Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

Keera

I rested my chin on my knees as Erix wrote his message with a stick of charcoal, watching the way the flickering firelight played over his features. The setting sun cast a golden light over his skin, and I pondered it was likely the color his complexion would be if his mask hadn’t hidden his skin for many years, keeping it unnaturally pale.

Finishing his note, he whistled softly at Zephyr who hopped over obediently. Erix tied the rolled-up scrap of paper to his leg with a loose bit of string.

We had scoured the baby wyrm’s lair for signs of where its mother had gone, easily finding a swatch of destruction leading away toward the setting sun. After ensuring that we would be able to use it to track the larger wyrm, we had retreated back over the ridge to set up camp and plot our next move.

“He’s more of a hunter than a messenger, but hopefully the desert will see the importance of our mission and guide him to the encampment,” Erix said now as he double checked that his note was secure on Zephyr’s leg.

“Maybe he’ll fly to Kelvadan for help instead,” I mused, needling him more out of habit than anything.

Erix shot me a glare, but it held no venom. “Lord Alasdar will send riders to protect the desert from the lava wyrm. Queen Ginevra only cares for her own city.”

I tilted my head in contemplation as Zephyr flapped his wings, taking flight and soaring away until he was nothing more than a dark spot against the sunset.

“Why do you follow Lord Alasdar?” I asked.

“He taught me—”

I cut him off with a shake of my head. “Even if he did show you that the Heart of the Desert needs to be restored, I would think you’re more powerful than him.”

Erix bowed his head in acknowledgement.

“You’re also the rightful heir of Kelvadan, and now the Champion of the Desert. Why wouldn’t you go to the top of the palace and recover the Heart yourself? Surely you don’t think the queen would turn you away if you asked. As it is, you are the one uniting the tribes, not Lord Alasdar. You don’t need to serve him.”

Erix’s face twisted in something like a snarl. “I owe Lord Alasdar my life…my sanity.”

His words wrung out my heart like a damp rag. If Erix were to turn against Lord Alasdar, he would have to see the burn marks on his back and the denial of his identity with that horrible mask for what they were. They certainly weren’t the kindnesses that Erix made them out to be. I dropped the issue for now.

“How do you expect to get the Heart out of Kelvar and Alyx’s rooms? Nobody has been able to open them since they died,” I asked instead.

“What do you know about blood glass?”

I blinked at the sudden jump in topic, but I tilted my head, trying to remember the stories. The lord of Clan Padra had possessed a saber with a piece of blood glass in the hilt when I rode with them. The vendor at the Trials had touted its strength and rare properties.

“It’s made by mixing blood with the sand of the desert before melting it into glass. It’s said to amplify the power of the desert in whoever wields it,” I said.

Erix nodded. “But not just in whoever wields it. It responds best to the one whose blood was used. We give our life force to the desert and bind it to her, and in return she shares her power with us. Even though it looks just like reddened glass, it is nearly impossible to break.”

I contemplated Erix as he stared into the flames between us, but I stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“The royal chambers at the top of the palace are sealed with two pieces of blood glass, made from the blood of Kelvar and Alyx themselves. They would only respond to them and allow the doors to open. To enter without their permission, it would be necessary to break the twin panels. To shatter one would take an immensely powerful individual. To shatter both at once and open the door, you would need a pair of the most powerful people in the desert.”

Understanding dawned, both as to why Erix depended on Lord Alasdar and why Lord Alasdar would risk keeping somebody so close who was so clearly a threat to his power if his abuse were to stop keeping him in line.

“It would take both of you to get to the Heart,” I concluded.

He nodded. “It will take two.”

My voice was barely above a whisper, but it seemed terribly loud as I responded. “There are two of us.”

Erix’s eyes darted up from where he had been staring into the fire, meeting my gaze with startling intensity. “I know.”

Something like hope began to kindle in my heart. While the walls between Erix and me slowly dissolved over our journey, the threat of war lingered like storm clouds in the back of my mind. The common enemy of the lava wyrm was a temporary reprieve from the battle we seemed doomed to be on opposite sides of. Now though, I saw away around the bloodshed that seemed inevitable.

“Do you think we might be… allies?” I asked.

