Page 118 of Crown of the Dunes

I stepped closer to inspect, and a waft of a hot, metallic stench engulfed me. My stomach threatened to turn itself inside out—something in me screaming that this was a smell I wasn’t supposed to encounter. I swallowed around the feeling as I took in the results of the venom on the blood glass.

Each pane had a divot carved in it, growing deeper and turning the dark crimson closer to the red of freshly spilled blood. Even as I watched though, the progress of the gash began to slow, as if the venom were quickly losing potency. But we were not counting on the venom alone to break the glass.

I glanced over at Keera and found all doubt chased from her face, instead replaced with grim determination. Her jaw was squared and her golden eyes glimmered. Wordlessly, we exchanged a nod before reaching out our hands in unison.

My palm landed on the smooth surface of blood glass, right next to the gash made by the venom, the same instant Keera touched the panel beside it. I hissed through my teeth, finding it surprisingly hot, almost burning to the touch, but I could not pull away.

I was rooted to the spot, unable to move, as if the fibers of magic that normally connected me to every rock and grain of sand in the desert now bound me in place. Staring at Keera, I could tell that she too was bound in place, the tendons in her neck standing out harshly.

Power pulsed through me, and I recognized the inexorable pull of Keera’s magic at the base of my skull. Over the force of the strange sensations coursing through my body, I remembered our purpose and pushed.

The magic that pulsed through me roared, louder than any voices that had overcome my mind before. I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that could block out the sound, but it was everywhere—under my skin and burrowing into my bones. It was like standing in the center of a mighty sandstorm or lying beneath the hooves of stampeding horses.

Above it all, came an almighty cracking, like a rent in the very universe.

Then, silence. Even louder than all that had come before.

I peeled my eyes open to find myself staring into Keera’s own disbelieving gaze. Slowly, full of equal parts hope and dread, we turned our heads to look at the double doors. Where our hands had laid on dark panels of blood glass, now there were open spaces—lancet windows leading to the shadowy space beyond.

Despite the heaviness of the doors—carved from the same stone as the rest of Kelvadan and so tightly jointed they almost appeared to be a wall—they swung open on silent hinges. A rush of air ruffled my hair as Kelvar and Alyx’s tomb opened to us. Where I expected the must of a tomb untouched, it was the gentle breeze of the desert.

The chattering in my head returned, driving out the silence and urging me to go inside. For once, I ignored them, transfixed by the sight that lay before me. Keera moved first, drifting forward into the room as if in a trance.

She took several steps toward the large, canopied bed that lay within, dominating most of the wall opposite the door. It strangely seemed like any other beautiful room, where I had expected something eerie and otherworldly. An ornately carved wooden headboard climbed the stone wall nearly reaching the ceiling, as purple curtains trimmed with gold billowed in the ephemeral breeze that drifted through the chamber.

Laying in the center of the bed, was Alyx.

Where I had expected to find a skeleton, or a mummified corpse, lay a beautiful woman who might have been sleeping. Long white hair fanned out over amethyst pillows. She wore a nightgown, looking like it was made of pure molton gold spread in rippling puddles. Her head was tilted to the side, showing off a long, elegant neck and impossibly high cheekbones. It was as if she were looking off to the side, and her arm stretched in that direction too.

My gaze followed the trail of her long, elegant fingers to the edge of the bed, a strange feeling of apprehension bubbling up in my chest. The tension burst, and the air all rushed out of me as I saw what she reached for.

Hunched over in a chair at the edge of the bed, was a skeleton.

The bones were bleached, and dark robes hung from them like a tattered flag, but I knew without a doubt to whom it belonged. Kelvar himself had indeed joined Alyx in her tomb.

I couldn’t fathom why he had decayed with time and Alyx hadn’t—another mystery for my mind to grapple with in the long nights ahead.

Keera’s footsteps scraped along the floor as she approached the haunting scene, and I found myself trailing after her. As she approached the bed, she fell to her knees next to Kelvar’s chair, and I stopped just behind her.

My gaze skated over what remained of the ancestor that had haunted my every step—the whispers that I was Kelvar come again a constant reminder of the fate I drifted inexorably toward. But under that impossibly large legacy, were bones like any other man’s.

One of his hands lay on the bed, as if he had been reaching out to Alyx as well. My gaze caught on a bulge in the bone of his forearm, as if it had once been broken. Then I fixated on the scant inches between the tips of Alyx’s and Kelvar’s fingers—her unmarred flesh a sharp contrast to his bare bones. A lump rose in my throat at the thought that they had died so close but not touching.

A movement at the edge of my vision caught my attention, and I tore my gaze from the tragic sight to see Keera reaching out toward Kelvar’s lap. His other hand was cradled there, and in the depths of the shadows came a glimmer of red.

My heart leapt into my throat, realizing I was mere feet away from the Heart of the Desert. Keera’s fingers closed around that red glimmer, and she made a choking sound in her throat.

I lurched forward, fear pulsing in my veins as I expected a rush of power through the tether between us, but none came. Keera pulled her hand to her chest, and I held my breath as I peered over her shoulder. Then, she opened her fingers to reveal what lay in her palm.

A red gemstone, as deep and radiant as all the legends suggested.

It was cloven in two.

Chapter thirty-one

Keera

The Heart was broken.