, and Alza’s coat shone so brightly it could blind me, but still there were many hours left in the day before it would be time to sleep.

The gaps between events were a tradition, giving the clans time to converse and trade in addition to cheering on their riders, but with the state of the desert they seemed a foolish pursuit. I couldn’t be the only competitor restless to have a sword in hand and a horse beneath me again.

Zephyr trilled, letting me know my restlessness could be felt even as I knelt on my sleeping mat trying my best to meditate on my purpose in a desperate bid for patience. With a grunt, I pushed to my feet and stalked from the tent, pushing my way out through the flap. Even though I had been alone, I had put on my mask already. The physical shield gave me some sense of separation from the hubbub of nine clans’ worth of riders in the encampment with me, although it didn’t feel like nearly enough.

I had planned to walk away from the encampment, into the sands where I might get some distance from the amplified whispers at the base of my skull, which crescendoed as I drew near the city walls. Instead, my feet unconsciously turned toward the most densely populated area where a temporary market had been set up for the duration of the Trials.

There was nothing I could want there. My saber was my most prized possession, really my only personal belonging outside of my mask, so the fine weapons sure to be on display were of no use to me. I wore the same gray clothes every day, and I wouldn’t take off my mask to eat any of the foods that drew in many who wandered the encampment with their mouthwatering scents.

Still, my steps carried me toward the crowded thoroughfare, and my mind hurried to justify my direction. Perhaps there was something to be learned about the clans that Lord Alasdar would soon command by mingling with them, or maybe I could discern a weakness of Kelvadan I had not thought of before.

Thankfully, I traversed the crowds easily as I walked, shoppers stepping aside the moment they looked up to see my masked face and leaving a clear path for me. I huffed through my nose, realizing I was unlikely to discern anything about the people around me if conversation continued to die as I passed. Shifting my weight, I prepared to turn around and head out into the open desert as I’d originally planned when I saw her.

Keera stood with her back partially to me before a stall boasting platters of stuffed dates, their scent thick despite the mask shielding my nose. I frowned at the sudden memory of her sitting across the fire from me a world away, telling me she didn’t like dates, but that had been a dream. Still, as she popped the treat into her mouth—my gaze unconsciously tracking the way her lips closed around her fingers to catch the spiced juice—I imagined a crease between her brows and a slight wrinkle to her nose.

Then she smiled at her companion, my attention turning to the fair man that had offered her the treat. He certainly didn’t look to be from the desert or the city. He must be an ambassador or a prominent trader, as they were the only people who regularly crossed the mountains to visit the city. A knot of magic in the base of my skull pulled tight as I wondered what the former exile would be doing with an ambassador. Just then, Keera turned, looking straight at me as if I had called her name.

Spinning on my heel, I stomped back in the direction I had come before I could see her reaction. A long walk in the quiet of the wilderness would help me manage the swirling in my head. I didn’t envy Keera spending her downtime entertaining ambassadors, however that had come about. A small voice in my mind chimed in that it was a glimpse of the life I might have had if I hadn’t left Kelvadan nearly a decade ago. It wasn’t a life I desired.

Noticeably fewer participants lined up before the city walls than had for the hunt, but the line still stretched dozens of riders from the end where I sat atop Alza, as well as several horses deep. This time, we had not been told what our task would be before we arrived, the only instruction given the night after the hunt for the remaining riders to come at dawn with their horses and blunted blades.

Several figures emerged from the arch in the city walls, my gaze snapping to the shortest of the silhouettes. I instantly recognized the queen’s posture, as much as I thought memories of her had been scorched from my brain. I tore my eyes from her to see several others carrying a large pot, the way they leaned toward it telling me the contents were heavy. The last figure was unmistakably Aderyn, and although I couldn’t see her expression clearly, I imagined her eyes darting up and down the line of competitors, alert for any possible threat to her queen.

“Riders!” The queen raised her arms to draw the competitors’ attention, as if the gathered participants hadn’t collectively held their breath the moment she emerged, awaiting her instructions. Despite her stature, her voice projected clearly, years of practice allowing her to command the attention of groups easily. “Today’s event will be a test of not only your individual skill, but your cunning and ability to cooperate.”

I shifted my weight on Alza’s back. The Viper didn’t cooperate. The Viper commanded.

“You will be divided into five teams. Each team will be tasked with retrieving one of the four flags that have been placed at an undisclosed location in the plains beyond the city. Each flag will belong to the team that is the first to capture it. All the riders in the team that fails to claim a flag will be eliminated from the Trials.”