My stomach turned to stone as he shook his head vehemently.

“No.” His voice was sharp. “I don’t feel about you the way one feels about an ally.”

My breath caught in my throat. “What do you feel?”

“Too much.” Erix looked away.

I didn’t press the matter, because I was beginning to feel too much for him as well.

“Do you want to spar?” Erix asked without prelude the next morning after we finished our forms.

Internally, I cringed at the memory of the last time we fought and how easily Erix had toyed with me then. I could learn a lot from him.

“We don’t have blunted sabers,” I pointed out.

“We could practice hand to hand combat,” Erix offered.

“I don’t really know much hand-to-hand fighting.”

Erix’s brow quirked in a skeptical expression. It was refreshing to see his emotions so clearly on his face, as he hadn’t put his mask on since we defeated the wyrm the afternoon before. Seeing him without it though, I realized how essential it was to his persona as the Viper. He was far too expressive—his thoughts clear on his face—to maintain such an intimidating reputation without it.

“What is Aderyn teaching the riders these days?” he asked half under his breath.

I paused. “You know Aderyn?”

Erix stiffened, looking away. I thought he was going to evade the question, but he surprised me. “We grew up together. Her father was one of the queen’s advisors, and when he and his wife died suddenly, Queen Ginevra gave her a home at the palace.”

Aderyn had once told me she knew somebody else like me, and it was part of the reason she went out of her way to help me so much. Between her kindness and the queen’s training, even when I repeatedly lost control, I had been living on borrowed compassion. That kindness should have belonged to the man in front of me who carried such a heavy burden, yet cared so much for the desert. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. Erix deserved the queen’s kindness as much, if not more, than I had. I wanted to hit something.

“Let’s spar.” I shucked off my outer layers that protected me from the sun, leaving me in only a cropped shirt and light pants held up by a colorful length of fabric Neven had packed for me to use as a belt.

Erix followed suit, unwinding layers of dark gray linen from around his shoulders and shrugging off his tunic, leaving him in only his pants, wide sash emphasizing the narrow taper of his waist from broad shoulders. My face heated from more than just the sun.

“All right, copy my stance,” Erix instructed.

I did as he asked, bending my knees, and extending open palms out in front of me. He led me through a series of kicks and punches, the rush of blood through my limbs dulling but not silencing some of the bubbling anger in my core. Still, where my hidden rage had disgusted me before, now it felt like a well of energy as I let it power my strikes. Maybe it was how Erix felt when he meditated, letting his emotions siphon out his excess magic.

We moved into drills against each other, me throwing various sets of kicks and punches while Erix moved through the coordinating blocks. With each blow, I gained speed, hitting Erix’s forearms when he blocked harder and harder. If I bruised him, he didn’t say anything, eyes only growing brighter.

As the minutes passed, the drills sank into my muscles like thirsty soil drinking up rain after the dry season. We moved on to sparring. Muscle memories coming from somewhere deep within me surfaced until we were a blur, exchanging blows and blocks faster than my brain could keep up with. It was a dizzying, heady feeling, like after drinking too much laka or the weightlessness that washed over to me when Erix’s hand was between my thighs.

I stumbled in my moment of distraction, and Erix pressed the advantage, tripping me with a swipe of his leg. Sand puffed up around me as I fell on my back with thud, Erix following me down. Now that my rhythm was broken, he pinned me easily, hips pressed into mine, and he held my wrists to the ground.

He stared down at me, eyes glittering with the same energy I felt coursing through me during our fight. I panted, trying to catch the breath that had escaped me when I hit the ground. With the weight of his gaze on me, it was difficult.

He didn’t move to let me up, and I didn’t move to push him off, a long moment passing between us. I tracked a bead of sweat down the tendon of his neck to where it pooled in the hollow of his throat. Adrenaline still pumping through my veins, I had the ridiculous urge to lick it away .

I unconsciously licked my lips, and Erix’s gaze snapped to my mouth. The memory of sitting in his lap, his hand stroking me to pleasure as he palmed his own erection, burned through my mind once again. The heat in my gut grew, not anger now, but want.

