Page 109 of Blood of the Sands

I crawled back over to Keera’s side, leaning close to check on her. Her short and fast breathes puffed hot against my cheek. I contemplated her, feeling more helpless than ever.

Lord Alasdar had found me when I was lost and on the brink of death myself. It was he who taught me to leash my power—direct it toward a worthy goal. Maybe he could do the same for Keera. Maybe the desert wanted her to join us and help us in our battle to restore the Heart.

Most importantly, Lord Alasdar could save her.

The journey took the better part of two days, but for how exhausted it left me, I might have crossed all the way to the ocean. I rode double with Keera, letting her lean back on my chest as I kept her upright. She spent most of the ride unconscious, bouncing limply in my arms, but I dared not tie her to the horse and let the rope chafe her already damaged skin. Not when every bump and jostle drew a whimper from her, each one driving a shard of glass into my heart.

As it was, her burns seeped through the bandages to my own clothes. After the first day, the fluid turned milky and sticky. I leaned down to smell her hair often, take in that sun-kissed, earthy scent that reminded me she still lived, but it began to take on the sickly-sweet smell of infection. Her whimpers turned to mutters and moans.

We stopped to let the horses rest, Alza flagging after going so long carrying a double burden, but she seemed to sense our haste and did not protest our pace. Daiti followed without prompting, never far from his master’s side.

I knew I should get some rest too, but sleep would not find me. Every time I closed my eyes, I feared I would open them only to find Keera cold and lifeless. We set off again after only a few hours.

Midmorning on the second day, tents on the horizon caught my attention. Relief shuddered through me. The desert wanted us to rejoin the clans and had made the ride short.

I didn’t slow our pace as we pushed into the encampment, riding straight for the center where Lord Alasdar’s tent would be.

My eyes snagged on the green banners bearing the fox sigil of Clan Otush in front of several tents, signaling our success, as well as the maroon of Clan Padra and the violet of Clan Vecturna. The rest of the clans had arrived while we had been away.

I pulled Alza to a halt in the clearing before the lord’s tent, the point of the sloped roof towering high above the encampment, the black serpent-emblazoned banner of Clan Katal flapping in the morning breeze. Lord Alasdar stepped out without any prompting, as if he had known of my coming. Given the swirling of my magic I had been unable to fully dampen since the lava wyrm fell on Keera, he had likely felt my approach.

His normally cold gray eyes flashed as he took in the sight before him. I didn’t miss the way his gaze flickered over his former stallion and the woman clutched tightly to my chest before landing on my face. He visibly stiffened, every harsh line of his body projecting shock.

After a suspended moment of confusion, my heart plummeted.

I wasn’t wearing my mask.

While Lord Alasdar had seen my face when he first found me, he had crafted the mask for me on the journey back from the ocean. He handed it to me like a gift, a kind look in his eyes, telling me that it would keep my identity secret. I wouldn’t have to worry about anybody from Kelvadan finding me and forcing me beneath a mountain of stone. As the months passed, he told me distancing myself from my past would help me learn control, and letting go of my identity could free me from the burdens of my family’s power. He stopped using my name, encouraging me to keep the mask on at all times. It was then I started wearing gloves too, not showing an inch of skin whenever possible. I became the Viper.

Now, Erix sat before him, bare faced, clutching a woman to his chest with ungloved hands.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lord Alasdar demanded.

I swallowed, now noticing the gathering audience. Dozens of people looked at my uncovered face, and I itched to wheel Alza around and gallop away into the wilderness. Instead, I sat tall and squared my shoulders. Keera needed help.

“We defeated the lava wyrm, but she was gravely injured.” I nodded to Keera, choosing to put off answering just who ‘she’ was. “I brought her back here so her wounds could be treated.”

Lord Alasdar’s eyes narrowed as he took in Keera, her head leaning back against my shoulders, her breath coming in wheezes between lips cracked with dryness. I thought I saw a bolt of recognition in them, but it faded as quickly as it came.

“You were right to bring her. Carry her into my tent.”

I hurried to follow his direction, even as I tried to be as gentle as possible with Keera. In his tent, I carried her toward the softest pile of cushions I could find—an opulent nest of rugs and pillows off to one side. The fabric was fine enough that it hopefully wouldn’t chafe Keera’s burns too badly. At least it would be gentler than the coarse sand-crusted material of my clothes.

So focused was I on setting Keera down as gingerly as possible, supporting her splinted leg at just the right angle, that I barely heard Lord Alasdar step up next to me.

The whisper of the desert in my mind crescendoed sharply, but I was too late. A hard object connected with my temple, and I crumpled to the ground.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Keera

Panic 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.