Page 30 of Heart of the Desert

“Go after Aderyn!”

I had no time to argue with her as a torrent of earth fell between us. I dived out of the way, only narrowly avoiding being completely buried as I was coated in a layer of sand and earth. The last thing I saw was Keera’s wide golden eyes, almost glowing in the dim light of the torch before it was snuffed out, and I was left in the darkness as Aderyn’s retreating screams echoed in my ears.

Chapter ten

Keera

Iwas alone in the blackness. Even the sound of Aderyn’s scream and Erix’s wordless shout of frustration was gone, replaced by my own ragged breathing. It grated harshly in the oppressive silence.

I squeezed my eyes shut, not that it made that much of a difference in the darkened tunnel. There was nothing but my own hammering heartbeat. Nobody would hear me if I screamed, and no one would find my body if I were to die right here, crushed in a mountain of earth. My lungs tightened, and I snapped my eyes open again.

Forcing myself to take a couple of deep breaths, I reasoned with my baser instincts. I hoped Erix had gone after Aderyn. She was in immediate danger, while I was simply separated from the group.

I was good at surviving on my own.

I needed to find Dhara and Aderyn and get out of this death trap. They wouldn’t be in this labyrinthine nest if it wasn’t for me. Without my mistakes, Aderyn would still be safe in Kelvadan, leading as she was meant to.

No, it was fitting I was the one left alone.

Still, I reached for the fiber connecting me to Erix—practically a rope of tangled strings at this point—and felt him on the other end. His presence was enough to give me some semblance of hope, however small, even as I felt him moving physically even farther away.

I needed to find Dhara and figure out another way around to help him and Aderyn.

With great difficulty, I began to move from my half-kneeled, half-crouched posture. There was very little room to maneuver in the cramped quarters, but I would need to head further into the smaller tunnel.

While I could try to move the earth that had separated me from Erix, I knew neither he nor I would have the control to do so carefully. With the way Erix’s power seemed to detonate every time he called it forth, I had no doubt he could blast the obstacle out of the way, but he would likely cave in the entire tunnel system in the process, burying all of us who were trapped down here. I shuddered at the thought.

I suspected I would have a similar problem, despite my control being tighter than his these days. My magic jumped forward like a fresh colt every time I called on it, despite my control having improved over time. Erix’s volatility did not leave me unaffected, just as I had dragged him into unexpected flares of magic in the days when we first started sharing dreams.

So, for now, I made do with contorting myself around and crawling further into the darkness. Perhaps I could find another way around to the others. Although, I would have to be quick and quiet to avoid attracting a whole brood of tricriths. As the earthen ceiling of the tunnel scraped my back, and I took in the oddly dank smell—unlike the dry dusty scent of the surface far above me—I tried to puzzle out the purpose of such a small tunnel.

My fingers dug into the ground below me at the memory of the oddly translucent white of the tricriths we had seen earlier. They must not have been fully grown, which meant these tunnels were for young.

They were breeding.

Nausea roiled in my gut at the thought of even more armored legs, all scrabbling and crawling over one another, and I forced myself to keep moving. The tunnel twisted, and while it was hard to tell with no point of reference, I felt as if I was crawling downhill. The thought of descending further into the earth made my skin crawl, but I had no choice.

The path ahead was dangerous, but there was no going back.

Dirt fell into my hair and dusted my clothes as the way got narrower and narrower, hugging my ribs until I thought I would not be able to make it any further. Then, just as it was becoming difficult to breathe past my panic, the tunnel suddenly flared wide.

The walls around me disappeared, stealing my breath away with them at the sudden change. I squinted into the darkness, wishing I had one of Aderyn’s torches. Still, I managed to make out that I was in a sort of large chamber made out of a myriad of intersecting pathways.

I scanned the space, only to freeze as my eyes caught on a huge shape huddled in the corner. My breath stilled in my lungs as I pressed myself against the wall at my back, praying to the sands that the tricrith had not noticed me yet.

Perhaps I could duck back into the smaller tunnel where a beast of that size would not be able to follow me, although then I could find myself trapped with no other exits. Bile rose in my throat, and I shied away from that option.

My heart hammered as I stood paralyzed, not wanting to move and attract its attention if I had not already given myself away. Long moments stretched and my panicked adrenaline began to morph into confusion.

Was it sleeping?

I wasn’t even sure if they did sleep. I knew little of these beasts—did not know if they had the same needs as other creatures. Just as the bone spiders seemed to defy all natural laws and lava wyrms disobeyed the rules of survival by abandoning their young, tricriths seemed like anomalies.

Where people and horses were sparks of light in the magical landscape of the desert, the risen beasts of legend felt like specks of blackness, destroying the life around them. I carefully reached out a mental hand. While my magic jerked, wanting to barrel through all obstructions toward Erix, I forced it to reach for the still tricrith.

There was nothing there.

Not the consuming darkness I had felt around the lava wyrm or the gravehawk. Just… nothing.