An inaudible ripple ran through the assembled riders as the queen finished explaining the challenge. It was not unheard of for the events of the Trials to be set up in a manner that rewarded cooperation amongst competitors, but this degree of reliance on others had me—and many others, I was sure—bristling.

“Each of you will come forward and pick a stone from the basin.” Aderyn spoke this time, gesturing to the earthenware pot at the queen’s feet. “The color of the paint on the stone will determine what team you are on.”

She waved, and we all shuffled forward into a rough queue. Each rider dismounted and drew a small flat rock from the basin before shuffling off to let the next competitor decide their fate with a splash of colored paint.

When I approached the front of the line, I dismounted from Alza with the weight of the queen’s gaze heavy upon me. I didn’t look up at her, for some reason loathe to afford her the opportunity of catching sight of the slightest silver gleam of my eyes, even though they wouldn’t be a surprise to her. It seemed like she was searching for hints of her son in my posture as I bent to retrieve a stone from the shadowed innards of the pottery vessel. She would see my eyes as a sign that the Erix she remembered was only separated from her by a thin sheet of metal, but she would be wrong. Erix of Kelvadan was dead and buried along the distant trek across the desert to the sea.

My gloved fingers closed around my stone, and I pulled it forward to reveal a splash of red across the flat gray surface. I nodded at it as if in some agreement before vaulting back onto Alza’s back and joining the milling competitors all waiting to see who would join their team.

As dozens of riders repeated the process, I, at first, tried to keep track of who the painted rocks sorted into each team. A stocky rider from Clan Tibel pulled a blue rock, a woman from Clan Otush joined me with a red one. Eventually though, I gave up the pursuit, instead idly twisting Alza’s mane between my fingers. It didn’t matter who rode on my team or who stood against me. I would retrieve the flag for my team and move on to the next round—I had to.

Against my will, my gaze drifted up as a familiar blood bay stallion stopped before the queen. The figure dismounted with grace despite the significant distance from her horse’s back to the ground. My fingers froze in Alza’s mane as Keera bent down and pulled a stone from the basin.

A flash of red in Keera’s hand—a sudden tensing of her muscles, and my heart stuttered.

Keera lifted her head to look at Queen Ginevra, although her expression was partially shielded from my view by the end of her hood.

After a moment of stillness, the line moved on, and Keera joined the crowd of waiting riders, lost from my sight in the crush of horseflesh. I was glad of the momentary reprieve as magic whirled in my throat, threatening to bring my mind along with it. With an iron grip, my fist squeezing around the hilt of my blunted saber until it cut a line in my palm through the gloves, I shoved it down. As before, who was on my team made no difference. I would succeed, and that would be the end of it.

As the last competitor drew their stone, Aderyn shouted for the riders to sort themselves into teams. I found myself on the edges of the red group, and volunteers from Kelvadan quickly distributed strips of fabric to tie on our arms to designate our team membership. I fastened mine around my bicep as my gaze flickered unconsciously to Keera, who was doing the same on the far side of the loose circle.

“You have five minutes to coordinate as a team, and then the trial will begin,” the queen announced.

Muttering ran through all the groups in a wave, snippets of plans and ideas murmured to teammates within the circle. The teams quickly dissolved into smaller factions discussing the best way to go about acquiring a flag. I ground my teeth. A quick count of my teammates revealed about two dozen.

“Trios,” I said, not a shout but a clear statement that rang out from behind my mask, silencing the disjointed conversations around me. “We will divide into groups of three to cover the most ground, while not leaving any riders alone if we should face opposition from the other teams.”

In a moment of stillness, the riders silently weighed my command. In the twisting magic around us, the battle between the need to cooperate and the resistance to my leadership was palpable. Then, a shuffling broke out as riders sorted themselves out, gathering into clusters of three and introducing themselves to their temporary allies.

A knee bumped against mine, and I started, looking up only to be pinned by a golden gaze. Keera had pulled Bloodmoon up alongside Alza, who seemed as if she wanted to edge away at the memory of the warhorse’s violent temper. If Bloodmoon recognized my mare, he showed no sign of it.

“You certainly seem used to giving orders,” Keera observed, her tone biting, as the red team sorted themselves out as I suggested.

“How convenient, as you are likely used to following blindly as a rider of Kelvadan.” The words were out of my mouth before I could school myself into neutrality. My personal opinions about the Great City didn’t need to be shared for me to fulfill my role in Lord Alasdar’s plans and emerge as Champion.

“I belong to no one.” Keera’s tone was defiant, but some uncurrent of sadness in her statement nearly gave me pause.

