Page 115 of Heart of the Desert

Keera stepped forward, her golden eyes flashing as Calix scrabbled backward on his hands, kicking out with his feet as he tried to put distance between them. I held my breath as I waited for Keera to drive her saber through his chest. She had done the same to free me from Lord Alasdar’s torture, but now she hesitated.

The anger flowing from her direction hadn’t cooled, though. It took a long moment before I heard what she did: A cracking and grinding like dry bones coming from the hallway into the mountain. The desert was shredding and the creatures of her fury could no longer be contained.

“You wrought this,” Keera said, lowering her sword. “The desert cannot be contained or controlled, and neither can I. You will know both of our fury for trying to own her power.”

The clattering and scratching grew louder as the shadowed shape of twisted masses appeared at the end of the hallway. The many limbs of the largest bone spiders I had ever seen waved and writhed as they scuttled down the hallway. Calix’s eyes widened with fear, but Keera didn’t even give him the chance to beg. She just turned and grabbed my hand, hauling me up the stairs as Calix’s dying screams of horror and pain chased us.

Chapter forty-two

Keera

It might have been more merciful to kill Calix cleanly, but as we dashed up the stairs through the palace, I had no regrets. It seemed as if the world was ending around us—and perhaps it was. Dust rained down from the ceiling as everything trembled. Even the air seemed to dance with heat and magic.

We didn’t waste any time taking in the chaos, though, instead sprinting down the hallway toward the winding stairs up to the spire. I started up them two at a time, desperate to reach the spire at the top as fast as humanly possible—faster even. But just as I reached for the magic of the desert that might propel me forward like the wind, I hissed and drew my mental fingers back from the flowing magic around me. It felt like touching a pan that had been over the fire—too hot to grab on to, let alone wield.

Erix gasped behind me, and I knew he felt it too.

But the tether between us was as strong as ever, almost the only thing keeping me on my feet as we climbed and climbed. As we reached a landing, I chanced a glance out of the window. My heart, which had been furiously trying to beat its way out of my ribcage, plummeted all the way back into the stone cell below us. The sun shone blood red in the sky, the light intermittently blocked out by circling gravehawks. Bone spiders and lava wyrms burst through the stone ground to roam the streets. Dark splotches painted the ground beyond the city where the force of the earth’s trembling had caused it to cave and split.

We were all but too late.

The stairs spiraled around and around until I was dizzy, but I kept my focus on Erix’s breathing behind me. We were together, and we could do anything. Alyx lay just a few stories above us. If we could free her from her deathless sleep, this could all be over.

The leg I had thought healed throbbed and I thought I tasted blood in my mouth from the force of my panting by the time we crested the last rise in the stairs. The doors to Kelvar and Alyx’s chambers lay open. I prayed that Calix hadn’t moved or disturbed Alyx and Kelvar’s bodies.

Erix and I crashed into the room, and it was as if all the sound had been sucked out of the air. The scream of gravehawks and the rumble of collapsing earth melted away, and even our own heaving breaths were muted. There was something different about space and time in this room—even the way my senses interacted with the world around me.

I felt, more than I heard or saw, a presence in the room with us; it was the ever-present power of the desert, amplified to previously unimaginable heights. The goddess was here, and she watched us.

I strode up to the edge of the bed, reaching out for Alyx’s face, but I stopped short. I didn’t know what I intended to do. but disturbing her still felt wrong. She did not breathe, and no pulse fluttered in her delicate throat, but she was not dead.

Instead, I laid my half of the Heart on the pillow beside her. Erix quickly laid his half right beside it, touching, but not quite whole yet.

The answer that I had hoped would appear when I arrived at this point still eluded me. But the goddess did not appear interested in making us wait.

I give and I take.

Her voice was everywhere, both inside my head and out. I gasped and blinked past the watering in my eyes as its intensity drove me to my knees.

You took what was not yours, and now you must give. A life for a life will heal my Heart.

The voice was so loud that the meaning of her words didn’t fully penetrate my mind, but Erix’s reaction was instantaneous.

“No,” Erix’s voice was a choked gasp, but he didn’t sound surprised.

“Yes,” an unfamiliar voice said with sad resignation. Still on my knees, I whipped around so quickly I almost toppled over.

Standing next to his own skeleton, was Kelvar. I blinked at the odd sensation of feeling like I was seeing Erix twice. Then Erix’s face contorted in hurt and anger, while Kelvar’s just held grief, and they couldn’t have looked more different.

“One of our lives?” I asked. Erix’s anger poured through the air, not even needing the tether between us to be felt. I waited for my own rage at the horrible truth of the situation to rise to meet it, but instead something else came. An odd quiet.

Somehow, I knew the words that were going to come out of Kelvar’s mouth before he spoke. It was a strange thing to feel you had accepted something you didn’t even know yet.

“Her life.” Kelvar nodded at me.

With a broken roar, Erix jumped forward, striking down with his sword, but it sliced through Kelvar like water. While his image looked as solid as ever, there was nothing for Erix to strike down. No more enemies to fight.

“There’s no other way?” I asked.