Page 113 of Heart of the Desert

“I’ll stay with her,” she assured. I looked again at Aderyn, and then back at the dark form of Erix, cutting his way through the chaos toward the palace doors. In a matter of moments, he would be free of the battle and crashing through the doors to hunt down Calix.

And while I didn’t know what exactly we needed to do to heal the Heart once we had it, the echo in my bones told me it would take two.

Together.

We had promised to do this together.

Aderyn gave me one last nod—one warrior to another—even as her face pinched in pain. As always, her commands brooked no argument. With one hasty thought aimed at the desert, begging her to be merciful for just a bit longer, I jumped down off Daiti’s back and sprinted toward Erix, falling into stride with him as we pounded up the steps to the palace doors.

Aderyn would fight her battle, and I would fight mine.

Chapter forty-one

Erix

The dark quiet of the stone halls made the screaming of the desert’s magic even louder. With all of Calix’s men fighting in the courtyard, the palace was all but deserted. The sound of screams and clashing steal was muffled as the heavy wooden doors slammed shut behind us. Where the din of battle and bloodshed had drowned out some of the pounding madness of power in my head, now it was amplified.

It pulsed like a heartbeat.

“He was on the terrace,” Keera whispered, as if she too were disconcerted by the sudden quiet.

I nodded, but I knew I didn’t need to. She could feel my agreement in our tether as strongly as I could feel the desperate hope driving her forward. Back together again, with the fibers of magic around us congealing into one massive, tangled knot, and the channels of our power blown open with the fever of battle, I could scarcely tell where her thoughts ended and mine began.

It was hard to believe the bond between us had been all but severed so recently.

We darted through the hallways, headed toward the winding central stairs that would take us up to where she had seen Calix. While the halls were devoid of people, they were not empty of the ghosts in my mind.

I tried not to picture my mother and father walking these halls, concentrating instead on finding Calix and the Heart, but it was difficult. My father’s laughter seemed to echo off the walls and the taste of lyra leaf tea lingered on my tongue.

It was as if time and memory were collapsing in on themselves alongside the desert.

The ghosts were so loud that I almost didn’t hear the scuffle at the far end of the hallway, in the opposite direction of the stairs leading up through the tower. Keera sucked a breath in through her teeth, and her hand landed on my arm as she halted. Her fingers were warm and strong, and I zeroed in on the touch. It was the only thing that felt solid and real in the darkness.

The shuffle came again, and when I squinted I could just make out a figure creeping past.

“Calix,” Keera hissed. He must have slipped down the stairs before we entered, hoping to evade us.

His dark silhouette shot across the hall, giving up the game of secrecy now that he had been discovered. Keera dived past me, pounding down the hall after him, and I followed hot on her heels.

The sound of our boots against the stone echoed through the hall along with our ragged breathing. We skidded around several corners, and I banged my shoulder as I took one too sharply. The thud of pain running through my body did nothing to dampen the growing dread I felt as I realized where Calix was leading us on this chase.

Breathy laughter bounced off the walls as we chased him, taunting us as we crashed down a flight of stairs in hot pursuit, into the base of the mountain. The walls switched from smooth to roughhewn, and bile began to burn the back of my throat. But I could not relent.

I had conquered the fear of my madness; I would conquer this as well.

I had to, for the desert. For her Heart.

As Calix rounded the last corner and crashed through a hallway that haunted my dreams, Keera and I skidded to a halt just outside it in unison. Our anxiety bounced back and forth in kaleidoscopic reflections as we stared into the tiny stone cell. All I could think of was the oppressive silence and the feeling of suffocation—it should have been a reprieve from the maddening voices in my head, but instead, it made me feel like clawing my own skin off, and I would leave having screamed myself hoarse. I could feel the rawness of my throat and the blood crusted under my fingernails from clawing at the walls even now.

The stone room wasn’t empty, though, like it was in my nightmares.

Calix stood in the center, wearing a self-satisfied smile and holding the Heart in his hand, palm up, like a gift. I would have expected his expression to seem oily and conniving, but even after all the horror he’d wrought, he managed to exude an air of open charm. It made my blood boil.

Keera shivered beside me.

“That does not belong to you,” she growled.

Calix cocked his head. “Is that why it doesn’t respond to me?”