Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Keera

I t wasn’t hard to tear myself from the festivities of the encampment on the second night of feasting after the duels. Shoulders jostled me as I walked between the tents, and stories were recounted at increasing volume at every fire. I had listened curiously to tales of the past Trials at first, but the longer I sat around the braziers, the more I felt an outsider watching the festivities.

The queen and Aderyn weren’t at the celebrations either, having retreated to the palace the moment the Viper had won the Trials. I assumed they were already preparing for war, but I was not invited. I didn’t blame them for excluding me. I had failed them by losing my final duel—why would they trust me to protect the city now?

The day before, I had been introduced as a citizen of Kelvadan—a title I bore proudly. Now, when I sat down on a bench, the people on either side of me would inch away, even as they pressed shoulder to shoulder with other clansmen and city dwellers. All had seen my outburst at the end of the Trials, and I recognized the wary look in their eyes as they offered painfully polite smiles.

Every time I caught somebody glance at me with fear, I saw my parents’ faces. The chances of Kelvadan being the home I dreamed of faded away like water soaking into the sand .

It was a relief to slip out into the dunes, where the only noises were the swish of the breeze over sands and the low hoot of a nearby burrowing owl. I headed in the same direction as I had the night before, toward where I knew the Viper would be.

Erix, my thoughts whispered in correction, but I pushed against the name. Despite my odd nighttime imaginings, my opponent had remained firmly planted as the Viper in my mind through the challenges of the Trials. Something had shifted though after the duels, when I slipped back into my body to find strong arms around me, not making my skin crawl but grounding me.

When I thought of him as Erix, I would only picture his proud, shocked face and the feeling of his hand on my bare skin. He had made it clear he was the Viper, and it would be ill-advised to drop my guard around him. Still, thinking of him as Erix made me feel less like I was doing something incredibly foolish by stealing away in the darkness to meet him.

I wasn’t sure what had brought me to him that first night after the duels, but the feeling of his arms would not leave me. While too often, the touch of others threatened to send me into a spiral of uncontrollable sensations, his embrace had given me something to hold on to in the maelstrom of the desert. My mind screamed at me that I walked into a trap, but as I thought of the fear with which people looked at me, I knew I had no choice.

The queen’s methods of suppressing her son’s magic had failed, but he had mastered his power since he disappeared. If there was a way for me to master this storm within me and serve the Kelvadan riders without endangering those around me, I had to take it. Even if it meant fraternizing with the one who would see the Kelvadan fall. Maybe this was my one chance to gain the control that would redeem me in the eyes of the queen and her city and soothe the gnawing guilt of failure.

I started as a falcon fluttered up to me, flapping around my head as if investigating.

“Zephyr,” called a stern voice, and the bird backed off, instead flying to Erix where he stood in a dip between dunes and alighting on his shoulder. I had seen the falcon the night before but didn’t remember him having it when I first came upon him at my oasis .

“You came,” Erix said. His voice was flat, giving away neither surprise nor disappointment.

I shrugged. It was the only real explanation I had.

Erix nodded once. “Come.” He gestured toward a pile of rocks, ranging from the size of my fist to a boulder the size of me. “It’s time you learned how to use your power.”

I froze, balking. “You said I could learn to control my power; you said nothing about using it.”

“The magic of the desert doesn’t take kindly to sitting idle,” Erix argued. “Like a horse, it must be exercised, or it will turn volatile and restless.”

I shook my head, backing away a few steps. This was a mistake. I had reminded myself of that last time, and all we’d done was practice familiar forms together. This was something else entirely.

“What does your magic do whenever you try to close it in?” Erix asked before I could turn away. I hesitated and took a few steps back toward him. He stared at me in silence, and I wished I could see his expression.

“Throw the rock,” he ordered.

I frowned and took a step forward, but he threw out an arm, stopping me.

“With your magic.”

I looked at him with what I’m sure was an incredulous expression.

“It’s a part of the desert. You should be able to manipulate it just like the wind and the lightning.” He demonstrated, flicking out a hand as if swatting at a fly; one of the mid-sized rocks flew off the pile and landed in the sand a way away with a dull thud.

“How?”

He stilled, and I got the distinct feeling he would be frowning if I could see his face. “The part of you that feels all the desert crashing in around you when you lose control. Try pointing it at the rock and opening up a little bit.”

