Page 92 of Crown of the Dunes

Slowly, Badha’s grip on her sword slackened, and relief loosened the knot in my chest. Then, a voice shouted from outside the tent, making it snap taut again.

“Badha, are you all right, my sandstorm?”

We had one moment of warning before Izumi stepped into the space behind Badha, a lantern held in her hand throwing the situation into harsh relief. A flash of steel and her sword was drawn, Dhara and I just a beat behind.

Badha’s gaze flicked back and forth rapidly between her former master and current lord—and potentially something more if the way Izumi protectively angled herself in front of Badha was any indication.

Izumi’s lip pulled back in a snarl, the freckles on her nose scrunching as her face contorted in a mask of fury. “You leave us all to die, betray Lord Alasdar’s cause, and now come to rob us in the night?”

Her gaze flicked to the chest behind me. “If you’ve come to steal Lord Alasdar’s wisdom in the hope that you can save your precious Kelvadan. We will see it fall. I thought the power you wield made you stronger than me—made you the one who would lead the desert back to the old ways and save anyone else from having their heart torn in two like mine was when my twin was swallowed by the desert. But now that I know who you are, I see the truth of your weakness—the true failure of your bloodline. You doomed us all for that exile whore.”

My blade whistled through the air as I lunged across the tent. The voices in my head screamed for blood so loudly that couldn’t even comprehend what had happened. I bit down on the inside of my cheek until blood flooded my mouth, the metallic taste and the sting of pain bringing me back into my body enough to register that Izumi now lay crumpled on the ground. Badha stood behind her, holding her sword up and frozen in a look of pain, like she couldn’t believe she just knocked Izumi unconscious with a well-placed blow to the temple.

My grip on my saber tightened, and for a fleeting moment the bloodlust swirling with the madness in my head told me to slash down at Izumi where she lay for what she had called Keera. Before I could even dismiss that thought as one belonging to the monster Lord Alasdar had shaped me into, Badha stepped between me and the crumpled form on the floor.

“Grab what you need and get out before anybody sees you.” Her voice was clipped. She had grown into a warlord accustomed to being obeyed in the short time we had been apart.

Her decisive tone snapped me from my rage enough to remember why I was here. I spun on my heel and marched back to the chest, pulling out the papers and sliding them beneath my tabards for safe keeping.

“Come with us,” Dhara said behind me. “Clan Otush would welcome you back, and you could leave all this madness behind.”

I stood and turned back to them in time to see Badha shake her head sadly. “I… I can’t.”

“Izumi will brand you a traitor for this,” I said.

“I know.” The edge of a tremor laced her voice, but she stood firm, raising her chin. “But I couldn’t let her stop you from doing what needs to be done. She can’t see it now, but she would never forgive herself if she got in the way of the desert being healed.”

I stepped toward them, glancing down at Izumi’s crumpled form, her mouth slack and her brown curls scattered around her haphazardly. She had been both my fiercest competitor and my only true ally for many years, but somehow I hadn’t fully comprehended how young she was until I saw her like this. She must have been just a girl when her twin was swallowed by quicksand, driving her to betray her clan for Lord Alasdar.

“She’s one of the most passionate people I’ve met, and that fervor has the tendency to lead her astray.” Badha’s words were soft, and pained in a way that made my heart twist.

“The desert appreciates passion,” I observed, thinking of Keera and the way I had chosen to stay by her side, even when I was likely to be her prisoner. “She’ll need someone like you to help lead her back to the right path.”

“I know that too.” Badha smiled sadly. “Now go, before anybody else comes.”

I did as she asked, but Lord Dhara hesitated, giving her one last long look. Then Badha rapped knuckles to her temple in a sign of respect, and the moment was broken. Dhara followed me out into the chaos of the camp.

We moved as swiftly as the wind using the cover of darkness, many of the camps bonfires having been extinguished in the earlier stampede. Chaos still reigned as clansmen tried to lead high strung horses back to their enclosures, and we were able to slip out into the night without receiving a second glance.

By the time we crested the dune where we had left the horses, Keera already waited for us. She stood before Daiti, stroking his mane and cooing like he was a small cat, and not a warhorse likely to trample anybody who looked at him wrong to death. The way his eyes rolled told me he enjoyed it, despite his prickly exterior.

My boots squeaked in the powdery sand, and Keera turned toward us. “Did it work? Were you able to get what we needed?”

I patted my chest where the missing pages were safely hidden from the elements. “Your distraction was thorough, although we did cross paths with Izumi.”

Keera’s brows shot up. “What happened?”

I shook my head wearily, knowing I would tell her the whole tale at some point, but too anxious to put distance between us and Lord Alasdar’s memory to relay everything now. “I just hope I don’t regret not killing her when I had the chance.”

Keera considered me. “It will be easier to kill an enemy later than to bring an ally back to life.”

Lord Dhara snorted beside me. “The trick is figuring out which is the enemy and which is the ally.”

Her words echoed in my head as we set off into the gathering darkness.

Chapter twenty-three

Keera