Page 18 of Heart of the Desert

“Perhaps the journey to the ocean is one better not taken alone,” Elion chimed in.

“We weren’t alone,” Lord Dhara said, her voice sharp. “There were three of us.”

Lord Elion shrugged, I thought I saw his brow furrow in disappointment. With the dim light and the bandage wrapped around his forehead to cover his head wound, it was hard to say.

“Our journey has not been easy so far, and we would have died today if we had not found each other,” Aderyn admitted. “Perhaps we should continue on together.”

I looked around the group—five of the finest warriors in the entire desert. Three of my four companions had already saved my life on more than one occasion. And Elion—despite my habitual difficulty reading people, something told me he would not hesitate to lay his life down for Dhara.

I swallowed thickly. My instincts told me that traveling together would be safer and give us a better chance of reaching the ocean. My instincts had brought me to ruin recently, but in the wilds, I had no choice but to trust them.

“Let’s ride together.”

My heart stuttered as I said the words, hoping this wasn’t the wrong choice for Kelvadan—that I wasn’t pulling Aderyn and Elion away from the city under occupation.

“We better get some rest,” Erix pointed out. “It’s a long way to the ocean.”

Chapter seven

Erix

The sun beat down on us with searing intensity, and I grimaced. Sweat dripped down my spine continuously, pooling in the small of my back. I was no stranger to heat—it was a constant companion in the desert. Today, though, felt like standing in a forge. It was all the more jarring given that the nights for the past week had been cold enough to make my teeth chatter and Keera huddle so close she nearly crawled inside my skin.

There was no escape from the temperature either, as the baked earth stretched endlessly in every direction, with no shade in sight. The air shimmered as I squinted at the horizon, willing a green splotch of date palms to appear to no avail. The waving undulations of the air only made the sense of movement at the edge of my vision worse—and my mind unhelpfully supplied me with the idea that Kelvar was hiding just out of my line of sight, ready to jump forward and push me further toward madness. I squeezed my eyes shut against both the troubling thoughts and the headachy pounding in my head. The tingling in my throat and the metal on my tongue lingered at the edge of my awareness.

Alza’s head hung as she plodded along. The others didn’t seem to be faring much better. All the horses nearly dragged their hooves as they put one foot in front of the other. Their riders only seemed slightly more energetic, as Lord Dhara appeared to waver, while Aderyn sat upright with her jaw so tight, it was clear she was mustering every ounce of her considerable self-discipline to not shrivel in the intensity of the sun.

“Stop,” Keera said, breaking the heavy silence. “The horses can’t keep going like this.”

Daiti snuffled quietly as if to prove her point. While the stallion was always the first to prance about and make his opinions known with stubborn aloofness, even he seemed defeated. Keera, however, seemed to be faring the best of the humans. While her cheeks were ruddy with fresh sunburn, her golden eyes held more light than I felt in my own.

“We can’t stop without shade,” Lord Elion pointed out.

“No, we can’t,” Keera agreed. “But we can lessen the burden on the horses. We can walk.”

We looked among ourselves dubiously. The horses were tired, but walking would slow us considerably. Perhaps too much to reach shelter by nightfall. A horse going lame would delay us even further, though.

Keera cleared her throat, and I felt a shiver of something like uncertainty through the bond at the base of my skull. Still, she squared her shoulders, and I too bore the weight she lifted them against—the fear that our choices would lead others to ruin. I pushed my own strength against her for just a moment, worried any more would strain against her magic’s control while trying to silently encourage her.

“We can’t let anything happen to the horses. Being stuck in the wilds without a mount is a death sentence.”

The bitterness of her words coated my own tongue and knew she spoke from experience. I dismounted first, patting Alza in thanks for carrying me this far already.

The others followed, but Aderyn still looked concerned. “We will be slower on foot, and that will make us less likely to find water by nightfall.”

Keera set her lips in a grim line. “You’d be surprised how far you can make it on foot.”

We set out doggedly. My boots crunched against the hard earth, and the heat was enough to make it feel like I was moving through water, my limbs heavy and unwieldy. We trudged along slowly for what felt like hours, but Keera had been right.

By the time the sun flirted with the horizon at our backs, Alza held her head up once more, and her eyes were brighter. We would all need our mounts in good condition for many more weeks.

Still, as the fiery orange of sunset melted into the muted gray of twilight, we looked around us in dismay. Nothing that might provide shelter broke the flat stretch of earth we traversed. Camping out in the open, we could be seen for miles by any predators who might surface in the cooler hours of night. There wasn’t even any brush we could collect to burn for a fire.

A pang of anxiety slipped down the tether in my gut, and I glanced over to find Keera looking around desperately, as if she could make a better campsite appear from thin air.

I halted. “I’ve camped out in the open without a fire before. We will be able to protect ourselves.”

There were few parties in the desert more capable of protecting themselves than the five of us. I turned to start unloading packs from Alza’s back, and the others did the same. I ran my hands over her muscles as I did so, checking for any signs of illness or injury. While her sides were damp with sweat, she did not tremble with exhaustion the way she had before I dismounted.