Page 2 of Heart of the Desert

Once again, Keera and I found ourselves torn in two.

Summoned by my thoughts—and likely awoken by my tumultuous emotions—the air shifted as Keera approached. She stepped up beside me. Slowly but firmly, she slid her hand into mine and squeezed.

I squeezed back. The scrape of the barely healed cut across my palm mirrored the scratch of her own. We had made each other a promise when we sliced our hands and joined our blood together in the sand.

We would face these challenges together. As husband and wife.

Wife. The term echoed through my mind at odd intervals as I watched her sleep, or as we rode side by side, patrolling the sands for approaching bone spiders. It was a strange comfort to be able to put a word to the way our destinies were bound together, even if they had started intertwining themselves before I even knew her name. Our blood had mixed, and our burdens were now shared, even if one lay at the foot of the mountains and the other at the edge of the ocean.

I grimaced, pulling my face away from Alza’s. Once again, the desert sought to tear the bond it had gifted us asunder, even as we grasped it tighter.

“I’m happy to see Cail eating,” Keera said by way of good morning.

My gaze drifted over to the dappled mare, whose head was indeed bent over a trough of arrowgrass. The protrusions of her hipbones were sharper than they should be, though, and the reminder of why she had stopped eating brought a hollow ache to the pit of my stomach.

My father was gone. Part of me wondered if Cail blamed herself for being the mount he had sat on when the arrow pierced his chest—or maybe the horses he had always loved so much felt the hole his death left as much as I did.

I tightened my grip on Keera’s hand. He had beseeched me with his dying breath to be the leader he had hoped me to be. But I still floundered, called to fulfill the purpose I had sworn myself to at the ocean while pulled backward by the suffering in Kelvadan.

“The spy Lord Dhara sent should be back in the next day or two.” Keera broke the silence again, a clear attempt to pull me from my swirling thoughts. “Once we have more information on what has become of Kelvadan, we can make a plan.”

I nodded, but I feared I already knew what had to be done. “We will decide then,” I agreed anyway.

“For now, we must go out and hunt,” Keera said. It almost brought a smile to my lips, despite my melancholy mood, to hear her focus on survival remaining so steadfast despite the chaos of recent weeks. Keera was strong, and she would endure no matter what fate lay ahead, for me or the desert.

“I thought I might have seen some oryx on the horizon,” I agreed. “We should be able to ensure that several stewpots have meat tonight.”

With that, we both turned to gather our supplies and trek out into the sands.

Chapter two

Keera

The bow in my hand and Daiti’s careful, stalking steps only barely scratched the itch that lingered beneath my skin. Still, it was better than sitting quietly with Aderyn at Neven’s bedside, or wandering around the encampment, shying away under the weight of questioning looks.

Erix and I had told Dhara, Elion, and the other lords what had befallen Kelvadan. That I was a fallen queen would be no secret among the clansmen that lived in this encampment. I did not know what the riders made of it—whether it made me an enemy or simply a curiosity—and I was not brave enough to try and decipher their reactions.

The weight of my own judgement was heavy enough that I did not think I could bear the derision of others piled atop it. I had failed the first home I had ever known, and it would break my heart to be denied a chance at another home among the clans.

Somehow, it would hurt even worse to be accepted with open arms. Another home would mean another chance to fail my people.

At least when I lived in exile, the only person my failure could hurt was myself.

A slight pulse in the flow of magic in my core drew my attention—my one reminder that I would never be truly alone again. I glanced over at Erix, who jerked his head to the side without speaking.

The herd of oryx we had been tracking lingered over a rise, near a patch of green that signaled a natural well. I kneed Daiti in their direction, pulling an arrow from the quiver on my back.

My aim was not as good as Erix’s, but it had already improved in our brief time with the clans. I went out hunting as often as I could, trying to provide for the ones who had taken us in in what ways I could. If both of us could shoot before the herd scattered, we might be able to take more than one kill back to the encampment.

The silken feather fletching tickled my fingers as I notched the arrow—a donation from Zephyr. I drew the string and picked a target, grimacing as I took aim. We had been lucky to find a herd, but the creatures were clearly struggling as much as the clansmen. Patchy coats and protruding bones spoke to rough foraging amongst the already sparse and tough grasses of the desert.

A slight creak of wood marked Erix drawing his bow on Alza’s back beside me. I didn’t have to look at him for the signal to loose, knowing I would feel it in the strange awareness of him that lived in my belly.

The oryx I aimed at lifted its head as if startled, even though neither of us released our arrows. Then it bolted. I hastily let fly, but the arrow whistled through the air where the animal had stood a moment before. It was gone, the rest of the haggard herd fleeing as well.

“Burning sands,” I cursed, squeezing my thighs around Daiti to spur him into a chase. We couldn’t afford a failed hunt.

I reared back so quickly, I might have fallen off Daiti’s back if he hadn’t shifted under me as an arrow whizzed in front of me, inches from my nose. The wind of its passing rustled a loose curl near my face.