Page 17 of Crown of the Dunes

“Let it go.”

The voice came as if it were at the end of a very long tunnel.

“You can let it go now, Keera.”

I frowned. The voice wasn’t the one that normally pulled me back from the edge of insanity, but I could still hear it. Even more, I was back in my body enough to tell that I had frowned.

“You did it. They’re safe now. Put it down.”

Calix’s voice beside me wasn’t enough, but I knew what would be. I reached for the buried thread within me, so thin and quiet these days that I almost feared it would snap under the onslaught of power surging through me. As soon as I brushed against it though, it brightened. I wrapped my mental fingers around the bond, and felt a responding heave, as if it were a rope pulling me up the side of a cliff.

My vision returned, instantly filled with the sight of a gray wall. I blinked, realizing it was not a wall, but the gray dust of the rockslide, frozen in place halfway across the fields. A full body shudder ran through me, nearly as violent as the preceding earthquake had been, and I wrenched my magic back within the confines of my skull.

As the last of the desert’s power relinquished its hold on the mountainside, I gave one more mental push, shoving the rocks to the side instead of letting them fall toward us, lest the rockslide start anew.

The suspended rocks crashed to the ground, sliding to a grinding stop. My hands flew up to cover my ears at the earthshattering boom, that seemed like it might never end as the side of the mountain found its new place in the fields.

And then there was silence.

An arm came across my shoulders, and at first, I thought it was an embrace of thanks or congratulations, until I felt how hard I pressed into the grip. I swayed where I stood, and Calix’s arm was the only thing keeping me from crumpling as my knees trembled.

I nodded my thanks at Calix, who acknowledged me with an inclination of his own head. Something flickered through his expression as he met my eyes, and I braced myself for the sharp sting of his fear as he witnessed how far from myself I went when the desert’s magic took me. His expression wasn’t fear though, although my mind was too frayed to place what the strange emotion was, and it was gone as quickly as it came. Still, a tight knot in my chest loosened infinitesimally to find that he did not shy away from me now.

Feeling more stable, now that my consciousness seeped more fully into my body, I stepped out of his supportive hold, distantly surprised that his touch hadn’t made my skin crawl, but glad to be rid of the contact nonetheless.

I took in my surroundings more fully, seeing the farmers huddled nearby in fear. The woman who had been directly in the path of the rockslide caught my eye where she sat on the ground cradling her ankle, having apparently been dragged to safety as I held the avalanche at bay.

I trudged over to the farmers where they circled around her, hoping to check if anybody else was injured.

The dark-skinned man who had fallen just as the earthquake started saw me approaching and took a few large steps forward.

“You saved us. Maybe there is hope for Kelvadan yet.” He tapped his fingers to his brow.

I swallowed thickly around the dust in my throat, knowing it wasn’t the only thing behind the burning in my eyes. The wave of warmth washing over me turned frigid in an instant as another farmer chimed in.

“Try as we might, we can’t eat hope.” The man who had spoken stood with his arms folded, jaw tight as he jerked his chin at the now still pile of rocks.

I followed his gaze, nausea roiling in my belly as I truly took in the aftermath of the avalanche. The path of destruction cut across the grain fields, like a gruesome scar, leaving nothing but a crust of dust and rocks in its gigantic wake.

Almost half of Kelvadan’s grain was destroyed, all in a matter of minutes.

If another source of food couldn’t be found, it wasn’t just war that would threaten Kelvadan, but another threat I knew far too well: starvation.

Chapter four

Erix

My eyes burned and watered as the dry wind wafted smoke into my face. Try as I might to stay upwind of the fires, the constant shift of the desert blew the scent of charred flesh over me at odd intervals. After days of burning bone spiders, stacking the severed limbs like demented kindling, the whole encampment reeked of death. The stench had seeped into my clothing and my hair. It would take a good bath to rid me of the decay, but with water supplies running lower by the day, no such luxury was in sight.

As I approached the next fire, I grabbed a limb from the bundle I carried—an arm with clawed fingers on the end of a gnarled hand—and tossed it onto the blaze. These limbs were fresh, hewn from a bone spider that emerged from Stygian depths of the chasm last night, after a fire on the far side of the camp ran out of fuel.

Luckily, I had been nearby, and managed to aid the riders in dispatching it before any were killed. I had almost been thankful for the fight giving me a temporary reprieve from the chattering in my head and the overwhelming feeling of impotence at being trapped here. Still, one member of Clan Ratan had lost an arm, and currently lay in the healer’s tent muttering under his breath about how the spider would return to take the rest of his limbs.

As I trekked to the next bonfire, ready to distribute more fuel, the cry of a falcon cut the air. I looked up to find a familiar set of banded wings wheeling in the sky above me.

Zephyr circled lower and lower, and a bolt of satisfaction mixed with relief rang through me at the sight of a jackrabbit dangling in his claws. I would be able to add meat to at least one stew pot tonight.

It was a pleasant change from the stab of disappointment that had pierced my heart every time he had returned for the past weeks. I had sent him out half a dozen times with messages tied to his legs, each one a plea for Keera to tell me she was alive, to come back and join me—even to tell me she hated me and wanted me dead, if that is what was in her heart after returning to the city that I was still determined to see crumble to the ground.