I opened my mouth to snap that his instructions were impossibly vague, but I paused. Somehow, they made the tiniest bit of sense. Deep in my core, dwelled a twisting, living thing—one that snapped and growled when I found myself closed in by the mountain around me or the writhing crush of people in the city. Even now, I felt it whirling inside me, drowsy but very much still there.

Experimentally, I nudged its attention toward the smallest rock in the pile. I tried to do as Erix said and roused it just a bit, but my mind clamped down around the efforts. I screwed my eyes shut, seeing scared faces behind my eyelids: Dryden, the queen. My parents.

A crack rung through the air, and my eyes snapped open. A boulder, once standing as tall as Erix, fell in two separate directions. It split cleanly down the middle as if hewn in half by an incomprehensibly large saber.

I stared in dumbfounded silence before stumbling back a few steps.

“This was a mistake,” I murmured. I turned and hurried back up the dune toward the distant noises of laughter and conversations that I was not a part of. Erix didn’t call after me, but I felt his gaze heavy on my retreating back.

I returned the next night. When I woke in the morning, I was resolved not to seek out Erix again. He brought out something wild and untamed buried deep within me, that I could not afford to unleash.

But as the shadows grew longer, and my restlessness with them, I found my feet carrying me out across the dunes. My opportunity to learn would be gone in a matter of days, and I would not let my fear stop me.

Fear was an old friend of mine, keeping me from wandering too far from my oasis in exile, and compelling me to count how many dried strips of meat I had left a dozen times over. I could live alongside fear easily enough if it would eventually free me from the burden of this power.

I found Erix with his saber in hand, moving through motions I knew by heart myself now. Something twisted within me at the thought of both of us practicing our forms, both on the opposite sides of the desert, and the looming war, but moving through the same patterns.

I stopped a short distance away, sure Erix could sense my presence, but he did not stop his flowing movements. He finished one set and moved straight into the next without pause. I glanced down at my feet, feeling oddly as if I were intruding on something private, but found myself looking up again quickly. After all, we had done these movements together over a week earlier, but I hadn’t had a chance to really watch him then.

The proficiency with which he moved through the positions, a dance of strikes and parries with no enemy, spoke of the deadly efficiency I had seen in his duels. Despite there being no wasted movements though, the pattern of his limbs moving through space was oddly mesmerizing—a dance as deadly as it was enthralling.

When he still made no move to stop, I decided to join him in his practice. After all, with Aderyn still busy with the extra security around the temporary encampment, there had been no training sessions for the new recruits.

I fell into my stance where I was, and while there was the slightest hitch in Erix’s movements, he didn’t say anything. I moved through the same form he did, trying to match the pace of his movements, once again slower than felt comfortable, and with grace I wouldn’t expect from someone rumored to be a ruthless butcher.

As I flowed through the poses, although not nearly as gracefully as my counterpart, an odd sensation started to inch through me, beginning low in my core and spreading out toward my fingers and toes. The rhythm of my breath was no longer mine, but the rhythm of the desert. It was the breath of Erix next to me and the wing beats of his falcon off somewhere on a hunt. My blood rushing through my veins was the rock squirrel scurrying through its tunnel and the water pulsing deep underground from a hidden well.

I felt the edges of my awareness blur before I gasped, snapping back into my body and standing stiffly. My hands curled into fists so tightly that my forearms shook, as if I could hold myself in my body with the strength of my grip.

Erix had stopped moving as well, masked face turned toward me. Maybe I was imagining things, but I sensed curiosity in his gaze. He didn’t say anything though.

“How do you manage it, when you feel your control slipping?” I had gathered enough from Queen Ginevra to know Erix must have experienced such things when he was younger. More than that though, something in his posture, in his very offer to train me, spoke of understanding.

“You must find something, a sensation or an anchor, to ground you in your body.”

I remembered his arms around me—their warmth and solidity the thing that brought me back to my own body. I shook the thought from my head. I somehow doubted that he would offer to repeat the embrace, or that such displays were how the Viper managed his power.

“What anchors you?” I asked.

“Pain.”

I blinked once. Twice. “You hurt yourself on purpose?”

“When the occasion calls for it. In a fight, letting yourself sustain an injury can work if you are running out of options.” He shrugged, as if having to injure himself to maintain control was no issue. “Pain cuts through the awareness better than any other sensation, impossible to ignore and utterly physical. If you hurt yourself badly enough, it’s impossible to lose yourself in the consciousness of the desert, even if you wanted to.”

