Page 116 of Crown of the Dunes

“Once we get the Heart, I have to leave Kelvadan,” he explained.

Something dark and sinister reared its head in my gut. It was familiar in the way an old friend was—easy to fall back into even when you hadn’t seen each other in a while.

“I am going to have to take the Heart to the temple at the edge of the ocean,” he continued.

“I can go with you,” I argued, but the words sounded petulant to my own ears.

Erix shook his head. “The journey will likely take months. Kelvadan can’t be without a queen for that long.”

Somehow, it was a truth I had conveniently let my mind skate over whenever I thought of restoring the desert—the same way I had let my brain skip over the realities of what my future entailed when scratching survival off rocks at my oasis. If I acknowledged the fact that I was likely to die there without ever knowing another home, I would not have had the strength to get up and hunt another day. In facing down the challenge of saving Kelvadan and restoring the desert, I had forced my attention to the challenges immediately before me.

“You said you would rather carve out your own heart than abandon me again,” I said, my voice shaking.

Erix’s gaze snapped up to meet mine, a familiar darkness shadowing his gaze. “And I have,” he snarled. “Letting you marry somebody else—knowing that you could only ever be mine in secret, while I would have to watch him stand by your side in public. I have had to tear my beating heart from my chest to keep from burning Kelvadan down, just so you wouldn’t have to marry Calix to save it.”

I blinked, some of the fire within me banked by the icy coldness his words evoked.

“I have ripped my heart out to stay by your side,” Erix’s voice cracked. “And even if I have to leave—both so I can save the desert, and so you can save Kelvadan—then I will leave that heart with you.”

His words were as sharp as the shattered sword in his hands—as jagged as my own broken heart in my chest, cutting me every time I tried to draw in a breath. I broke his gaze to look down, finding that he had closed his fists around it, and blood welled up between his knuckles. He did not seem to notice. I reached forward and peeled his fingers back from the jagged edges, before gently pulling it from his grasp.

“I’m not sure I’m strong enough to let you go,” I admitted, my voice cracking on the last words.

I can’t watch somebody I love ride away while I’m left alone again.

Erix’s angry expression softened into a sad sort of smile. “Of course, you are. You’ve always been stronger than me anyway.”

“Do you promise to come back?” I asked, hating how pitiful my voice sounded.

Something flickered in Erix’s eyes, but I couldn’t name it. “I promise to fight through life and death to return.”

It was my turn to smile sadly. “If I learned how to do anything in my ten years of exile, it was to wait. I’ve watched the horizon for many years. I’ll watch it for you.”

Silence stretched between us, and I thought I could hear my heart cracking. The moment was interrupted by a distant, high-pitched whinny of panic. Both of our gazes shot upward toward the exit from the pit far above us.

“Alza,” Erix breathed. “She does not like to stay when I am off elsewhere.”

I related to the sentiment.

“How are we going to get out?” I asked.

“Thankfully, I have had a lot of practice climbing the side of the palace every night, and it was hewn from stone with no joints to use a fingerholds. We should be able to climb out.”

I stared dubiously at the collapsed slope of rock and earth, so vertical it would be more accurately termed a wall. “I’m not so sure,” I admitted.

Erix kept squinting at the sky above us. “Can you climb a rope?”

I nodded. It seemed like a much easier proposition than digging my fingers into sliding sand and earth.

“There’s some rope in Alza’s packs. Once I get to the top, I’ll lower it down for you.”

With that, he stood. Stopping at the beginning of the upward slope, he stared down at the curled tricrith tails. Reaching over his shoulder, his muscles tensed as his fingers closed around thin air. His broken sword still lay in my lap.

“Can you use your sword to cut off one of these tails? We can bring it with us to extract the venom.”

I stood and walked over to him, offering out the two halves of his shattered blade. He took the blade first, dropping it tip first into his scabbard. Then he took the hilt, sliding it in after, until it looked like it always did. A stranger wouldn’t be able to tell it was shattered from the outside, but the despair in Erix’s eyes remained.

With that done, he turned away from me sharply and set to the climb. I watched him ascend the first part. Small pebbles tinkled and slid in tiny avalanches as he scrabbled for footholds. I raised my brows at the way he hung from just the tips of his fingers. With the width of his shoulders and the bulk of his muscles, it didn’t seem like it should be possible.