Page 124 of Crown of the Dunes

A weight jumped on me from behind, an arm coming around my throat.

“Erix, stop! It wasn’t him!” Aderyn gasped in my ear, clinging on to my back as I struggled against her. “Keera sent me to stop you.”

At the sound of Keera’s name, I hesitated.

“It was Calix,” she continued, continuing to try and haul me back from attacking.

Warrick’s face grew hard. “And that would be why I wanted you on the throne instead of her,” he admitted.

Aderyn slowly loosened her grip on me, and when I didn’t immediately jump at Warrick, she finally released me.

“Explain,” she demanded.

“Prince Calix takes after his father, the King of Viltov, who is willing to use any weapon in sight to gain the upper hand—lies, charm, especially poison. They’ve used poison particularly against Doran so many times in our endless war that we’ve begun to fight fire with fire. As soon as he arrived, I saw him trying to use his lies and influence to gain the upper hand with both the former and current queen. I kept trying to sneak away—to warm them against Calix’s scheming, but Calix breathed down my neck at every turn,” he explained. “Keera was distrustful of me, and Calix wormed his way into her good graces before I could warn her away, and I knew she would not take my word over his. So, I listened in the shadows until I had my opportunity. One day, I managed to overhear Keera and the former queen talking about you being her son. I took the chance to try and inflame the people and bring you into power instead. The legendary Lord of the Clans of the Ballan Desert certainly wouldn’t fall for Viltov’s schemes and lies. I knew from the first time Keera met Calix that she would fall for his charms—I couldn’t afford to have somebody like that on the throne.”

“You were the one that painted the message on the city walls,” Aderyn breathed, her tone equal parts realization and anger.

“It wasn’t enough, though. Keera still became queen, and still she chose to put her trust in Prince Calix. Now he’s shown his true colors, and she will pay the ultimate price. And so will my people. Once Viltov has control of Kelvadan, they will turn its strength against Doran.” Warrick’s face was hard.

“I was right about you,” I growled.

Warrick sneered. “All you were right about was that you and I are the same: men of war who aren’t afraid to spill blood when we must to achieve our ends. But now we will both lose because of your blindness.”

A rumble of rage built in my chest, and the floor began to shudder beneath us. A hand on my arm distracted me.

“There’s still time,” Aderyn insisted. “If we find Calix, we can make him give us the antidote. Keera hasn’t married him yet.”

I pointed a finger at Warrick and took a step forward. He backed up until he was pressed against the wall once more. “I’m not done with you—”

A clash and a scream in the distance cut me off.

“We’re under attack!”

The sound of steel and shouts grew, already inside the palace. I whirled on my heel, my threats to the general forgotten. Already, Aderyn had bolted from the room, pulling her sickle blades from her belt.

We dashed down the hallway toward the front entrance to the palace, where the shouts were the loudest. As we rounded a corner, Aderyn stumbled and nearly fell, catching on to a wall to stay upright. I barreled into her, and horror rose in my throat as I saw what she had tripped on.

A Kelvadan rider lay face down in the middle of the hallway, the handle of a knife protruding from between his shoulder blades. As soon as she gained her footing, Aderyn crouched down and grabbed him by the shoulders, turning him over. His eyes fluttered open, but they were hazy with pain. From the growing puddle of blood sticking my boots to the ground, and the rattling in his chest as he struggled to draw breath, I could tell soon they would close for the last time.

“Who did this?” Aderyn asked.

“Already inside the palace…” the rider started, bubbles of blood forming at his lips and dribbling down his chin as he struggled to speak. “The prince’s men. Took me by surprise—”

He was cut off by a bout of coughs that didn’t stop, growing weaker until a shudder wracked his body, and he went silent. Aderyn lowered him to the ground as gently as she could, before standing.

My blood boiled. I didn’t say a word to Aderyn, shouldering past her and taking off down the hallway. The palace was a nest of snakes, welcomed inside for a wedding that was supposed to save its people. Instead, it had doomed them.

The screams echoed through the stone corridors as we dashed toward the courtyard, Aderyn hot on my heels. We burst through the front door to be greeted with chaos. Everywhere riders clashed, and people shouted in confusion. Several bodies lay strewn across the ground, one woman slumped at the base of Kelvar’s statue with a hole in her chest.

She wasn’t even armed.

I jumped into the fray with a roar. The hilt in my hand didn’t have a blade, but I didn’t care. Swinging it wildly, I let the last vestiges of my control loose. Voices roared in my head, and fire shot from the end of my broken sword, creating a blade of flame.

Three men charged at me. I flicked my sword at them, and they crumpled, dead before they ever hit the ground. I spun, looking for my next opponents, and Aderyn jumped into the melee next to me. Her sickle blades were nothing more than spinning silver discs of death.

“Find Prince Calix,” I shouted over the fray, before the red haze of bloodlust overtook me.

I felled one attacker, then another, until my vision began to blur. Red crept in around the edges, and I tried to hold on to the one thought that stuck out amongst the excited clamor urging me to kill all in my path and feed their blood to the desert.