“That’s barbaric,” I argued.

“The desert is not a soft mistress. Those who cannot do what it takes to survive the elements are shown no mercy,” he retorted. “Her magic is no different.”

“There has to be another way.”

He tilted his head. “I suppose other strong sensations might do as well, but pleasure is a little harder to deploy on a battlefield.”

His tone was so even that I couldn’t be sure, but I got the impression it was the closest Erix came to a joke. It was equal parts humanizing and unnerving, thinking that the faceless figure before me, wielder of unfathomable power, was being sarcastic.

“Well, you won’t know if you don’t try. It might unnerve your enemies.”

His shoulders stiffened, as if he hadn’t expected me to play along. Then the moment passed, and he stomped over to the same pile of rocks we had used the day before, unmistakable from the cracked boulder at the center .

I didn’t manage to move any rocks today, but none broke either.

On the third day, when I crested the dune that hid where Erix and I met from the encampment, I found him kneeling, sat back on his heels. He would have looked completely relaxed if not for the tight squeeze of his fists resting on his knees. So tense were they, I was surprised I couldn’t hear the creak of his black leather gloves.

“Today, we will meditate,” he said, not moving as I approached.

I turned on my heel, ready to walk right back to Kelvadan and take Daiti out for a ride. Meditation was a strategy I had tried and failed more times than I could count. I wasn’t about to spend another hour pretending to focus on containing my magic just to avoid the inevitable outburst.

“Not like the queen would have taught you,” he added before I could take more than two steps away.

I hesitated before turning. Doubt that any sort of sitting quietly would help slithered through my mind, but I found myself loathe to leave. More than anything Erix had said so far helping me, it was more the feeling that he understood what I felt, in his own twisted way.

The storm that raged within me sometimes made me feel more alone in Kelvadan than I had when isolated at my oasis in the desert. How odd it was that the man who had ripped me away from my solitude in isolation was the first to face my power without fear. Even the way the queen tried to help me left an aftertaste of apprehension in my mouth.

I knelt in front of Erix, sitting back on my heels, mirroring his pose. Our knees were a few inches apart, and the warmth from his body seeped through my loose linen pants. I wondered how he could stand to be covered so completely from head to toe in the beating sun.

“Picture the origin of your power within you,” Erix instructed once I had settled.

“Aren’t you going to tell me to close my eyes?”

He shrugged. “I prefer to meditate with my eyes open, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. ”

I let my eyes flutter shut. I didn’t think I was going to be able to focus on anything staring straight into his metal mask.

“Now, focus on your purpose. The drives that decide all your actions and the passions underneath them.”

Surprisingly, I found his tone soothing as I turned my attention inwards. His voice was a smooth tenor that lost its hard edge when he wasn’t trying to be menacing. I internally shook myself, remembering his words.

My purpose.

“To protect Kelvadan.” He hadn’t asked me to say it out loud, but it felt right.

He huffed in derision but didn’t comment. “Now think about the emotions that drive that goal.”

I dug deeper within myself, tunneling down into my psyche.

Of course I wanted to protect the city that had been a symbol of hope for me through years of exile. How could I not, when even my own clan had turned me out, but Kelvadan had found a place for me? Even if I didn’t feel like I belonged there just yet, I could prove my worth. I could…

At the bottom of the well of my magic lay something dark and pulsating. I reached out a mental finger to poke it, only to have it snap and snarl at me.

It was angry.

The feeling slapped me in the face like a sandstorm. Hidden deep within me lived the resentment I felt for being left to die alone in the desert when I was barely more than a girl. There was the rage at the needless death of my horse and the fury that I couldn’t just live without fear of myself like everybody else. There was anger at myself that I still felt alone even when surrounded by a city’s worth of people.

“Good.”

I jumped, nearly having forgotten about Erix’s presence.

“Let that anger be a funnel that siphons the power out of you, even as it feeds it.”

My eyes snapped open. “No.”

Erix tilted his head.

“It was working, wasn’t it? ”

I didn’t answer his question, scowling at him instead. “I won’t do things your way if it makes me like the Viper.”

“I wasn’t the one who looked within myself and found anger. That was all you.” He sounded satisfied, and my hackles rose.

