Page 100 of Crown of the Dunes

Today was the day.

The engineers of Kelvadan’s irrigation systems had told me there was just one more large rock to move, and the flow of water would be functional again. I would be able to appear on Keera’s balcony tonight and tell her she did not need to marry Prince Calix for his country’s grain. I closed my eyes against the beating sun and pictured her smile.

Already, I ached to kiss that smile off her lips. Then I would bend her over that railing again and mark her so thoroughly that there could be no doubt she was mine. I ached to pump into her until my seed dripped down her thighs. Then I would shove it back inside her with my fingers and my tongue, just to reassure me that I had been able to keep her. That she wasn’t marrying Prince Calix of Viltov and never would.

The man who had been directing my work for the past weeks jogged up to me with a smile. I stared at him in puzzlement for a moment, wondering if he had mistaken me for somebody else.

“Just one more,” he panted. “Just need to move the pile of earth clogging the mouth of the spring and this should be in working order again.”

He motioned for me to follow, and I fell into step beside him up the increasing slope at the base of the mountain, following the trail the water would follow to reach the fields.

“Why didn’t we unclog the spring first?” I asked. “Surely the crops could have benefited from having the water all this time?”

The man shook his head. “Without fixing the channels for it to flow in, the water simply would have flooded the fields. The earth is so dry at this point that it wouldn’t be able to absorb the rush of water anyway, and they plants would just be washed away. Too much water would be as harmful as too little.”

I grunted in understanding. I knew the dangers of too much as well as too little. We stopped beside a small mountain of fallen shale and dirt. The last remnants of the devastating rockslide.

“If you would do the honors, Prince Erix.” He gestured to the last barrier between Kelvadan’s crops and the water they so desperately needed.

I breathed in deeply through my nose, trying to slip gently into the flow of the desert’s magic around me, even when it rushed past me like a riptide threatening to toss me out to sea. The nearby farmers all stopped in their work, looking up and venturing closer in their anticipation. Their eyes on me were heavy, pushing me farther away from myself and into the consciousness of the desert.

I let it happen.

I needed this to be done, so the people of Kelvadan would have food. So Keera would not have to stare into the skeletal face of starvation again.

The rumble started slowly before becoming deafening all at once. The ground trembled beneath my boots, but I planted my feet, holding on to the sensation as I grabbed a thread of power and yanked.

Cheers erupted and my eyes snapped open, although I hadn’t remembered closing them. The hill of shale and pebbles collapsed, letting a fountain and water burst forth. Instantly, it began filling the channels carved into the earth, branching out to feed the fields of arrowgrass and sorghum.

My heart leapt, soaring like Zephyr in flight. It soared for just a moment, before the overpowering smell hit me. Sulphur and ash filled my nose, choking me like it had when I faced the lava wyrm. As more water belched forth from the spring, it ran dark and thick.

Before I could think to undo what I had done, the dirty water, nearly black with ash and minerals filled the channels and rushed out across the fields. Cheers turned to gasps of horror as it became clear the water was putrid.

A strangled cry of frustration tore from my lips, and my knees hit the ground so hard they rattled my teeth in my head.

“—contaminated the spring. Must have happened in the earthquake,” the man next to me reasoned in a panicked tone, but I barely heard it. All I could see in my mind’s eye was withering crops and Keera’s gaunt face when she had been on the brink of starvation.

One thought echoed in my head with maddening clarity: This was always going to happen. I had asked Keera to wait, but this was never going to work. My efforts to help here were doomed before I had even begun.

I raised my head to the sky and screamed at the injustice of it, uncaring of the reaction of those around me. My cries were meant for the desert, a desperate plea to understand why she would do this.

Even when my breath ran out and my scream tapered off, the shouts in my own head continued, but they gave me no answers.

Chapter twenty-five

Keera

The seat of the throne felt softer beneath my thighs today. The hollow faces of the petitioners waiting patiently before me still twisted my gut uncomfortably. But today, I had hope. Tomorrow, I could tell them that the grain would be saved.

I smiled at the next person waiting in line—a pregnant woman with a toddler propped on her hip. The lines of worry on her face softened, and I wondered if I had finally mastered the expression.

Before I could ask her what she needed, a loud bang echoed through the hall. The large double doors at the opposite end swung open so forcefully, I feared they would fall off their hinges. The engineer that had informed me this morning that the irrigation systems were almost fixed strode into the hall.

My heart skipped in anticipation, but as he approached, I caught the utter despair on his face. The wooden arms of the throne creaked as my fingers tightened around them in a death grip.

He stopped a few feet before me. I opened my mouth to ask him for his update, but my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, suddenly as dry as it had been when I was dying of thirst. Luckily, he didn’t wait for me to find my voice.

“The crops are dead.”