Page 235 of Starside

His eyes darken, like he’s remembering too. Then his gaze shifts. He winces.

He’s looking at my throat.

I reach up and tense. The skin is tender but not painful. That doesn’t seem to matter. It doesn’t seem to matter that he has a matching mark, fully healed, a thin line across his neck, from my own blade.

At my small grimace of discomfort, Raker’s entire face melts back into that unfeeling mask. I open my mouth—

But he lifts himself out of the water.

I wash the blood away. Fill my pouch. As much as I want to spend hours in this pool, the desert leeched me of energy.

We collapse inside the closest cave, starlight sparkling through the darkness.

When I wake up the next morning the sky is still dark, and Raker is still sleeping. He’s frowning, as if reliving a fraction of whatever he saw in that desert.

Whatever he saw … it’s still haunting him.

Even devils have demons.

It’s still early. I let him sleep. He’ll need his rest. I carve the rest of the map into the rock. We’re close, so close.

Today’s the day.

We’re lucky the cavalry wasn’t waiting for us here, beyond the desert. But maybe the gods will be at the entrance of their lands.

Maybe they’ll strike me down before I can even step foot into them. Maybe I’ll actually kill them.

Either way, there’s no going back now.

We need more water. I take our pouches, and head back to the oasis, drinking in the beauty of the waterfalls until the sky loses all hint of darkness, melting into flames. Time to go. I’m about to turn back to the cave, to wake Raker, when I see it. A dark smudge weaving through the clouds. I squint. It gets closer. Closer.

A dragon.

I know that dragon. It nearly burnt mine to a crisp.

It lands just beyond the hills of the oasis.

My sword is in my hand. Somehow, I know. I know what I’m going to find. I’m walking toward it anyway, led by pure and utter desire for vengeance.

I remember the words I spoke in the desert. I am not afraid of anything. I meant it.

I’m not afraid now. But I am filled with an anger that might burn me up from the inside out before I’m able to even reach the end of this journey.

The dirt is crusted orange and red. I don’t walk far before something sparkling catches my eye.

A paladian dagger, its markings more familiar to me than the lines on my palm, sticking right out of the dirt, hilt-up. Waiting for me. Teasing me.

Beckoning me.

Pain and rage nearly blind me. I swallow. It’s a trap. Of course it is. He wants my sword. Maybe he wants the bounty. But I’m not the same person I was at the beginning of this.

I take a step toward the blade. A boot sounds behind me.

“Still alive? I’m impressed,” Cadoc says.

I turn very slowly, fury and satisfaction rushing through my veins, my hand gripped tightly around the hilt of my sword. He killed Stellan. And now I’m going to fucking destroy him. My metal hums, as if ready for the bloodshed. My mouth opens—

Then closes.