“And what is the purpose you meditate on? To destroy your own city—your own family?”

“The peace of Kelvadan is a lie.” His smooth voice had transformed into a menacing growl.

It was the second time he had said something similar, and I found myself springing to my feet.

“Says the one that would bring war to his own people. I was wrong to think that you could teach me about anything but violence and betrayal.”

I spun on my heel and set off into the desert. Wishing for the strength of Daiti beneath me, I pumped my arms, my soft soled boots churning up the sand beneath me as I ran. I knew Erix didn’t follow, but I felt compelled to put as much distance between us as possible.

I ripped off my hood, wanting to feel the wind in my hair and the sun on my face. The desert was my one constant companion throughout the years— the one who looked on me without judgement. I ran until my lungs screamed and my legs turned to fire.

Falling to my knees in the sand, I panted, gathering my breath before turning my face to the sky and letting out a feral scream. It was a wild noise, the type of thing that felt natural in exile, but I held in within the walls of Kelvadan.

The sound of pure frustration was swept away across the open plain by the wind. I could run away from the Viper, but I couldn’t outrun the anger I found inside myself.

I led Daiti out of the arched opening to Kelvadan, the flanking guards looking at me curiously as I turned in the opposite direction of the encampment. I wasn’t in the mood to join the feasts tonight, even though I had no intention of joining Erix again. Now, I only wanted my horse and the open sky for company .

I swung up onto Daiti’s broad back, relishing the solidity of his body between my thighs and the silkiness of his mane as I let it wash over my hands. He pawed the ground and tossed his head, obviously pleased to be out of the stables himself.

Wasting no time, I urged him into a canter, riding straight out, away from the cliffs. I didn’t worry about getting lost when the spire of Kelvadan could be seen for miles.

The desert looked different in the moonlight, less harsh in the silvery light of night. Where the sun leeched the landscape of its colors, now the sky looked so rich and velvety that I imagined I could reach out and touch it. Still, the desert was no less alive in the dark, a burrowing owl swooping overhead as it looked for its next meal and a family of sand cats darting by in search of water.

Some semblance of peace had just started to wash over me when the quiet was shattered by a shout.

“Rider!”

I wheeled Daiti around, looking for the source of the sound.

“Rider!”

I spotted a woman, stumbling over the sands, waving her arms desperately for my attention. With a murmur, I urged Daiti toward her, hand on the hilt of my saber. As I approached, I released the weapon. The woman was so haggard, clothes torn and barely on her feet, that I knew she posed no threat to us.

“Please, I need help.” She tried to clutch at Daiti’s side, whether for support or to keep me from riding away, I couldn’t tell. My mount tried to snap at her hand, but I slapped at his neck in a silent command to stand down.

“What’s wrong?” I frowned down at her, wandering the desert without a mount. Perhaps another exile.

“Clan Otush, we’re under attack,” she gasped. Her voice came out rough, as if she hadn’t had anything to drink in hours.

I unhooked my skin from my belt and handed it to her. “From another clan?”

She gulped greedily before answering, shaking her head and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “No, the clans are in a truce until the results of the Trials reach us. It’s a creature… a lava wyrm. ”

I frowned, shaking my head, even as a slither of fear crawled up my spine. “It can’t—”

“I know what I saw.” Despite her obvious exhaustion, the woman’s voice came out strong.

My blood ran cold despite the warmth of the night. Lava wyrms existed only in legends—stories of old told around clan campfires of how they could only be felled by the greatest riders. They hadn’t been seen since the desert had been crossed and tamed by humans nearly a thousand years ago.

The woman staring up at me, determination palpable in her gaze, convinced me otherwise.

“Get on,” I ordered, scooting forward to make room behind me on Daiti’s back. He huffed as if annoyed that I would let somebody else mount him, but stayed still as I glared between his ears, begging him to behave.

We set off toward the encampment, my mind racing as fast as Daiti over the baked earth. Perhaps the desert was really tearing itself apart if creatures of legend were terrorizing the clans once more. This would only make the lords more desperate for a solution—one that Lord Alasdar and his Viper were all too happy to supply.

But if Kelvadan came to their aid, perhaps the clans would think twice about turning on the Great City.

