Page 117 of Crown of the Dunes

Once he was nearly a third of the way up, I shook myself, turning to the task he had left me. I retrieved my sword from where it lay near where Erix had unburied me. Then I lifted it over my head and swung down at the joint between two sections of armored tail. The wet crunch it made sent a shudder of disgust up my spine. I wrinkled my nose and hacked again. Black blood splattered over my boots and the end of the tail finally severed.

I stared down at it in thought for a few moments before unwrapping the long fabric of my hood from my head and shoulders. Gingerly, careful to avoid the lethal singer that decorated the tip, I used the cloth to pick it up before wrapping it in the length of maroon fabric. Then, I used the loose ends to tie it around my torso, so the severed tail was cradled against my chest like a deformed baby.

So distracted was I by the thought that I nearly leaped out of my skin when a weight dropped on the top of my head. I jerked my chin up to see a rope dangling down from the edge of the cavern. Erix had been surprisingly swift.

Squaring my shoulders, I grasped the knotted end, bracing my feet against the rocky wall and walking myself up. At the top, Erix tugged the rope, and I let him pull me up and out of the darkness.

Chapter thirty

Erix

For years, I had relentlessly pursued the Heart of the Desert. The purpose of finding it and restoring it had been the whetstone that sharpened me into a lethal weapon. Now, I was steps away from the goal that had driven me single mindedly to fight and kill, but my feet were as heavy as if I marched to my own funeral.

Once I held the Heart of the Desert in my hands, I would have to leave Keera.

I watched her braid swing as she marched up the stairs before me, trying to memorize the way the light of the afternoon sun streaming in through the high, narrow windows shone off her dark hair. I had promised her I would return once the Heart was restored, but I had no idea how long my journey would take me.

Even worse, fear grasped at my lungs, telling me I might not be able to return to her. The first time I had crossed the desert to the ocean with Lord Alasdar, the sands had brought me terrible visions that drove me to the brink of insanity—the entire desert bathed in blood, hundreds dead by my hand. With Kelvar’s madness closing in on me, I began to doubt my mind would survive the journey to the ocean and back intact.

Still, I had pledged myself to the desert, and to healing what my ancestors had broken. And if I couldn’t do it for them, then I would do it for Keera, who deserved to be queen of a desert that was whole and healthy.

After climbing until my thighs began to ache, we crested the final landing. I stepped up beside her, and together, we stood in the tower that marked the highest spire in Kelvadan. Here lay Alyx’s tomb, and the Heart of the Desert lay with her.

We stood in silence, and I almost felt like the hammering of my heart reverberated through the soles of my boots and through the stone of the tower. Perhaps the Heart within the room beat with us.

Keera let out a shuddering breath and apprehension tinged the air.

“Should we maybe get help?” she breathed, speaking quietly as if not to disturb the heavy silence.

“We’re the only ones with the power to break the blood glass,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but”—she hesitated—“last time…”

“Last time, my mother died,” I finished for her. The words tasted heavy and bitter on my tongue. I now faced the pang in my heart as I saw it for what it was—grief. I had been angry with my mother. So angry that at times I did think I wished her dead. But faced with the reality of her being gone from this world cut deep into my soul. Bitterness of things left unsaid filled my throat—words I might have said to my mother, but now she would never hear.

Keera shuddered beside me, and I lay a hand on her shoulder. Queen Ginevra’s death weighed on her, having saddled her with a heavy crown and a palpable sense of guilt.

“I am stronger than she was, and we have both used our power regularly. Like a horse that is let out to exercise often, the magic of the desert within us is healthy,” I assured her.

“What if one of us loses control?” she asked.

A brief vision of the stone cell at the base of the palace flitted through my head—accompanied by a memory of the hollow emptiness that had taken the place of the tether between us when she had been locked away.

“We have each other,” I assured. My voice sounded more sure than I felt.

She nodded grimly, before looking down at the bundle in her arms. Carefully, she began to unwrap the length of red cloth, now stained with thick dark blood, like tar. As the fabric fell away, she gingerly grasped the severed tail of the tricrith. Keera pinched it behind the stinger, like one might grasp a snake behind the jaw to keep it from biting.

I didn’t blame her for her caution. The lethal stinger gleamed in the light, looking oily and wet with venom.

“Do I just…” She motioned between the tail and the panes of blood glass, which looked black, almost like obsidian in the evening light.

I almost shrugged, telling her that she knew as much as I did, but the whispers in my mind shifted in tone, almost sounding affirmative.

“Yes,” I encouraged. “Scrape some of the venom on each of the panes of glass.”

Keera stepped forward and did as I directed. A harsh scrape, like a knife across bone, echoed through the room as she dragged the point of the stinger across the glass, followed by a hissing sound.

As she moved to the second piece of glass, the hissing was replaced by a sizzling and popping, like that of meat over the fire. The sound grew, and Keera jumped back, the armored tail tip in her hand clattering to the floor.