Page 3 of Crown of the Dunes

I swallowed around the feeling of broken glass in my throat. I had spent a decade of my youth staring at the horizon, imagining my clan—my parents—appearing to take me back. Every second the endless sands remained empty added to the depth of my loneliness.

Now, I had been abandoned again.

As I stared, Neven stepped up beside me, laying his hands on the stone railing. The sharp anguish of abandonment dulled at the awareness that I was not completely alone here in the Great City. I tore my eyes from the sky to look down at Neven’s fingers. Where his were smooth, the skin on the back of my hand now held the echoes of burns where my flesh had melted away at the touch of the lava wyrm.

They were not as scarred as they might have been, thanks to Queen Ginevra.

“How is the queen?” I asked, guilt bubbling up in my throat.

Neven sighed heavily. “She’s managed to make a few diplomatic appearances since she tried to heal you, but they must be short. She tires easily. Still, it’s been enough to keep the new ambassadors from Viltov and Doran from suspecting too much.”

I swallowed thickly, not looking at him as I nodded.

From the moment I passed through the gates of Kelvadan, I had carried the fear that I would bring its downfall. But I had always thought it would be from a loss of control—not from causing the queen to fall ill.

“Can I see her?” I asked. It was a question I had echoed every day since the first time I had gotten out of bed a week ago.

The warm air stirred as Neven shifted beside me. This time, I did turn to look at him, finding him considering me pensively.

“You’re getting stronger, and so is she. I think Aderyn would agree that you’re recovered enough for a meeting.” His mouth twisted into a wry smile, although the crinkles at the corner of his eyes belied a hint of wistfulness. “I wish I could disagree though, because I know that as soon as the three of you get together again, you’ll be back to carrying the weight of the world once more. If I had my way, you’d have more time to heal before picking up those burdens again. I think you’ve earned your rest.”

The smile that softened my scowl was genuine. “I think the desert heaps these burdens on us whether we are ready for them or not.”

“Maybe heroic riders like you,” Neven observed. “I’m just a humble weaver, and all I want is peace.”

“There is nothing humble about peace. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be so difficult to achieve.” I looked out over the desert once more. With every second that passed without Erix on the horizon, hope for that peace slipped through my fingers, like grains of sand through an hourglass.

Chapter two

Erix

Alza nudged her nose against my hand, trying to drag me from my frustrated thoughts. Or perhaps she was simply annoyed that I had ceased my stroking of her silky black mane in favor of staring out over the empty chasm before my feet.

For weeks, this had been my midday ritual. Every afternoon, after training with the riders of the combined clans, I rode around the entire perimeter of the encampment, as if I would suddenly find a break in the deep gorge encircling the place where all nine clans of the desert camped.

No matter how many times I made the trip, there was no change in the architecture of the land. Instead, I was forced to languish in a prison of my own making.

I stepped up to the edge of the chasm I had carved into the earth to protect the clans from Kelvadan’s attack. My toes brushed the rocky precipice that led down to a well of darkness. It was so deep that shadow shrouded the bottom from view, and I couldn’t be sure how far down it went. I bent to pick up a small rock, rubbing my gloved fingers over the rough surface for a few moments before tossing it into the pit before me. My ears strained, and I counted to three before I heard a faint clatter at the bottom.

I breathed out heavily through my nose in frustration, the sigh heating the inside of my mask against my skin. This chasm I had made using a swell of power in the heat of battle had saved all the riders of the nine clans from the warriors of Kelvadan, but now it kept us from responding to their attack with a siege of our own.

And it kept me from ripping down the walls of the Great City to get Keera back.

I raised a hand before me and closed my eyes, turning my focus inwards to the web of threads that connected me to every rock and grain of sand in the Ballan Desert. As I did, the whispers in my mind—which became louder by the day—grew into an incessant chatter. I mentally grasped the fibers of my powers and clasped my hand into a fist as I tugged. Deep in the chasm before me came a slight rumbling. I squeezed my fist so hard that the leather of my gloves threatened to split.

The tendrils of magic slipped through my fingers, and the rumbling stopped. I opened my eyes to stare into the darkness at my feet, no less endless than it had been before. I grit my teeth around a scream of frustration, and it came out as a frustrated growl. The leash on my power frayed more with each passing day—I no longer had Lord Alasdar’s burns or Keera’s touch to rein myself in—but I still could not muster enough power to shape the desert to my will. Not for the first time, I wondered at the desert’s motivations—the meaning behind the wordless chattering in my mind.

Alza nudged her head against my side more insistently, and I turned sharply away from the pit before me. Lord Alasdar may have been gone, no longer pulling my strings, but I seemed to be no less a pawn in the desert’s games than I had been before.

I jumped up onto Alza’s back, and the unintelligible voices in my head chittered derisively, as if mocking me for my inability to undo what I had done. The desert seemed to take pleasure in giving me immeasurable power when it suited her, only to leave me with little more than the threat of impending madness immediately after.

Alza broke into an easy trot, and I clenched my fists on my thighs to avoid yanking on her mane in frustration. Far too soon, we arrived back at her enclosure, and a familiar golden stallion ambled over to the edge.

Daiti didn’t look my way, as if he didn’t want me to get the impression he had approached to greet me, despite the fact that he did this every time I returned from a ride. A melancholy ache settled beneath my breastbone at the sight of the stallion. As I let Alza back into the pasture, I held my hand out to Keera’s mount, and he snuffled at my gloved fingers. In the days when he was named Bloodmoon, I never would have dared come so close for fear of losing a few digits. My ribs still ached at the memory of a few well-placed kicks from him in years past, back when he belonged to Lord Alasdar.

Now though, I was the only one he let approach, and he and Alza were kept in a separate paddock, for he wouldn’t suffer the company of other horses. A few of Clan Katal’s mounts had bite marks on their haunches as evidence.

As I let Alza loose to munch on some arrow grass, Daiti drew closer and buried his head in my tabards as if searching for a snack. Coming up empty, he grunted but didn’t pull away, and I laid a hand on his gleaming neck, patting gently.