Page 82 of Crown of the Dunes

“Or they could be the ones who did it,” Erix pointed out grimly. He was right; this looked like the carnage of a battle wrought by humans.

Erix lifted his arm, and Zephyr took to the air, flapping his wings hard to lift himself over the ridge his encampment sat in the shade of.

“I guess we’ll head that way,” Erix said, jumping back onto Alza’s back.

I nodded my agreement, staring at the swishing midnight of Alza’s tail as Daiti and I followed them from the ruined camp. Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of red caught my attention. A lump rose in my throat at an arcing splash of blood, painted across tan canvas. The thick stain faded to droplets as if scattered by a swung blade.

A person—a rider from a clan armed with a saber—had cut down another to make this mark. Erix looked over his shoulder as I hesitated, his face grim.

I shook myself and we continued on. We rode parallel to the ridge until the ground started climbing toward the top of the stone wall. As we crested the edge, we found a series of large rock formations: Pillars and dramatic arches and hills of stacked shale dotted the large swath of baked earth. In the distance, just past a crested butte, lay the green patch of an oasis, surrounded by the tents of an encampment.

I picked out four banners flapping at the tops of the largest tents: green, blue, violet, and gray. Clans Otush, Tibel, Vecturna, and Jal were here, but there were no signs of the other five—including Clan Katal, where the papers we sought would be.

I nudged Daiti behind an isolated hill of small boulders, and Alza followed.

“Maybe we shouldn’t get closer,” I said.

Erix considered me from where he sat on Alza’s back. He didn’t say anything, but I could practically see the thoughts whirling behind his eyes, reflected by the quiet churning in the magic of our bond.

“If Clan Katal isn’t there, neither will the missing pages of Kelvar’s diary. I likely won’t be welcomed by the Clans and… well I’m not sure how you stand with them either,” I pointed out. “Approaching seems like asking for a fight.”

The line of his mouth hardened. “They likely wouldn’t recognize me without my mask.”

I cocked my head and considered. Clan Otush at least would likely remember my face from when we came to their aid against the lava wyrm.

“I want…” Erix started, his voice rough and halting. “I need to know what has become of the clans since I left them. I was their leader, even if reluctantly so, and if they are suffering since my surrender in Kelvadan—”

He didn’t finish his thought, but I sensed the way it weighed on him. Even when he had done his best to abandon his power, the weight of responsibility still found him.

I nodded. “All right.” I began turning the problem over in my head, considering how best to approach the clans without leading to bloodshed. I was loathe to let Erix go in alone, even though his lack of mask was better than any disguise I had.

A handful of pebbles bounced down the inselberg at my back with a light tinkling sound. I didn’t have time to turn before a solid weight crashed down on my back. The breath exploded from my lungs as a knee landed between my shoulder blades, and I toppled sideways off Daiti’s back.

A feral shout and the ringing of metal marked Erix’s sword being drawn. My attacker and I rolled as we hit the ground, and I scrabbled and kicked, desperate to end up on top. Magic bubbled up from my stomach into my chest, urging me to draw my dirk from my own sash and lash out.

I reached out to grab my assailant’s tunic, trying to pin them down, when I caught a flash of blue—the fabric of his sash. This was a clansman, from Clan Vecturna—the people Erix had been trying to save. I ignored the itching in my skin that told me to grab a weapon. Instead, I hooked my calf around his knee as we tumbled, wrenching hard.

The man landed on the ground under me with a pained oomph. I kneeled on his back, battling him for control of one of his hands so I could wrench it behind him and restrain him. From the direction of Erix came the sounds of swords clashing, filling me with equal parts relief and dread.

If Erix was still fighting, that meant he hadn’t killed them all, but the red wave of his bloodlust was starting to cloud the tether between us. I wanted to shout at him, to bring him back to himself before he could spill blood he had not intended to.

I raised my head to call out, but the words froze in my throat as the lethal tip of a dagger pricked the skin beneath my chin.

“Don’t move, or her blood will be the next to feed the desert,” the rider behind me shouted loud enough to be heard over the ring of metal on metal.

Slowly, I released my grasp on the rider beneath me and raised my hands in surrender. Erix urged Alza onto her rear legs, and she pivoted there as he swung her around to face me. Fire blazed in his eyes. Wind began to whip at my braid and tug at the free end of my hood. It carried the earthy metallic scent of magic, so strong I could almost feel the way it began to pour off Erix in unrestrained torrents. It coated my tongue as I inhaled sharply.

The tip of the dagger beneath my jaw dug in enough to draw a single droplet of blood, leaving a hot trail as it dribbled down my neck.

“Erix!” I called out in warning. With the crackling of lightning in the air raising the hair on my arms, I didn’t doubt he could strike down the man who threatened me before he slit my throat. But just moments before, he had spoken of his responsibility to these people.

As queen, they were my responsibility too.

Alza crashed back down onto four hooves, and Erix held his saber aloft, but he did not strike again. It was Kelvar’s saber, that I had given back to him when we arrived at the stables in the middle of the night, before he could on the one that he had carried when he invaded Kelvadan.

“Erix, please,” I called again.

He stilled, and the whole scene around us froze in time for a moment. Besides the man that had knocked me from Daiti’s back, there were at least two dozen riders. Most were not mounted, having apparently jumped down from the rocks above us in an ambush, although a few on horseback indicated they had joined from nearby. Their sashes were a variety of colors, and only one man lay on the ground, bleeding sluggishly from a long slash across one shoulder. Churned up particles of sand from the fight shimmered where they drifted in the air.