Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six

Keera

P anic snapped me out of the fugue of pain that had been my existence for an indeterminate amount of time. However long it had been, I had spent it clutching to the flow of magic between Erix and me, his constant presence rooting me in some degree of sanity. Even though his power was tangled in knots, quivering with intense emotion, they told me I wasn’t alone in the fevered landscape of my unconsciousness.

Between one moment and the next, that reassurance vanished. My eyes snapped open, and I tried to scream, but my dry throat only managed a choked gasp. My eyes instantly watered at the searing ache that was an entire half of my body. A tear tracked from one eye, slipping down to a raw cheek where it burned a path so intense, I might have been crying lava.

A low tut from next to me drew my attention. I managed to wrestle my muscles through the pain to turn my head, hoping to find Erix, only to freeze at a familiar but unwelcome face.

Lord Alasdar stared at me pensively, showing as little emotion as he had when he sentenced me to die as a sacrifice at Erix’s hands.

“I had wondered why a half-dead exile had been the first person Erix hesitated to kill at my command,” he started conversationally. “At first I just thought that he had abominable taste in women to be charmed by a feral thing like you, but I see now that there was more to it than that.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I glared at him as best I could manage with eyes still full of tears. If I had hated Lord Alasdar before for trying to sacrifice me and his threats to Kelvadan, it was nothing compared to the rage I felt now when I pictured the neat lines of burns across Erix’s back. The inescapable agony encasing half my body only gave me more insight into the pain they must have caused.

“Your power might be able to rival mine as well, if you learned how to harness it,” Lord Alasdar continued. “I see now that it was you who called down that impressive lightning storm. No doubt Queen Ginevra hoped to be the one to control your power, giving Kelvadan a fighting chance against the combined power of me and my Viper.

“I would be impressed with my Viper for luring you away from Kelvadan if he didn’t fall prey to the same weakness as his great-grandfather. It would have been amusing to break you too, have a matching pair of attack dogs, but it seems you have become a weakness for my Viper. No matter, he will purge it as he has purged all the rest.”

I tried to follow his words, but it was difficult to remain conscious let alone make sense of his self-important monologue. One phrase stuck in my head though.

My Viper.

Erix had not been the Viper in my eyes for weeks now. My brain wanted to reject that identity, but here I was in Lord Alasdar’s tent. Erix must have brought me here after I thought he had turned away from Clan Katal to fight the lava wyrm. I squeezed my eyes shut, tears tracking down my face.

“Erix.” The name escaped my mouth unbidden, halfway between a whisper and a sob.

Lord Alasdar chuckled, a sound as rough and dry as a snake rasping over rock. “It’s about time he joined our little party I think.”

He gestured to a shadowy corner, and I blinked, trying to get my eyes to focus around the blur of tears without turning my head too far. When the form came into focus, my throat clenched.

Erix hung limply, chained between two poles, head resting on his chest. From his flaccid posture, I guessed he was unconscious, but that wasn’t what made me itch to tear Lord Alasdar’s throat out with my bare hands. While Erix had been stripped of his shirt, bare chest covered with a light sheen of sweat, the metal mask was strapped firmly over his face. Dark curls peeked out around the edges, but I couldn’t see his face—his stubborn jaw or those silver eyes I had just managed to coax a teasing sparkle out of.

Lord Alasdar stood and walked over to Erix’s vulnerable form, using a hand in his hair to pull his head back. A sound like a growl escaped my throat, and Lord Alasdar chuckled again but didn’t look over at me. Instead, he closed his eyes as if focusing, cupping Erix’s head in both of his hands.

In a moment, Erix’s body snapped with tension, clearly regaining consciousness all at once. He struggled against the chains for a moment, manacles pulling at his wrists and muscles flexing wildly. After a few seconds though, he relaxed again.

“Lord Alasdar,” his voice came muffled from behind the mask, confused but with a deferential note that set my teeth on edge.

“You didn’t return when I commanded you to.” Lord Alasdar kept a hand under Erix’s chin, keeping his face directed at him, slightly away from me. With his peripheral vision hindered by the mask, he wouldn’t be able to see me like this.

Erix didn’t say anything, but a muscle in his shoulder tensed.

“You did well to be named Champion of the Desert. The remaining five clans joined us a week and a half ago, saying they would follow Clan Katal and its Viper into battle, even praising you for coming to Clan Otush’s aid. You made quite an impression on them, and they were eager to fight at our side. The time to strike was here, fast and swift before Kelvadan could prepare themselves further, but you weren’t here.

“I see now why you were delayed—even why you have struggled to contain your power these past months, despite my training. Your magic has become tangled with another’s. For years, I’ve tried to cleanse you of your family’s weakness, but you fell prey to the same vulnerability as Kelvar—a woman.”

Metal rattled as Erix went tense again, yanking on the chains, just as he pulled on the bond between us, so hard it would have been painful if it weren’t so reassuring to feel him on the other end once more. I plucked at it feebly as he snatched his covered face from Lord Alasdar’s grip, searching the tent for me. He stopped with his face toward me, and not being able to see his expression pained me nearly as much as the throbbing in my broken leg.

“You were wise to bring her here so I could help purge you of her influence,” Lord Alasdar cooed, as if he were offering comfort instead of chaining Erix up and tormenting him. “I’ll help you control your magic so it can be separated from hers, and then we will dispose of her. You will not repeat the sins of Kelvar. She is just another weakness you must be rid of—another test along the way to correcting your family’s legacy.”