Emboldened by our fight, I squirmed a bit, not trying to get away, but just enough to rub up against Erix. A choked noise escaped his throat. A smile tugged at my lips, and I did it again, watching his eyelids flutter. I had been so alone for so long, that now with Erix over me like this, my body could only cry out for more.

He transferred both of my wrists to one hand, letting the other stroke down my hair to land at my neck. The touch was light, more of a caress than anything, but I recognized the gesture. We had been in this same position before, the night he first stumbled upon my oasis. I felt the same spark of life in me now as I had then, this time laced with a burning desire.

He leaned imperceptibly closer, his eyes holding something smoldering as well as something pleading.

“Let me kiss you,” he begged, as if he thought I would say no.

I nodded fervently.

The simmering in my gut burst into flame as his lips met mine, hot enough that I was sure Erix could feel it too. I licked into his mouth and groaned at the taste, as if I had been dying of thirst and he was my oasis.

He was just as greedy as me, pressing my hips into the ground. The heat from his bare torso soaked through my light clothing, and I reveled in the way his weight grounded me, even as his kisses made my head spin. He tasted salty like sweat and blood and life. For the second time, I felt his hardness against my hip, making my head spin faster than any laka . I ground against him, purposefully this time. He broke away from my mouth with a strangled sound at the friction, but I wasn’t done devouring him. My lips and teeth and tongue found his earlobe, tracing down his neck to taste the bead of sweat that had caught my attention earlier.

“Sands, what do you do to me?” he murmured. His hand at my neck tightened, not in violence, but as if he were trying to ground himself.

“The same thing you do to me.”

I knew he could sense it, our magic curling together in the inches between us, flaring as he pressed his hips against mine. Erix now traced his free hand down my body, fingers dipping into the hollow at the base of my throat, between my breasts down to my bare abdomen. His fingers danced around my navel, toying with the hem of my shirt as if asking permission. I wasted no time nodding enthusiastically.

It took both of his hands to lift my clothing over my head. I itched to touch him in return, to run my palms over the sculpted planes of his chest and shoulders, but I kept my hands where he had put them over my head. Something about the methodical way he removed each piece of fabric kept me pinned, his gaze catching on each piece of skin he exposed.

Once I was bare from the waist up, he finally let his hands wander where I wanted them. His calluses rasped the underside of my breast, but I didn’t care about the roughness as his thumb brushed over my nipple, teasing it to a peak. I arched against the touch, body begging for more in ways I couldn’t put words to.

My hands flew to his shoulders, fingers digging into corded muscle. I scraped at his skin with my blunted nails, pulling another groan from him.

He lowered his mouth to me again, his breath hot on my skin as he trailed his lips down my collarbone toward where his fingers toyed with my breasts.

“Do you have any idea”—he paused to drag his tongue across my taught nipple, and I whimpered—“how much you make me want?”

In response, I rolled my hips against his again, and he used a hand to pin me to the ground. Part of me insisted that I should push back against him, but the louder part reveled in having him like this, wanting me like this. He was the only person who could truly see what I was to the very core of me, and yet he still looked at me as if he hungered for more.

“I haven’t let myself want anything for so long.” His words were pressed into my skin as he kissed down my stomach, fingers pulling at the knot of my belt. I shimmied myself out of my pants with his help, feeling as though I would burst into flame otherwise. The look he gave me when I was completely bare made me think I might just combust anyway .

“I never thought I would care for anything as much as I cared for the desert,” he admitted, fingers stroking gently through the curls at the apex of my thighs, “but you are just as wild and twice as beautiful.”

I tried to tell him he was beautiful too, but my words caught in my throat as his thumb found my most sensitive spot and traced a light circle over it. He pressed open-mouth kisses over my hipbone then dragged his teeth over the sensitive skin of my inner thigh in a way that made me mewl. Then his mouth replaced his fingers, and it was as if I had been struck by lightning all over again.

“You taste even better like this,” Erix growled before licking a hot stripe up my center once more.

Erix explored every inch of my sex with his lips and tongue, as if trying to memorize the feel of me with his mouth alone. I twisted against him, whether to escape the onslaught of sensations or to get closer, I could not tell. He responded by throwing one of my legs over his shoulder, opening me up further to his explorations.