The encampment came into view on the horizon, and we didn’t slow until we approached the center circle of the tents. By this time, the fourth night of feasting was in full swing, and dancing spread through the open area. Revelers jumped aside as we skid to a halt before the low table where the queen sat with Kaius, presiding over the celebration. Aderyn stood over her shoulder, a watchful shadow, while Neven sat at the table a couple seats down.

Whispers darted around the crowd, hidden behind hands as I dismounted, helping the woman from Clan Otush down after me. I shrugged off the weight of judgmental gazes, trying not to worry that I was making a spectacle of myself for the second time during the Trials. This was too important to spend time worrying about the opinions of others.

“Queen Ginevra,” I addressed her, rapping my knuckles against my brow in respect. The woman next to me echoed my action. “I found this woman crossing the sands with dire news.”

“Clan Otush needs aid. A lava wyrm is terrorizing our encampment, eating horses and killing our hunters. We’re afraid to even try to pack up and move, for fear of leaving ourselves exposed.”

Murmurs skittered through the assembled crowd. The queen’s eyes widened, and Aderyn took a step forward as if she was unaware she was moving.

“A lava wyrm? Can you be sure?”

The woman raised her chin, unwilling to be cowed by the doubt clearly displayed at her fantastical tale.

“This wasn’t just some hunter’s tale. I saw it with my own eyes. I was sent for aid as the fastest rider, and out in the desert alone, it accosted me. I lost my horse, Yessenia, to the lava wyrm, watching as its molten breath melted her flesh from her bones. I only managed to escape as it was distracted, feasting on her flesh.”

Something hot smoldered in my stomach at the thought of a noble steed meeting such an end. It felt far too similar to the anger I had reached into yesterday. I ignored the sensation.

“If what you say is true, and the beasts of the desert rise again, then we must all be vigilant,” Queen Ginevra declared, pushing to her feet. She shook her hands free of her billowing sleeves, held to her wrists with silver bracelets. “Aderyn, see to moving all within the city walls where they can be defended. Send out riders to comb the area and report back on anything unusual they might come across. Tell them to stay together in pairs.”

“My clan—” the woman at my side started.

“You will be safe here.” The queen reassured. “All are welcome within the walls of Kelvadan.”

“But my people…”

“The warriors of your clan are strong and will protect your people, just as I must protect mine.” The queen’s words were bitingly harsh, even as her tone was soft. I itched to shout, to argue with her on the woman’s behalf, but the devastated look in Queen Ginevra’s eyes told me it would be futile. This wasn’t a decision she made in the absence of compassion, but to protect her people. Still, the well of anger in my core boiled more insistently. The people of the clans needed protection too.

I felt more than heard the shuddering gasp of defeat wracking the frame of the woman beside me. She began to sway, and I hesitated before reaching out to grab her. I itched to help, but that form of easy contact still came so slowly. Before I could act, a figure stepped out of the shadows where I hadn’t seen them before.

“I will ride to your clan to fight the lava wyrm.” Erix’s words cut through the nervous chatter of the encampment, though he had barely raised his voice. My chest stuttered with something like relief that I could not place, an odd feeling in response to the otherworldly way the flickering light from the brasiers danced over his mask. The effect, combined with his sudden appearance and imposing frame, gave him the air of a demon materializing from the night.

The woman stiffened next to me, clearly fighting an internal battle. The Viper and the whispers that followed him would not be unknown to Clan Otush, but right now, he was the demon who offered her people salvation.

“I’ve been to Clan Otush’s encampment. I’ll ride there to face the wyrm while you recover in the city. I can set out immediately.”

The woman hesitated only a moment before nodding in agreement. Queen Ginevra’s face paled, her lips thin from being pressed together so tightly.

“Come,” she commanded, reaching her hand out. “We will find you accommodations to rest after your harrowing journey. I’m sure you’re hungry and tired.”

The queen turned toward the city, already murmuring instructions to Aderyn who trailed her. The woman hesitated, staring at Erix for a long moment, before rapping her knuckles to her own brow in respect. Then she hurried away toward the promise of food and a safe bed.

I stood frozen, now alone in the middle of the encampment. The jovial atmosphere had dissipated faster than the occasional eerie morning mists that clung to the hot earth. Everywhere people were scurrying around disassembling tents, anxious to get behind the safety of the walls or back to their own people in the face of such a legendary threat.

