Page 110 of Heart of the Desert

As I tried to blink to clear my stinging eyes, the edge of my boot hit a lip in the edge of a cracked roof. My knee hit the ground hard enough to make me bite my tongue and copper filled my mouth. The arms of one of the machines began to fly forward, as I scrabbled to my feet. I had lost my momentum though, and wouldn’t make the leap to the next building, so I raised my sword and gritted my teeth.

Shouts and a creaking filled the air. Before the flaming rock could hurtle toward me, the trebuchet collapsed under its own weight and the intended missile tumbled impotently to the ground. Chaos broke out in the small groups of soldiers manning the war machines, but it was too late. Sun glinted off axe blades, and the fearsome cries of Warrick’s men drifted over the distance between us.

The chaos spread like brushfire, and in a matter of moments, the machines of war were reduced to useless constructions of wooden beams and rope. I took a long breath of relief before coughing around the dust in my throat.

The moment of victory did not last long, though, as the tether at the base of my skull pulled so tight that it nearly made my eyes water. I needed to meet Keera at the palace gates, and there was no time to waste.

Chapter forty

Keera

Blood dripped from both my saber and my short sword, making the stone beneath Daiti’s hooves sticky. If this was not enough to sate the desert, then there was no such quantity. Still, I pressed on, Aderyn at my side and the other lords at my back.

I hoped that Erix faced less resistance on his path up through the city. We had already faced down several squads of Calix’s men as we wove through the streets, leaping out from around corners and jumping down on us from above.

Even as the clan riders pressed forward bravely, I could feel them flagging. Fighting in tight quarters was brutal on horseback, and nothing like the open charges they faced in the plains. They were not accustomed to such battles—but the riders of Kelvadan would be.

We just had to find where Calix had them held.

I dispatched the last of the riders from our latest group of attackers with a brutal slash across the chest. He deserved it for the way he tugged on the reins of his stolen horse, making the creature snort in discomfort while her eyes rolled back in her head. I reached out to yank the bit and bridle from the mare’s face and caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye.

A curtain twitched in a stone window, as if somebody within had chanced a glance out at the chaos. My heart stuttered, despite the pounding of battle in my veins. I had hoped to keep the people of Kelvadan out of this fight—the people I had given everything to feed only to end up selling them into the hands of a tyrant with my actions.

Those who had been in the city for the past months might know where to find the riders.

I jerked my chin at Aderyn and nodded at the home where I had seen the movement. In the relative quiet after our last wave of battle, she dismounted, landing heavily on her feet in the street. She grimaced and rubbed her lower back before steeling herself. The action made me frown. Aderyn had managed the stress of battle well, but her discomfort seemed to be growing. The sands of more than one hourglass were running.

I positioned myself between her and the street, and Elion pulled his horse up beside me. We both looked up and down the road, hoping to protect her and the civilians within from any unexpected attacks.

“Hello?” Aderyn knocked gently. “We promise we mean you no harm.”

Aderyn’s voice had never been soft, but something about its firmness was always comforting, and this time was no different. Her lack of pretense gave her the air of someone who could be trusted.

I glanced over my shoulder in time to see the door crack open, and to my utter surprise, a wide-eyed child looked out at Aderyn from waist height. She looked taken aback for a second, before dropping to a knee to be at a level with him.

“Where are your parents?”

He shook his head. “They’re riders. The bad king won’t let them come home.”

“You’re here by yourself?” I could tell Aderyn tried her best to hide the pain his words caused, but I didn’t miss the sudden tense of the muscles in her jaw and the scrunch of her brows. A cracking echoed through my own chest. Another child left behind by his parents—although this time not by choice.

“Yes, but I sneak in to see my parents as often as I can, even when they tell me it’s dangerous.” The young boy seemed proud of himself.

“You see them? Where?” A tiny glimmer of hope cut through the concern in Aderyn’s voice.

“The bad king has them locked in one of the empty storehouses,” he explained. “But I’m small enough to crawl down one of the old grain shoots. They don’t guard them.”

“The grain storehouse by the baker who shapes his nut bread into triangles?” Aderyn asked.

Nobody knew this city and its people better than her.

The boy nodded. “The baker doesn’t have the nuts to make the bread anymore though.”

Aderyn reached out and patted the boy’s dark curls. “We’re going to go and get your parents. You bar this door and don’t answer it for anybody else, understood?”

The boy nodded gravely, as if he too were a rider taking an order from his commander. “Thank you for coming back.”

The words pierced me through the heart as he shut the door, and a scraping sound indicated that the boy had blocked the way with the heaviest furniture he could move. Aderyn stood and turned to face me, determination written into every line of her face.