Page 44 of Blood of the Sands

The wildness in my chest from my gallop, which had not quite dissipated, rose again, overtaking my mind in the space of a breath. I felt the wolves, their hunger, the panic of the horses and the dunes in the distance that would lead to the sea.

I threw my hand out with a yell and a crack like thunder split the air. I blinked to clear my vision from the white spots that had overtaken it, eyes finally focusing on the shapes of four wolves, all limp on the ground.

I lifted my gaze to check on Dryden, only to find his horse’s back empty. In a panic, I slid off Daiti, knees nearly buckling as my feet hit the ground. Among the slumped forms of the wolves, whether dead or unconscious, I did not know, lay Dryden face down in the sand.

I rolled him over only to be overcome by a wave of nausea. A spreading line of blood crossed his shoulder. It wasn’t a rough tear from teeth or claws that rent his flesh, but a clean slash—like the magical cut I had just used to dispatch the wolves.

I had done this.

The tan fabric of his tunic soaked through as I watched, and he blinked open bleary eyes. I reached out to press on his wound, anxious to stem the bleeding but when his gaze focused on me, he flinched back. I tried again, but he shied away, panting in pain, his eyes wide and full of an all too familiar emotion: fear. It was the look in my parents’ eyes after I split the earth at my feet—the look that haunted me in the darkest hours of the night.

I bared my teeth at the burning behind my eyes, untying my hood from around my head. I ignored Dryden’s expression, using the fabric to tie around his arm, putting as much pressure as I could muster on his wound.

“Can you stand?”

He nodded, but as he tried to move, he wavered unsteadily. I helped him up with an arm under his good shoulder.

“We have to get you back to the gates.”

He nodded again, but his dark skin had taken on an ashen undertone. I didn’t trust him to keep his seat on his horse, but I didn’t have time to negotiate with him to ride double with me or with Daiti to let him clamber onto his back. Instead, I let him use me as a human ladder to climb his own mare. Then I led her forward, walking alongside her in case Dryden slipped off. He didn’t seem far from it as he lay heavily over her neck. Daiti immediately followed, coming up to flank Dryden on his other side as if sensing the same unsteadiness I did.

The walk back to the gates was short but felt like it lasted eternity, Dryden using the little strength he seemed to have to shoot wide-eyed looks at me.

I opened my mouth several times but bit my tongue, eventually hard enough to taste copper in my mouth. There was no good apology for what I had done—no easy explanation. Dryden knew I had lost control before, but nobody had been hurt. Maybe it had just seemed like a fun novelty when nobody had been killed, but my abilities had an ugly side. I had been working for months to gain command over the power that resided within me but only seemed to be worse than when I started. I was a failure. After all Kelvadan and the queen had offered me, I couldn’t even keep them safe from myself. No matter how kind Aderyn and Neven were to me, it had been unrealistic to hope Kelvadan could be my home. I was a menace to her people, even as I tried to save them.

Seeing us approach, the group by the gates immediately saw something was wrong. Aderyn galloped up, Nyra and the others hot on her tail.

“What happened?”

Dryden shot a fearful look at me but didn’t speak.

“Wolves. We took care of them.” Guilt and fear mixed in my chest as I said it. Soon, they would find out what I had done, and everybody would look at me with the same horror that Dryden did.

Aderyn nodded but looked between the two of us with discerning eyes. “Nyra, help Dryden to the healer. Kylar, you go ahead and tell them to expect him.”

They sprang into action, while I stood frozen, toeing the sand with my boot. Dryden whispered to Nyra as she began to lead his horse away, and they both looked at me over their shoulders. Nyra’s eyes narrowed.

“I’ll go investigate. Make sure there aren’t any more,” Aderyn declared. “And Keera… I’ll see you at home.”

She rode off, but I stood there with a lump in my throat for a few moments before trudging back to the city. Daiti trailed me with his head hung low.

I heard the front door open and sprung up from the couch where I was sitting, squeezing my hands together before me. I had spent the past hour thinking of something I could say to Aderyn, but I still didn’t know where to start.

She walked into the room and looked at me, raising one brow before sitting down to pull off her own boots.

“You really did a number on those wolves,” was her first comment as she shook the sand out of her shoes.

I resisted the urge to stare at the floor. “Why do you let me stay here?”

It wasn’t what I had planned on saying—I had rehearsed everything I could think to say about how I would fail Kelvadan in the Trials—but all of a sudden it seemed like the most pressing question. She had taken me into her home without protest and let me stay even when I had proven myself a liability on multiple occasions. She had given me a purpose, when even my own clan couldn’t extend me a home.

“Did you have somewhere else to go?” she asked.

“I made it on my own for a long time.”

She gave me a long look, leaning forward and propping her elbows on her knees. “I’ve made some of my best friends by taking in strays.”

“I’m not the first?”