Page 115 of Crown of the Dunes

“Keera!” This time I did hear the voice with my ears, although it was distant and muffled. I frowned, straining to hear more, and I was rewarded with the sound of shifting rocks and digging.

“I’m here,” I croaked, my voice choked and dry from all the dust lodged in my throat.

The scrabbling intensified. Dust fell on my face as the whole pile shifted. I coughed, not able to get enough air. A thin line of light cut through the darkness. My eyes watered as I blinked and continued to cough.

The weight lifted off my legs and then my arms. Familiar hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled, hauling me free of my dark prison. Then, my face was pressed into a broad chest, and I burrowed into the rough fabric as my body was wracked with a mixture of coughs and sobs of relief.

“I’m here,” Erix murmured into my hair, wrapping his strong arms around me. As the energy and magic that had bolstered me through the fight fled from my body, I found myself collapsing into him. I wanted to stay there, in the safety of his arms for as long as I could.

Too soon, he grabbed me by the shoulders, holding me back away from him so he could look me up and down. I blinked at him through watery eyes. He raised one hand to my face, using his thumb to scrub dust from my cheek.

His own expression mirrored the relief mixed with shadows of fear that I was sure I wore.

“I’m all right,” I reassured.

Finally, some of the storm of emotion twirling in my gut abated. The air between us shuddered as he let out an unsteady breath.

“Do you have strategies for fighting desert monsters that don’t involve you nearly getting crushed to death?” he asked.

I leaned my cheek into his hand. “I suppose I’ll keep doing it as long as it keeps working. And I have you to keep saving me.”

Something dark flickered in Erix’s eyes, but it passed as he trailed his hands down my arms, clearly checking for injuries. I joined him, taking inventory of my body. A painful knot pulsed on the crown of my head where I had been hit, and various bruises and scrapes competed for my attention, but I appeared to be in working order.

“The tricriths?” I asked.

Erix glanced over his shoulder. I looked past him to find crushed remains—the curled legs of one tricrith stuck out from under the rocks, while the back end of the other had been detached from the front, the black blood on the floor glimmering in the scant sunlight.

Sunlight?

My gaze trailed up the wall of collapsed rock, further and further until I stared up through a distant hole to a small patch of blue sky.

“Sands” I breathed.

“At least you were considerate to make us a way out when you did your best to trap us.” Erix’s tone was dry.

“I aim to please,” I said. “Really, I did the first thing I could think of to stop them. With your sword…”

Oh. His sword.

Erix’s hands spasmed where they still held my forearms. He looked down and to the side. I followed his gaze to the ground beside where he kneeled. Both pieces of Kelvar’s saber lay, a raw, jagged edge where they should fit together. Letting go of me, Erix reached for it. His right hand picked up the handle, while his left hand gingerly reached for the severed piece of blade.

Despite the care he took in picking it up, the lethal edge sliced his finger. He hissed as blood welled up and began to dribble over his palm toward his wrist. He had always kept his blade razor sharp.

“I knew I sharpened it too much,” he admitted, ignoring his cut. I reached out to hold his wrist, trying to smudge away the blood and only succeeding in smearing it over his skin, where it mixed with a thick layer of dust.

“The more deadly the sword became, the closer it came to breaking,” he said.

My heart squeezed painfully. I knew he didn’t only speak of the weapon in his hand, but the weapon he had become—honed constantly into a lethal edge by Lord Alasdar.

“Now you can’t even hold it without being cut,” he lamented.

“I’m not afraid of a little pain,” I admitted, reaching out to take the weapon from him and examine the broken edge. Perhaps it could be mended.

He pulled away before I could take it, and I frowned. His gaze did not leave the broken sword cradled in his lap as he spoke. “I have to leave.”

I blinked, the words refusing to make sense.

“Leave?” I echoed dumbly.