“Sands Keera,” he murmured against my heated flesh, “you’re so perfect—so wet that I could drink.”

He was right. Slick dribbled down the cleft of my ass and coated the top of my thighs, but if the way Erix lapped at it was any indication, he would never have enough. I plunged my fingers into his hair and tugged, causing him to groan against my center. I keened at the vibrations, unable to contain myself from grinding up into him. He didn’t seem to mind, devouring me with me with single-minded efficiency. He added his fingers, pushing them inside me, working in rhythm with his tongue.

My climax ripped through me with earthshattering speed. My back bowed off the sand as a long breathless moan escaped me.

“Erix.”

He kept licking me as I shook, a growl of satisfaction pulling painfully exquisite shocks of pleasure from me until I laid boneless and trembling. Erix crawled up my body, the achingly gentle way he pressed kisses to by belly, my breastbone, my forehead, at odds with the ravenous way he had feasted on me minutes before.

The Viper, the Prince of Kelvadan, gentle for me, an exile. Yet for all his power he had been just as alone as me.

I traced my fingers up his back, brushing over rows and rows of uniform bumps before bringing my hands to cup his face. His gaze burned into me.

“Erix,” I murmured, relishing the way a tremor ran through his body at his name on my lips. “Please, Erix.”

He sat back on his heels to untie his belt, pushing his pants down and kicking them off. I watched his face as he undressed, baring all of himself to me for the first time. Once he was completely naked though, I couldn’t resist looking down to where he stood hard and proud—for me. My mouth went dry.

When he leaned forward again, resting his elbows on either side of my head, I wasted no time wrapping my arms and legs around him, tilting my hips up to notch us together. He huffed against my neck, sounding equally wrecked and amused at my impatience, my hair fluttering with his breath.

When the head of him slid in, where I was already so hot and aching, I let out a cry, but not so loud that I didn’t hear what Erix murmured into my ear.

“Mine.”

And that was it. The thing I had yearned for all those years—to belong. Erix offered it to me so earnestly, even as I ripped away his armor to find the man hidden inside who deserved so much yet took so little.

As he slid inside, deeper and deeper until I swore we were no longer separate people, I found my voice enough to moan out my own response.

“You’re mine too.”

His cock twitched inside me at that, and I shivered at the overwhelming feeling of fullness, of oneness. Then he began to move, pulling out partway and pushing back in torturously slowly. I rippled around every inch of him, and it was as if the very fabric of the desert shuddered with me.

As he began to move faster, I could only think of Erix, of where he moved deep within me, the burning pleasure threatening to consume me as his hips snapped against mine. His name fell from my lips again and again until he silenced me with a deep kiss, tongue sliding into my mouth as if he had to be inside me there too.

Sensation consumed me, and more than just my body. Our magic came alive. Mine flowed into him as the threads of his power bound me to him. Just as the knot pulled taught, I shattered around him with a cry. Erix responded with a roar of his own, pleasure ripping through both of us, his and mine indistinguishable.

As the sand settled around us and Erix wrung the last echoes of pleasure from my body, I knew the reason his touch had awoken something within me the very first time we met. His power and mine were one and the same.

The next morning after finishing our forms, Erix and I both looked around at a loss. There was little to do but wait for reinforcements from the encampment.

A thick sense of urgency permeated the air, but there was nothing to be done at this moment. It left me restless, looking for something to do with my hands and constantly fidgeting. The lava wyrm continued cutting its path of destruction through the desert, but we could not follow until help arrived. Right now, there was no foal to birth or monster to fight. I brushed Daiti until his golden coat shone like burnished brass, Erix looking on with a look of utmost skepticism as the fearsome stallion turned pliant under my hands.

Still, I wasn’t able to sit still, as full of energy as I was. The last night, Erix and I had fallen asleep holding hands once more, and I woke with my head tucked beneath his chin, our arms and legs tangled together. It was the best sleep I’d ever had, and now I brimmed with energy.

“Do you want to learn some trick riding?” Erix asked as I went over Daiti’s mane for the third time.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Trick riding?”

“It’s one of the few things I know how to do besides fighting,” he admitted with a shrug.

“What kind of tricks?” I asked, interest piqued.

