Page 101 of Crown of the Dunes

Titters echoed through the hall, growing from whispers to mutters and then cries of distress. I barely processed it as my brain struggled to comprehend how quickly the prospects had switched from hopeful to disastrous.

Aderyn stepped forward from her station on my right, asking the question I hadn’t been able to utter: “How?”

“During the earthquake, some fault in the earth must have been split open. The mountain spring that feeds the irrigation system is now foul with ash. We didn’t realize until it was too late, and the fields are now choked with the foulness. No plants will grow there,” he explained.

Blood rushed in my ears, drowning out any further explanation. I mentally reached for the tether in my mind, begging for the reassurance of Erix’s presence, but I found none. Instead, I found my own despair echoed back at me.

The well of anger in my gut began to boil, and I fell headfirst into it. It poured down my nose and throat, threatening to drown me, and I did not fight it.

I had failed. Many times in exile, I had faced down the realities of a failed hunt: a black tailed jackrabbit scared off by a poorly placed step, or an escaped oryx after a missed shot. But now, I was not the only one who would face the consequences. The people of Kelvadan had believed me to be their Champion, but I led them only further into disaster. I was good for war and not much more.

A hand on my forearm dragged me from the miasma of rage. I blinked, finding Aderyn’s hard gaze.

“That will be all for today,” she announced loudly.

Then, she was pulling me to my feet. With no explanation, she dragged me through the waiting petitioners who scattered out of the way. Once we were out of the throne room, I found my voice.

“Where are we going?”

“For a ride,” she responded.

A rational part of me wanted to argue that now wasn’t the time. We had problems that needed solving and people counting on us. But that voice was quiet in comparison to the one that wanted nothing more than for the hot wind in my hair and scorching sun on my face to burn away all the despair and failure clouding my mind.

Nobody interrupted us as I grabbed Daiti from his stall and Aderyn fetched her roan mare. In a matter of minutes, we were mounted up, and the sharp clop of hooves on stone cut through the air as we passed under the arch from the courtyard.

We rode through the city in silence, descending the stacked layers down through the stone streets until we finally reached the gates. Aderyn signaled to the guards standing there with a flick of her wrist, and they opened the heavy wooden gate so we could ride out onto the plains.

As soon as Daiti’s hooves hit baked earth, I spurred him into action. He took no urging, surging under me with incredible strength. As he accelerated, I leaned forward over his neck, and he lengthened his stride until it felt as if we were flying, hooves barely touching the earth as he galloped full tilt toward the horizon.

His mane whipped me in the face and the wind burned my eyes forcefully enough that I could pretend it was the cause of the tears leaking from their corners and trailing over my temples. Still, Daiti’s wildness was enough to pull me from the well of anger and despair I had been drowning in.

After too short a time, I sat back, and Daiti slowed to a trot, then a walk. Foam smattered his sides from the force of his exertion, but he still tossed his head happily, as if he wanted nothing more than to do it again. Still, I nudged him to stop. I let my head fall back, tipping my head up to the sun and taking long breaths.

Hoofbeats approached, but I didn’t look, taking a long moment to enjoy the increased clarity in my head.

Aderyn stopped next to me, her own roan panting loudly after attempting to keep up with Daiti.

“Better?” she asked.

I offered a small nod, still staring up at the sky. At this time in the afternoon, it was barely blue as the intensity of the sun nearly burned all the color from it. There were no clouds in sight, and the sky stretched on so endlessly, I imagined I could fall into it and never be seen again.

“You know, there were so many times when I was an exile that I could swear it was the end,” I admitted.

Aderyn didn’t interrupt. While she knew I had been an exile, I had rarely spoken to her of that time. She had seen my sorry state when I arrived in Kelvadan—knew intimately the way I flinched at the touch of another for months after rejoining civilization and would eat until my stomach hurt for fear of never seeing food again.

“I would run out of food and be unable to find a herd, or fall ill and be delirious with fever, and I would know it in my bones that my time had come. I’d lain down at my oasis and waited for the elements to take me, and sometimes I’d even be glad of it. But then, I would wake up, and my eyes would open, and somehow, I found myself pushing to my feet and trying again. Even when I willed myself to quit, I couldn’t.”

Aderyn reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder. Finally, I lowered my gaze to meet hers.

“You were a fighter long before I handed you a saber,” she said.

My lips twisted wryly. “I don’t know any other way.”

“That’s why Ginevra made you her heir. She knew you would not put down the task she gave you, even if you wished you could.”

Some bitterness worked its way into my tone, but it couldn’t burn away the sadness that lingered there as well. “It was a cruel trick she played on me.”

“She once told me being a good person and a good queen are two different jobs. We both know she chose to be a good queen.”