“If you would suggest a different plan, be my guest.” I gestured to the team before me, assembled groups of three already beginning to pick directions in which they would search for a flag. It was a blatant challenge, daring her to try and overturn my authority.

She surprised me by shaking her head. “No, it’s a good plan. I’m just joining your trio. Somebody has to keep an eye on you.”

I blinked, the muscles in my jaw tightening in frustration, although my magic whispered in excitement. Maybe it would be a good thing to have her near—an exile who had clearly ingratiated herself at Kelvadan shockingly quickly and seemed determined to stand against me. Maybe the power in my skull was just pleased by the prospect of violence, facsimile as it might be.

“We need one more to be a trio.” I looked around, finding most had backed away from where Keera and I stood, as if a well of tension around us was palpable. One rider from Clan Otush inched forward .

“I’ll join you,” he offered, his voice almost too casual, as if he were expending great effort to seem unperturbed by the idea of riding with us.

Keera and I only nodded in response, and we lapsed into a fraught silence.

“I’m Axlan,” he introduced in a bid to break the tension.

“Keera,” she offered before glancing at me.

I didn’t bother to introduce myself. They would both know me as the Viper already, and that was the only name I used.

A shouting voice cut off any further attempts at conversation. “Time is up, riders! Capture a flag for your team or be eliminated from the Trials.”

With that, the queen rang a small gong one of the attendants had brought. The thunder of hooves filled the air, drowning out the reverberations before they could fully fade.

Without waiting for the other members of my team to decide on a direction, I rode out diagonally away from the city, choosing an angle between the mountains and where the sun had crested the horizon in the distance.

I would let the desert guide me to my victory. It would be on Keera to keep up if she truly wanted to keep an eye on me.

The beat of heavy hoofs to my right indicated that she followed.

“No consultation on which direction to take? You really don’t take orders from anybody else,” she prodded.

The itchiness of healing blisters on my back reminded me that I followed orders more than she knew, but I kept that to myself.

“Do you object to the direction I chose?”

I wished I could observe her ponder the answer out of the corner of my eye, but my mask blocked my peripheral vision, and I wouldn’t signal that I was watching her by turning my head. It was a subtle test though, to see if she could hear the whispers of the desert guiding my direction. If the desert spoke to her at all, then she might continue to be a worthy adversary in the Trials—somebody to keep an eye on myself.

“It’s as good a direction as any,” Keera answered noncommittally.

We lapsed into silence, keeping our mounts at a brisk clip as the pockets of competitors fanned out over the empty ground .

After a while, Keera turned to look over her shoulder. “Axlan is falling behind.”

Alza and I didn’t slow our pace. “I don’t need him to handle any trouble we might encounter.”

For a moment, Keera fell back in hesitation until she urged her stallion up alongside me once more. I swallowed. Hopefully her presence wouldn’t be too distracting. I tried to block out the physical awareness of her next to me and reach into the interwoven web of the desert, searching for the thread that might lead me to my goal.

Instead of a tapestry of barren life spreading around me as I usually felt, the fibers around me pulled in a tight tangle. It was as if I stood at a magical nexus of sorts, and picking out the way to go next was nigh impossible. The unintelligible voices rose in my head, drowning out the sound of Alza’s hooves.

I shook my head trying to clear it, but the maddening cacophony continued until a much for physical voice cut through, like morning sun through a gap in a tent flap.

“There.” Keera pointed at the horizon.

I swung my gaze in the direction she pointed, and sure enough a splotch of crimson mottled the horizon, oscillating gently like a flag flapping in the breeze.

Without a word, I nudged Alza into a gallop, but she was already accelerating, eager to keep pace with the stallion next to her that had already surged forward. We plunged across the dunes, Keera clearly as unconcerned with my ability to keep pace as I had been with Axlan’s.

Admittedly, if I were any less of a horseman, with any less of a mount, it might have been a struggle. Keera rode like she had been born to it, and the warhorse under her surged with unbridled power.

I leaned forward over Alza’s neck, resting my hands on her muscled shoulders. Magic stirred beneath my breastbone, as it always did when I let Alza gallop, but like this, it wasn’t some unpleasant thing to be tamed. As we chased down the larger horse, the whispers in my mind amplified, a joyous undertone to their cacophony. The tail of the stallion whipped across my mask, and for a brief moment, I wished I could feel it across my face.

My eyes snagged on a cloud of dust to the left, and the rare quiet in my mind that accompanied the chase shattered. We had competition for the banner.

I nudged Alza toward it, moving to intercept. Keera sat up straighter for a moment, looking around until she appeared to catch sight of our competitors too and followed my course.