He only whistled, and Alza cantered over obediently. He mounted easily and urged her into a trot, making wide circles around where Daiti and I stood. I put my hands on my hips, watching expectantly. Erix braced his hands on Alza’s shoulders and shot me a smirk, an expression I hadn’t seen from him before. For a moment, it made him look so uncannily like the statue of Kelvar in the palace courtyard that I had to assure myself that he was flesh and blood and not hewn of stone.

All thoughts of his similarity to Kelvar flew from my head as he leaned forward, heaving his lower body up so all his weight was on his arms. For the briefest moment, he stood on his hands on Alza’s back, who trotted calmly as if he did this all the time. Then, he twisted his body in the air, swinging his legs down on either side of his mount so he now rode backward. I blinked at the feat of acrobatics, something I hadn’t expected from someone as thickly muscled as Erix.

Seeing my stunned expression, he let out a huff that was as close as he came to a laugh.

I folded my arms. “When is that ever useful?”

“If it leaves my enemies half as stunned as you are, then I think it might be a very beneficial tactic,” Erix teased in that dry tone of his.

“I want to try.” I swung myself up onto Daiti’s back and murmured him into a light trot, mirroring Alza. Picturing how Erix had done it, I put my hands on Daiti’s shoulders, shifting my weight forward. Daiti faltered for a moment at my shifting before falling into a more even stride once more.

I swung my legs with all my strength, trying to lift my weight on my upper body. I wavered for a moment before coming to the realization that, as much muscle as I had put on, my arms still had nowhere near the strength of Erix’s. They buckled under the combination of my weight and the unsteady jerking of a trotting horse.

As my elbows crumpled, I tried to land on Daiti’s back, but my balance failed me. I rolled off his side, landing on the ground with a tooth-rattling thump.

“Keera!”

Erix’s boots pounded in my direction. I stared up into the clear blue sky, blinking away the watering of my eyes as I caught my breath. Doing a quick inventory, nothing seemed bruised except my pride. A broad shadow blocked the sun shining down onto my face as Erix leaned over me.

“Are you all right? ”

I nodded, no doubt grinding sand into my braided hair. “You made it look easy.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice.” He folded his arms over his chest. Before he could take a step back, I rolled, sweeping my legs at his feet, and taking him by surprise. Now it was his turn to be on his back in the dirt, and I leaped on top of him. Smiling down at him triumphantly, I straddled his hips as he looked up at me in surprise.

“I managed to pick up everything else you taught me quickly enough.”

At that, Erix tilted his head, some of the playful spark fading from his eyes. “Remarkably fast. Do you think maybe you gained some of my abilities because our magic…” He gestured between the two of us, clearly at a loss for words.

We hadn’t talked about what happened yesterday, but I knew Erix could feel the change too. He would pluck gently on the strings of power that bound him to me, as if testing. When I did the same, he would jump, pausing whatever he was doing to glance over at me.

“What is it?” I asked, mentally stroking the flow of magic between us, as if there was any doubt what I was asking about.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. He looked pensive for a moment, a deep crease forming between his brows as if trying to remember something in the distant past. “In some of the stories, they said that the bond between Alyx and Kelvar ran so deep because they were both blessed with immense magic by the desert, although their powers were very different. Alyx could heal, while Kelvar was a warrior.”

“So are you saying we…” I didn’t have the words to put to what I thought he might be getting at. It seemed too much, too farfetched to think we had formed a bond like the one that had moved mountains in the short time we had traveled together. Although, a whisper in my mind reminded me at had started before that, when the Viper hadn’t been able to put an end to the life one lonely exile.

“Did you…” Erix began to ask, and then seemed like he thought better of it.

“Did I what?” I prompted, too curious to let the question drop.

“Did you have dreams about me? Before? ”

I instantly wanted to deny it, but I stopped. It seemed impossible that he could know such a thing. Unless…

“Too many dreams. Did you?”

Erix nodded, the small motion massive in his significance. I tumbled headfirst into a storm of questions—of how and why the desert would link us in such a way.

I looked down at Erix, anxious to unravel the mystery of our shared dreams. Instead, I found Erix squinting at something over my shoulder.

“Look.” He pointed to the sky.

