Page 116 of Heart of the Desert

Kelvar shook his head solemnly.

“You knew. You knew this whole time,” Erix accused.

“I had my suspicions. But I was not certain until the desert finally broke free and made her demand,” he admitted.

Erix looked toward the ceiling, shouting into the air. “Take me. I’ll die instead.”

No. The failure to accept death lies in your own blood. You must make the sacrifice.

The whole tower seemed to shake with anger. Even in the odd quiet that blanketed the room, I could hear the intensity of the chaos crecendoing outside. We were running out of time.

I had faced a sacrificial death at Erix’s hands once before; then, something had told me to be still. To wait. It had seemed to tell me something more important was coming. That feeling filled me again. For a fleeting hysterical moment, I wondered if none of this would have happened—if Lord Alasdar was right all along—and Erix sacrificing me to the desert that night would have healed it then and there.

It might have been easier, not loving him yet, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret any of it. Not a single moment of pain, or a single drop of blood spilled. It had all been worth it to have the time we had shared. But now it was at an end.

Something had driven me to survive for years in exile, and I realized now that it was because my death was to have a grander purpose.

“Erix,” I murmured, looking up at him from where I still knelt on the ground. He turned away from Kelvar, looking down at me in horror.

“It’s all right,” I assured him.

I had known before I set out for this battle that I may never return. Dying here, looking into Erix’s eyes was a far better death than I may have faced on the battlefield. One flick of Erix’s wrist and everybody would be safe. Aderyn and her baby, Elion and Dhara, Badha and Izumi—and Erix. He would live on without the madness of the desert consuming him, and that would be worth it.

I would die for the home I had always dreamed of.

“No,” he insisted.

But I grabbed the tip of his sword that dangled by his side after his futile attacks against Kelvar, and I brought it to my chest. I placed the tip right beneath my breastbone. Kelvar stood silently behind him, giving us this time, but I knew it couldn’t last forever.

“We knew there would be a test,” I said, and despite how sure I was, my voice shook and tears began to burn behind my eyes. “You yourself have said before that you felt like the desert was testing you to let go of me.”

“You said together. At the ocean, I promised I would never tear us apart again. I won’t.” He insisted, trying to pull his sword out of my grasp, but I held firm, even as my hand shook and blood welled between my fingers.

I could do this. I could be brave enough for both of us. “This is different. This is my choice. We’re not being torn apart; it’s letting go.”

“I cannot let you go. I’ll let the whole world collapse around us before I kill you,” he declared, but now, screams were penetrating the peaceful bubble of the tower, and his words wavered. The horrors of the desert wreaked havoc outside, and every single citizen of the desert would perish if we didn’t do something. The answer was clear, as painful as it was.

I shook my head and tears spilled out of my eyes, to roll down my cheeks from the motion. “You’re a better, stronger person than you’ve always liked to believe. It is why you had to hide your face to do evil—because it wasn’t you.”

Now Erix’s hand was trembling, but as I let go of his sword, he didn’t lower it. His eyes were as bright as the stars and his jaw was tight. I traced the lines of his face with my gaze, hoping I’d be allowed to keep the memory in death. And if not, then my blood would remember, and when the desert drank it and was sated, she would remember it forever too.

“It was worth it. Thank you for giving me the chance to live again, after just surviving for too long. I go to my death knowing I am loved, and that is the greatest gift of all,” I told him.

“I can’t” he murmured, his voice barely more than a gravelly rasp forced out of a tight throat.

“I’ll help you.”

Erix knew what I was going to do. The storm raged under his skin and spilled into the air around him—the grief and anger pulling him apart. But he didn’t lower his sword.

“Live, so that your love for me can live on too,” I commanded him. And then I fell forward onto his saber—Kelvar’s saber.

I braced myself for pain, but it didn’t come. Instead, an odd sort of numbness overcame my body, creeping out from my chest to my fingertips. Erix’s face twisted in horror, but his voice came muted, as if from the end of a very long tunnel as he called my name.

The world twisted sideways, and I realized I was falling over, but Erix let go of his sword to catch me in his arms. I could still feel them around me, but it was as if the feeling were muffled by a cloud, soft and fluffy.

I looked dazedly up at his eyes as cold overtook my skin. So much of the desert’s anger was hot; it was odd that death would be the opposite. Bright tears filled Erix’s eyes as he cradled me, spilling over his cheeks like drops of silver.

Somehow, I could see them in perfect clarity even as the world started to melt away around me. All that was left was Erix. The other half of my soul living on.