At the center of the vortex of activity, I remained rooted to the ground, looking between Erix and the retreating back of his mother. He tilted his head to the side as if waiting for something, but I remained unsure. Then I turned and raced after the trio of women walking towards the city.

When I caught up with them, Queen Ginevra was giving instructions to an attendant to find quarters in the palace and draw a bath for their new guest. Aderyn had a knot of guards around her who were listening to her instructions regarding increased security for having so many visitors inside the city walls.

I waited for them to disperse before stepping into her line of view.

“You can’t leave Clan Otush to face the lava wyrm alone,” I began without preamble.

Aderyn sighed, looking intensely weary for all her unyielding posture. “There is no other choice.”

“Of course there is. There’s always a choice, even if it is a difficult one. You could send riders to help. I would—"

“I have been charged with the protection of this city, a vow I will not betray until my dying breath,” Aderyn snapped, fire replacing exhaustion in her eyes. “Do not ask me to put her in jeopardy when her peace already hangs so precariously in the balance.”

I drew back as if she had slapped me. While I had grown used to Aderyn’s brusque manner, I had never felt true hostility from her. Now the idea that she would leave innocents defenseless against a terror straight out of myths left me unbalanced.

The queen approached as I stood stunned, but my brain started thinking again, travelling down another path.

“If the captain from Clan Katal aids them, that would only cement their loyalty to him,” I pressed. “But if Kelvadan were to send aid, they might be reticent to attack the city on Lord Alasdar’s behalf.”

“Based on what we heard from the rider of Clan Tibel, Clan Katal will already have united all the riders of the desert based on the Viper being named Champion,” the queen pointed out. “This very well may be their attempt to draw our riders out of Kelvadan and attack when we are defenseless.”

I blinked, not having thought of that. A growl of frustration itched in the back of my throat, but I swallowed it down. I could not let my anger rule me—would not let it shred my control.

“These decisions are the reason I do not relish being queen,” she continued more quietly, “But it is final. My great-grandfather built this city to be a beacon of safety, and I will see it remain as such at all costs.”

I looked down at my feet, nodding deferentially even as my heart sank. There would be no changing these women’s minds when they were set down a path. It was something I respected in them, even as the storm in me raged against this decision, the thought of an innocent horse being swallowed by lava seared into my brain. I did not change my mind when it was set on something either.

“I’ll bring Daiti to the stables and then report back to help with security,” I volunteered.

Aderyn nodded her approval and Queen Ginevra offered me an encouraging, if sad, smile. I left them to further discuss their plans as I headed through the wide arch into the city, remaining on foot instead of mounting Daiti. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself after the spectacle in the encampment.

Once inside, I didn’t turn up the winding climb toward the palace but took the road toward Aderyn and Neven’s home. Upon arriving, I left Daiti outside with a pat on the nose and a whispered assurance that I’d be right back.

I slipped through the door quickly, ready to head for the kitchen and yelped in surprise when I nearly ran headfirst into Neven. He raised his brows at me questioningly.

“I ah—Aderyn sent me… she needed—”

Neven shoved a pile of bundles into my arms, effectively silencing my attempts at explanation. “You’ll need these.”

I looked down at them curiously, picking out what appeared to be a bedroll and several other bulging packs.

“I’m not sure how far Clan Otush’s encampment is, but it should be enough when supplemented with your hunting skills,” he explained.

I opened and shut my mouth twice before settling on tilting my head instead of asking a specific question.

Neven shrugged sheepishly. “I’ve been married to a stubborn woman for long enough to recognize the look in your eyes. It’s the one Aderyn has when I know she is going to get her way, no matter what.”

“You don’t agree with her that I should stay and protect the city?” I asked.

“I agree that the city needs to be protected, but so do the clans. Aderyn may have been born and raised here, but I grew up riding the sands. As much as Kelvadan is my home, I know many who call the clans home.” Neven paused, something in his eyes examining me like some of his weaving that wasn’t quite laying right, searching it for the tiniest snag. “I’ve seen the way you look out at the horizon. As much as you love Kelvadan, I know you miss the freedom of the desert. If anybody should ride out to protect it, it’s you.”

I nodded, not sure of what I could say to possibly thank him. Instead, I asked a question. “Do you ever miss the adventure of the desert?”

One corner of his lips pulled up in a wry smile. “Being married to Aderyn offers me all the adventure I could ever need. Now go, before anybody notices you’re missing.”