Erix jerked and strained against his bonds. I tried to reach out for him, but a whine pulled from my throat at the way movement stretched and cracked my raw skin beneath the bandages. Erix said something that I couldn’t make out from across the tent with a layer of metal muffling him.

Lord Alasdar tutted, shaking his head as if dismayed. “You don’t see what she has done to you. Corrupting your purpose. You are an instrument, made to heal the desert, and she has distracted you from our mission to raze Kelvadan and restore the Heart it stole—bring back the old ways and the glory of the clans.”

I found my voice, and although it was a dry rasp, Lord Alasdar’s face snapped toward me as I spoke. “He doesn’t need you to save the desert.”

Lord Alasdar tilted his head contemplatively. “Did you perhaps think that together, the two of you could breach the tower in the palace?”

My heart sank at the scornful tone of his words, the very thought I had voiced over a campfire not too long ago.

He laughed at my obvious dismay. “And then what would you do?” He turned back toward Erix, one lip curled in a derisive sneer. “Take the Heart yourself? You only avoid the same madness as Kelvar with my aid. With that kind of power in your hands, you would commit even worse sins—perhaps destroy our home outright. This woman has tricked you into thinking you could do this without me. But you need me to restore the Heart. You lack the control to do it on your own.”

Erix slumped, and a sob choked its way out of my throat. After weeks of prying at the vice grip Lord Alasdar held around Erix’s mind, I thought he was free. Now, my heart shattered at the realization of just how deep his manipulation ran. The mask was back on, and Erix was slipping away into the Viper once more.

I continued to swallow down shuddering sobs, not wanting to give Lord Alasdar the satisfaction. Still, bile rose in the back of my throat as the older man smoothed Erix’s hair back from his mask in a parody of comfort.

“I will help you as I always have, and then you will purge yourself of this weakness.”

Erix hung his head in acceptance. I wanted to scream and fight, all teeth and nails as I yelled at Erix to stop—to come back to me. Instead, I just squirmed on the cushions, gasping against the pain in my body and barely managing to lift my head.

“I think it will take more than one line for you to regain your sense of control this time.”

Lord Alasdar lifted a hand, summoning a palmful of flame, exercising far more control than I’d hoped to have when coaxing our fires to life, often singing my own fingers in the process. My eyes widened in horror as I realized what was going to happen. Despite my weakness, I tried to launch myself from the pile of cushions, ignoring the agony of my tearing skin, searing as blisters ripped open and a new layer of puss coated my bandages.

“Izumi,” Lord Alasdar said without looking up from the fire he coaxed to life in his hand.

A figure I hadn’t noticed before stepped out of the shadows at the back of the tent, and a woman grabbed me by the shoulders, stopping my feeble crawl toward Erix. Her grip was strong, and the pain of her fingers on my charred shoulder whited out my vision for a moment. When it returned, I tried to meet her gaze, recognizing her as the woman who had fed me during my time in captivity, to beg her to release me, but she didn’t look at me, her hard gaze fixed on the two men before us. I could only watch.

Lord Alasdar clapped his hand to Erix’s bare chest, right over his heart. He grunted, and every muscle in his body went tight at the same time, twitching and twisting as if attempting to get away but tensing to hold still. Still, he didn’t scream, and I wanted to cry out for him. My throat was dry, but silent tears flowed down my face as the smell of burning flesh filled the space. I threw myself down the bond between us, hoping to comfort Erix or take some of the pain for myself. Instead, I found a wall, as if he had completely detached himself from his magic.

Maybe he was right. You could be in enough pain to completely drown out the call of the desert.

After long seconds, Lord Alasdar pulled away, revealing an angry red brand of his handprint forever burned into Erix’s skin. The fingers on my shoulders tightened, and perhaps it was my own trembling, but I thought I felt the Izumi’s hands shake.

Lord Alasdar cocked his head expectantly.

“Thank you,” Erix rasped, and I nearly heaved, despite having nothing in my stomach. His voice was as hoarse as if he had been screaming, even though he hadn’t let out a sound.

Closing his eyes, Lord Alasdar breathed in deeply, as if taking in the fresh scent of the desert after rain.

“I can feel your magic has pulled back from hers.” His tone was satisfied. “Are you ready to purge yourself of her influence completely.”

After a moment that stretched forever, Erix nodded. In a matter of seconds that passed too fast, Lord Alasdar had unchained him. Erix’s hands fell to his knees, and although his wrists were red and raw from straining at his bonds, he didn’t rub them. He didn’t move at all until Lord Alasdar approached him again, offering him the hilt of a saber—Kelvar’s saber.

With a hand that only shook slightly, he took the weapon before pushing to his feet.

“Now, give her blood to the desert and free yourself from Kelvar’s mistakes.”

Izumi still held my shoulders where I knelt on the floor half collapsed, but she didn’t need to. I wouldn’t try to run, not that I would make it that far even if I did. The one person who I thought had seen the whole of me and not shied away, only saw me as a weakness. He belonged to Lord Alasdar, not me, no matter what we had said when he moved inside me.

Erix approached with slow measured steps. I stared at his boots as they stopped in front of me. He didn’t raise his sword though. At his pause, my gaze trailed up his body, stuttering over the fresh handprint on his chest to stare into the mask of the Viper.

When my gaze met where his eyes should be, he raised his blade, point resting at my throat.

“Do it,” I whispered.

My greatest regret would be that I wouldn’t at least be able to look into his eyes as I died.