Looking up, I spotted a familiar bird wheeling overhead, descending closer and closer to us. Zephyr landed in a rustle of feathers with a light squawk of greeting. My heart sank in disappointment, the heat in my veins forgotten, as I saw the letter still tied to his leg.

“He didn’t make it to the encampment,” I said.

Erix shook his head, reaching for the bird. I climbed off him so he could sit up properly, and Zephyr jumped eagerly onto his arm.

“This isn’t my message.” Erix began pulling the scrap of paper from Zephyr’s outstretched leg. “It’s a reply.”

Erix’s eyes darted hastily across the paper, face hardening as he read. He must have read it three times by the time he finally spoke, and I found it difficult to sit still with impatience.

“Lord Alasdar won’t send aid. He orders me to return to the encampment at once, saying this shows how important it is to move on Kelvadan immediately.” He pushed to his feet stalking toward Alza. I sprang up after him, incredulous.

“You can’t possibly be obeying him, just like that.” I stomped after him, throwing my hands in the air.

“I can’t disobey an order from Lord Alasdar.” His voice was tight, as if he grit it out between his teeth. “Maybe once I’m there I can impress upon him how important it is to hunt down the lava wyrm.”

“And what, I’m just supposed to ride back to Kelvadan?” My voice rose in irritation. After the past few days together, I had hoped that this might have an ending other than us on opposite sides of a war. Erix stomped on those dreams with every step he took toward returning to the combined clans—to Lord Alasdar .

He paused in gathering up his items to look at me. “You could come with me.”

“And do what?”

“Fight for the desert,” he offered, his eyes pleading. “Join us in conquering Kelvadan and restoring the Heart.”

I shook my head, the burning starting at the back of my eyes nothing compared to the burning in my gut where I knew my well of anger lived. I tamped both down. His offer called to me like cold water when I was about to die of thirst, a mirage of a future where I could belong at his side. Where he could give me the belonging I craved.

But he was still bound to Lord Alasdar’s side, and there would be no place for me there. If he was intent on returning to Clan Katal, then Kelvadan was still the only place I could find home. I couldn’t let him destroy it. The truth of it cut deep, like a blade straight to my heart.

“You know I don’t agree that Kelvadan needs to fall,” I said. “But even if I did, I couldn’t go back with you. I’d follow you, Erix. But if you go back, you’ll put that thing back on”–I nodded to the mask currently bundled with the rest of his supplies in his arms—“and become Lord Alasdar’s weapon once more. And I won’t follow a man who burns brands into your skin and calls it a kindness.”

The words burned my throat as I said them, but I forced them out all the same.

Erix’s expression remained stony, but the twitch of a muscle in his jaw betrayed that I had hit a nerve. “So you’ll fight for a queen that makes you drink poison instead of letting you be what you are?”

It was my turn to flinch, but I stood my ground. I pictured Queen Ginevra standing outside Alyx’s tomb, talking of the legacy she had left, and how she had only ever wanted a place to live with Kelvar in peace. Even if I wasn’t sure a city of stone was what I dreamed of, the desire for a home was one I understood all too well. I didn’t just want to protect the queen. I wanted to protect the ideal of a city where all might find a place. The image of the city Kelvar had before he fell into madness.

“I’ll fight for the desert too. The one Kelvar and Alyx would have wanted.” I managed to keep my voice steady. “I’m going after the lava wyrm, because I’m not going to let innocent people die while Lord Alasdar is too busy sating his lust for power to be bothered. ”

I stomped off to gather my own things, frown only deepening when I rolled up my sleeping mat, so close to Erix’s that they overlapped. In a matter of minutes, the camp that we had shared was nothing more than a few marks in the sand. In another hour, there would be no trace at all. I paused before swinging up onto Daiti’s back, looking at Erix and waiting for him to say something.

Instead, he just lifted the mask to his face, hands moving to strap it on. Seeing his silvery eyes disappear behind the lifeless metal, bile burned the back of my throat. He was going to ride away from me, leaving me behind until he disappeared into the distance, leaving me utterly alone. Just like Clan Padra had. Just like my parents.

