Page 52 of Blood of the Sands

“If you would suggest a different plan, be my guest.” I gestured to the team before me, assembled groups of three already beginning to pick directions in which they would search for a flag. It was a blatant challenge, daring her to try and overturn my authority.

She surprised me by shaking her head. “No, it’s a good plan. I’m just joining your trio. Somebody has to keep an eye on you.”

I blinked, the muscles in my jaw tightening in frustration, although my magic whispered in excitement. Maybe it would be a good thing to have her near—an exile who had clearly ingratiated herself at Kelvadan shockingly quickly and seemed determined to stand against me. Maybe the power in my skull was just pleased by the prospect of violence, facsimile as it might be.

“We need one more to be a trio.” I looked around, finding most had backed away from where Keera and I stood, as if a well of tension around us was palpable. One rider from Clan Otush inched forward.

“I’ll join you,” he offered, his voice almost too casual, as if he were expending great effort to seem unperturbed by the idea of riding with us.

Keera and I only nodded in response, and we lapsed into a fraught silence.

“I’m Axlan,” he introduced in a bid to break the tension.

“Keera,” she offered before glancing at me.

I didn’t bother to introduce myself. They would both know me as the Viper already, and that was the only name I used.

A shouting voice cut off any further attempts at conversation. “Time is up, riders! Capture a flag for your team or be eliminated from the Trials.”

With that, the queen rang a small gong one of the attendants had brought. The thunder of hooves filled the air, drowning out the reverberations before they could fully fade.

Without waiting for the other members of my team to decide on a direction, I rode out diagonally away from the city, choosing an angle between the mountains and where the sun had crested the horizon in the distance.

I would let the desert guide me to my victory. It would be on Keera to keep up if she truly wanted to keep an eye on me.

The beat of heavy hoofs to my right indicated that she followed.

“No consultation on which direction to take? You really don’t take orders from anybody else,” she prodded.

The itchiness of healing blisters on my back reminded me that I followed orders more than she knew, but I kept that to myself.

“Do you object to the direction I chose?”

I wished I could observe her ponder the answer out of the corner of my eye, but my mask blocked my peripheral vision, and I wouldn’t signal that I was watching her by turning my head. It was a subtle test though, to see if she could hear the whispers of the desert guiding my direction. If the desert spoke to her at all, then she might continue to be a worthy adversary in the Trials—somebody to keep an eye on myself.

“It’s as good a direction as any,” Keera answered noncommittally.

We lapsed into silence, keeping our mounts at a brisk clip as the pockets of competitors fanned out over the empty ground.

After a while, Keera turned to look over her shoulder. “Axlan is falling behind.”

Alza and I didn’t slow our pace. “I don’t need him to handle any trouble we might encounter.”

For a moment, Keera fell back in hesitation until she urged her stallion up alongside me once more. I swallowed. Hopefully her presence wouldn’t be too distracting. I tried to block out the physical awareness of her next to me and reach into the interwoven web of the desert, searching for the thread that might lead me to my goal.

Instead of a tapestry of barren life spreading around me as I usually felt, the fibers around me pulled in a tight tangle. It was as if I stood at a magical nexus of sorts, and picking out the way to go next was nigh impossible. The unintelligible voices rose in my head, drowning out the sound of Alza’s hooves.

I shook my head trying to clear it, but the maddening cacophony continued until a much for physical voice cut through, like morning sun through a gap in a tent flap.

“There.” Keera pointed at the horizon.

I swung my gaze in the direction she pointed, and sure enough a splotch of crimson mottled the horizon, oscillating gently like a flag flapping in the breeze.

Without a word, I nudged Alza into a gallop, but she was already accelerating, eager to keep pace with the stallion next to her that had already surged forward. We plunged across the dunes, Keera clearly as unconcerned with my ability to keep pace as I had been with Axlan’s.

Admittedly, if I were any less of a horseman, with any less of a mount, it might have been a struggle. Keera rode like she had been born to it, and the warhorse under her surged with unbridled power.

I leaned forward over Alza’s neck, resting my hands on her muscled shoulders. Magic stirred beneath my breastbone, as it always did when I let Alza gallop, but like this, it wasn’t some unpleasant thing to be tamed. As we chased down the larger horse, the whispers in my mind amplified, a joyous undertone to their cacophony. The tail of the stallion whipped across my mask, and for a brief moment, I wished I could feel it across my face.