Page 44 of Heart of the Desert

Finally, I fell to my knees on the ground, panting as tears stung the back of my eyes.

I was utterly and truly isolated in a way that I hadn’t been since the day that Erix stumbled upon my oasis. He was gone, and I didn’t even know how to begin searching for him, although I sensed that wherever I was, geography made even less sense than it normally did in the desert. Even if my friends were right beside me, they might as well be leagues away in this fog.

I did not know who I had chased, but a deep sadness filled my chest that I hadn’t been able to reach them. I had failed in my chance to save myself from loneliness. The back of my eyes burned. I would die here the way I had spent too much of my life: Alone.

“Keera.”

I spun on the ground, heart leaping into my throat.

Then it stopped as I stared into a familiar face, all too similar to my own—heart-shaped with a strong brow, although deep brown replaced my own golden eyes.

“Mother?”

“I found you,” she started, and although her tone was neutral, the words plucked at something I had thought lost within me. I scrabbled to my feet, only to nearly topple to the ground again when she spoke again. “I’d hoped you had died.”

Her dark gaze was steely, and I swallowed. “Why?”

I hated how my voice sounded—it was that of a young girl, so far from the queen and warrior I had become. I tried to stand tall, telling myself she was just an apparition of the fog, but she seemed too solid. Details that had faded in my memory with time and the warped perspective of youth were sharp and perfect. Perhaps she was really here.

“You’re destined to be alone,” my mother said. “You will fail everybody that tries to accept you. And even if I know I was right to leave you, I had hoped you wouldn’t suffer.”

I bared my teeth. “You’re the one who deserves to suffer.”

She didn’t speak again, instead turning away and walking into the mist. I stood frozen for a moment, watching her leave me in isolation for the second time in my life. The bone deep sadness I felt though was washed away by a tide of anger, rising up from the well in my gut until it almost drowned me.

My sword came free of its sheathe with a metallic shink, the sound nearly swallowed by the heavy silence of the mist. I charged into the fog after her, ready to vent all my fury and frustration upon her.

I ran, but once again, her receding shadow grew no closer. I pushed harder until my muscles screamed, only for my foot to hit something hard and unexpected. My breath was punched from my chest as I sprawled across a hard stone floor, and my saber flew from my hand. It skittered loudly across the ground, only to be stopped by a brown leather boot.

I looked from where I lay on the floor, dread making it hard to regain my breath. My gaze trailed over a loose white shirt, unlaced just a little too far, to a smiling face that made my blood run cold.

“Calix,” I spat.

“It’s King Calix now,” he responded nonchalantly. “Sounds better than prince ever did.”

I shook with fury as I pushed to my hands and knees, and he chuckled. The sound was as warm and friendly as ever, making me hate him even more. Even when I knew he was the enemy, I couldn’t read the menace in his behavior.

“I always knew you would bow to me in the end,” he observed, nodding at my position.

I snarled. “I would rather die than let you remain on the throne of Kelvadan.”

He picked my saber up off the ground as I struggled to my feet, pointing it at me. I was inclined to make good on my promise. After all, my own mother had said she wished me dead—maybe I could die in a way that proved I didn’t deserve to be alone after all—in a way that would be remembered more favorably than I was when I was alive.

I leapt forward, ready to strangle Calix even if it killed me—but a strong hand on my shoulder held me back. It gripped impossibly firm, but somehow also gently.

I whirled around, ready to find my mother again. To point out to her that this is what she wanted.

It was my mother, but it wasn’t. It looked nothing like her at all, but somehow mother was still the first word that came to mind. She was impossibly beautiful, but I couldn’t describe how she looked if I tried. From her hair color to her eye color, her features seemed to shift every time I tried to focus on them, but I knew I looked at the most breathtaking and most deadly woman I had ever seen.

“Your death will not be in vain,” she said. It was a voice I had heard before, but I didn’t know where. Her tone was both deeply comforting and carried a great threat. “You must find him before all is lost.”

Then she was gone. I blinked, seeing only mist. I pivoted on my heel, seeing no sign of the strange woman or Calix or my mother. It was as if they had never been there at all. When I thought back on Erix’s tales of crossing the desert before—his stories of harrowing visions of the desert falling into the ocean at his hand—I realized they likely had only existed in my own mind.

Still, the warmth of the woman’s touch on my shoulder lingered, and I rubbed at it as I bent to pick up my sword where it now lay on the ground.

That’s when I heard it. Shouts in the distance, growing louder and more desperate. I had no doubt this voice was real. The impression was only reinforced by the tether I could feel quivering to life in my belly after being silent through the whole ordeal.

Erix.