My eyes burned, and I turned away, burying my head in Daiti’s mane to hide the shame of my tears. We’d started this journey as allies, drawn together by a common cause and knowing that our parts in this war would likely separate us. I shouldn’t have been foolish enough to grow attached, but in the shadows of my lonely heart, I had hoped things would be different. That this time I wouldn’t be the one left watching somebody ride away.

At that thought, I wheeled around, spinning on my heel to face Erix once more and finding him already on Alza’s back.

“So that’s it? You’re going to leave me too? Run away just like you keep trying to run away from your past?” My face was hot as I shouted, nearly spitting into the sand.

If Erix reacted, I couldn’t see, the sunlight reflecting off his mask seeming dull even in the height of the afternoon.

“This isn’t the same. This time, I would have you come with me…if you would choose to. This time, being alone is your choice.” His voice was sharper than the blade he tended every night.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and a single tear leaked from the corner of my eye, burning a track down my sunburnt cheek. Loneliness was a well-worn path in my mind, etched into my very soul from treading it so many times. It wouldn’t be hard to walk it again, and I walked it well.

Dryden had wanted me until he saw my power. Hadeon had only wanted to use me for my power. I had thought Erix was different, but it turns out he just didn’t want me enough.

I opened my eyes, half expecting him to be gone, disappeared into thin air. He still sat solidly before me, his dark silhouette on his black horse so stark compared to the landscape that he seemed like a stain on the golden sands.

“No. You’re the one choosing this. You’re choosing to be a sword, because that’s what you think will fix you.”

Erix sat back as if stunned but didn’t respond. I didn’t wait to see if he would formulate a response. Instead, I jumped onto Daiti’s back kicking him into a gallop immediately, riding off in the direction of the lava trails.

Old as it was, the lava wyrm’s path wasn’t hard to follow. Patches of black volcanic rock and charred bones marked an easy trail. I was thankful I didn’t have to give tracking much thought, so I could let Daiti gallop. As usual, the wind in my hair and the pounding of his hooves drowned out the swirling thoughts in my head. It wasn’t enough to distract me from the flow of power in my belly that tugged incessantly toward Erix, but I refused to reach down that tether to feel him. He had made a choice.

Instead, I tried to focus on what I was going to do when I found the lava wyrm. A baby had been difficult enough to fell between the two of us, but now I knew what to expect. Given that the lava I tracked had fully solidified and cooled, it was likely several days’ ride ahead of me.

For any other animal, I might have suspected the mother would be much closer, but the magical creatures that inhabited the desert before it was tamed were said to be vicious beyond compare. It seemed that the wyrm didn’t hesitate to leave an unhatched egg behind just to move on to better hunting grounds. Too much like my own parents.

I shook myself at such a fatalistic thought, making Daiti flip his ears back at me in disapproval. The desert had no time for despair, and neither did I if I were to survive my encounter with the lava wyrm. The important thought was the wyrm’s significant head start meant I had time to prepare. Maybe if I could collect wood from any date palms I passed, I could fashion javelins.

Far too soon for my liking, Daiti’s pace slowed to a walk, and his head began drooping. I had ridden him hard that day, anxious to put as much distance between myself and the place where Erix had made me feel like maybe I was not as alone as I often felt.

Still, the sun was rapidly moving toward the horizon, and we had covered a lot of ground in one day thanks to our breakneck pace. I found a cluster of palms not far from the lava wyrm’s trail and dismounted Daiti to make camp for the night. While the stallion rested, I could start on making my javelins.

I was sitting cross legged on the ground, using my dirk to trim the branches to the appropriate length, when Daiti lifted his head and let out a sharp whinny. I sprang to my feet, saber in hand before I even located the cause of his reaction.

When I did, a strange warmth grew in my chest. The tether in my gut I had been pointedly ignoring all day vibrated.

Approaching my camp was a black horse bearing a dark rider. As they came closer, sun reflected off dark curls, uncovered by a hood or mask. Erix dismounted before me, shifting his weight from foot to foot, but not saying anything. I plucked the strings of power between us and received an answering touch.

“I’m making javelins,” I said by way of greeting, gesturing to the pile of raw palm wood I’d collected.

“Good idea,” Erix said. “I’ll help.”

Erix set up his camp, laying his bedroll right next to mine as he had the night before.