As the distance closed between us and the other group, I counted five of them, a flash of green marking each of their arms. Keera and I appeared to be faster, but they were already closer to the target. Pulling the blunted saber from across my back, I prepared to engage them, hoping I could keep all of them busy enough to keep one from getting away and snatching the flag.

Seeing me approach, they reached for their weapons, but it was too late. I held out my saber to the side, swerving Alza at the last moment to duck behind a green rider’s horse and strike him flat across the chest. I heard his collarbone snap as the momentum threw him from his horse, but I did not pause.

I wheeled around, engaging up close with the next rider as they had all been riding in a tight group. I swung my sword in a large arc, distracting him with the motion. While he got his own weapon up in time to block my blow, I took advantage of the moment to hook my foot around his. With a heave, and help from Alza as she recognized the maneuver, I dumped him unceremoniously from his horses back.

I turned to find my next opponent, and my eyes caught on two green riders still galloping toward the flag at breakneck pace. Before I could pursue, the fifth rider moved to cut me off.

Keera, however, leapt into action. She and her golden stallion had veered off when I attacked, following the two charging toward the flag. Her saber remained sheathed, but she didn’t seem to intent on using it anyway as she took a flying leap from her mount’s back. Landing on her opponent’s horse, she wrenched her arm across his shoulders, tearing him from his seat to tumble to the ground in a heap.

I looked away from her for a moment to take on my own opponent. To his credit, he parried several of my blows, only for a punch from my unarmed hand to catch him across the jaw. He slumped forward, unconscious over his horse’s neck, before listing sideways, and slipping slowly to the sand .

I looked up again only to scream internally. The fifth green rider continued charging toward the banner unhindered. Meanwhile, Keera remained on her opponent’s horse, running horizontally.

Sands, what was she doing?

Then, I saw it: a sixth rider with a red arm band. Axlan had followed Keera and me, but she was heading as if to cut him off.

It hit me with the force of a stampede of addax. If our team lost the challenge, I would lose my chance to be crowned Champion, and Keera knew it.

With a wordless shout, I urged Alza to join the chase to where all four of us were converging on the flag. The prize that would mean winning the challenge stood on the top of a dune, and as we drew closer, I saw protections had been erected to increase the challenge. Stones formed a ring, piled high enough that only a skilled rider would be able to jump it. The terrain was littered with sharpened spikes, driven into the earth, and pit traps that could easily be overlooked if distracted by a competitor. All of us were forced to slow as we approached the obstacles, dodging around them.

I trusted Alza to pick a safe path as I kept my eyes on Keera. She was nearly to Axlan, although he and the green rider were both several hundred meters from the flag—much closer than me. Alza was fast, but I wasn’t sure if we could make up distance that quickly.

Axlan was my best chance of the red team reaching the flag first, as long as Keera didn’t get in his way. I had to stop her.

Alza was nearly level with her mount’s nose when I saw it—a patch of differently colored ground that marked sinking sands to those who knew how to spot them. All rational thought flew from my brain aside from Keera and how I needed to stop her.

I threw myself from Alza’s back, the full force of my body weight crashing into Keera. My arms tangled around her torso as my momentum carried us both over the far side of her horse and into the sinking pit.

She let out a raw screech as we tumbled, thrashing in my hold, and managing to flip us over, but I held fast. I hit the sands first, her weight driving me down as she was pulled partially in with me.

Immediately, I let go of her, leaning back and spreading my arms as I kicked my legs back and forth to avoid sinking further. I had already been submerged up to my shoulders. Trapped in the sand together, Keera’s back pressed flush up against my front. Despite the threat of panic at the edge of my consciousness, something in my brain went oddly blank. Like there was space in my mind there hadn’t been before.

I struggled to form coherent thoughts as magic swirled within me, although it didn’t seem to offer up a way to get me out of the sand, just warming and twisting in my skull.

Keera’s shouting cut through the sudden swell, threatening to pull me under as thoroughly as the sucking sands. “Daiti!”

Keera shifted before me, her arms not yet trapped like mine, her fall having been broken by me. Then her torso pulled away. I craned my neck forward, just able to make out the golden silhouette of her stallion, leaning over the edge of the sand and helping Keera haul herself free of the pit.

Hopefully I had slowed her enough that she wouldn’t be able to interfere with Axlan capturing the flag. I opened my mouth to yell for Alza’s help, unsure of how I would pull myself free without my arms, but it was too late.

The last thing I saw before the sands engulfed me fully was Keera’s scowl as she crouched at her horse’s hooves.