Page 50 of Blood of the Sands

“What are you in the market for?” Hadeon asked, removing his hand from my back to pick up another bauble and inspect it. The rest of the tension melted from my body, but I found I didn’t feel the sudden relief I normally did when somebody stopped touching me. Perhaps I was finally getting used to the close quarters I now lived in. Or perhaps it was Hadeon’s easy manner that made it hard to feel on edge around him.

“How about a pair of earrings?” Hadeon held up a pair of silver drops beside my face, as if seeing how they would suit me.

I thanked the sun for my already darkened cheeks as blood rose to my face. “I’m not really the jewelry type,” I admitted. “Besides, I haven’t had my ears pierced.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right thing yet,” Hadeon continued, undeterred. Next, his fingers landed on an arm band, gold and wrought in the shape of a curling snake. He slipped it onto my left upper arm, nestling it neatly into the divot between my biceps and shoulder muscle.

“I think it suits you,” he commented, admiring his handiwork. “I noticed that gold complimented you well that first night we met.”

I glanced at him curiously. The dinner with the ambassadors had been many weeks ago, and I had nearly forgotten the dusting of gold power across my cheek and lower lip, even though it had taken nearly a week to scrub off all traces of it.

Hadeon seemed unperturbed, turning to the shopkeeper. “How much?”

Before I could balk at the amount of coins the jeweler asked for, Hadeon had produced them from his belt and plunked them into her outstretched hand. I still hadn’t quite mastered the use of coins or how much they were worth, but even I could tell he had just handed over a small fortune to the stall owner. She had likely expected him to haggle, as was the way in the clans, but he turned to me with a broad smile as if he hadn’t nearly been robbed for a shiny, completely unnecessary, trinket.

“Why would you buy it for me?” I asked, right hand coming to rest over the piece of jewelry, already warming to my skin.

“The proper response is thank you,” he said, already starting to drift toward the next stall and leaving me to trail in his wake. “And as I said before, there is no harm in being on the good side of the Champion of the Desert.”

“I’m not the Champion yet,” I argued as fell into stride with him again. “I’ve only just made it through the first round of competition. Who knows if I’ll even make it through tomorrow’s challenge.”

“I meant to ask you, do you have any idea what the challenge may entail?”

I shook my head. “None of the competitors know. It is supposed to keep the Trials as a fair test of the riders’ skill and the deserts favor if nobody has the chance to prepare.”

“Well, that’s a shame, I should have liked a hint,” Hadeon commented, his tone light although he did sound disappointed. I myself had been pointedly avoiding dwelling on what challenge might face me tomorrow, the competitors only having been told to report to the city gates at dawn. Now my worries returned full force, like a blow to the gut at the reminder.

“What smells so good?” Hadeon asked, looking around and seemingly blind to my sudden consternation.

Raising my head, I caught the whiff of a sticky warm sweetness laced with spices that made my nose twitch. I pointed to a nearby stall, the heat from a clay oven out front making the air dance and shimmer.

We approached curiously, and the sickly-sweet smell became oddly familiar, although the spices added an element I wasn’t accustomed to.

“Stuffed dates?” offered the man working the oven.

Hadeon nodded. “They smell incredible.” He quickly turned over the requested amount of coin for a small stack of the glistening fruits.

He held them out to me in offering as he popped one in his mouth. I automatically reached out to take one, not in the habit of turning down food when it was offered. As I bit into it though, and spices dripped down my fingers to my wrist, I was reminded that I didn’t care for dates. After too many days where they were my sole source of nutrition, I would be all too happy to never see them again.

Hadeon remained blissfully unaware of this and smiled widely before taking another one. “These are incredible.”

I nodded in agreement as I dutifully chewed and swallowed. He would have no way of knowing that I disliked dates. Only once had I told anybody of my aversion, and that had been in a dream.

At that thought, a prickling awareness rose at the back of my neck. I turned around just in time to see the metal mask of the Viper, looking at me from a few stalls away, before he turned and stalked off down the row and out of sight.

I took another date from the offered pile and chewed it furiously, letting the sticky sweetness drive the vulnerability of my nighttime conversations from my head.

Chapter Fifteen

Erix

Iground my teeth and tried not to pace in my too-small tent. Zephyr had taken to squawking in disapproval at my antics as they’d woken him from his nap. Still, these days of rest between events grated. My sword was so sharp it could cut through a single hair, and Alza’s coat shone so brightly it could blind me, but still there were many hours left in the day before it would be time to sleep.

The gaps between events were a tradition, giving the clans time to converse and trade in addition to cheering on their riders, but with the state of the desert they seemed a foolish pursuit. I couldn’t be the only competitor restless to have a sword in hand and a horse beneath me again.

Zephyr trilled, letting me know my restlessness could be felt even as I knelt on my sleeping mat trying my best to meditate on my purpose in a desperate bid for patience. With a grunt, I pushed to my feet and stalked from the tent, pushing my way out through the flap. Even though I had been alone, I had put on my mask already. The physical shield gave me some sense of separation from the hubbub of nine clans’ worth of riders in the encampment with me, although it didn’t feel like nearly enough.

I had planned to walk away from the encampment, into the sands where I might get some distance from the amplified whispers at the base of my skull, which crescendoed as I drew near the city walls. Instead, my feet unconsciously turned toward the most densely populated area where a temporary market had been set up for the duration of the Trials.