Page 7 of Heart of the Desert

“Keera,” my voice nearly cracked, and I cupped her face. Her golden eyes were overbright with worry, and I stared, trying to memorize their molten patterns—the furrow between her brows and the stubborn set of her jaw even in the face of the inevitable. “I have to go,” I admitted.

“I know,” Keera murmured softly, not as sad as I thought she might be.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you save Kelvadan. I’m sorry I have to break so many promises to you. But if I don’t take the Heart to the ocean now, it might be too late.”

“Kelvadan is part of the desert, you know,” she said, covering my hands with her own as I cupped her face. “We must heal the desert in order to save the city and the clans.”

“Then you know I would not leave you willingly,” I impressed upon her. I might carry the desert’s Heart, but mine would be left with Keera.

She pried my hand from her face, holding it in her own, slotting our palms together so the twin cuts across them aligned.

“You will not be leaving me. I will be coming with you,” she declared.

I blinked. “But Kelvadan…”

She squared her shoulders. “I chose you. And when our blood mixed and fell to the sand, I heard the ocean. I know you did too. That is where our destiny lies.”

Despite the storm brewing under my skin, vibrating the threads of power that ran through me and tangled with Keera’s own flow of magic, a light crested on the horizon of my mind. Hope was a stubborn thing, as hard to kill as the flora of the desert. It would be brown and brittle, and I was sure it was dead. But one touch from Keera, like the rare rain of the desert, and it would spring to life once more, proving that it had never really left.

“We will return to help save Kelvadan,” I promised. I wasn’t sure if it was a promise I would be able to keep, but Keera could certainly join the fight once more, if Kelvadan had not been retaken by the time we finished our arduous journey to the ocean.

Now, Keera’s shoulders did slump slightly. “I’m not sure I am the right person to retake Kelvadan anyway. I was the one who failed her. Uniting enemies and leading a city—I’ve already proven I’m not up to the task. But journeying across the desert with you and braving the wilds to face down impossible odds with just our wits and our swords?” Now, she smiled slightly, although her expression remained sad. “That, we have done before.”

In that long journey to face the lava wyrm, she had told me she wanted to see the ocean one day. It was the hardest of journeys, but nobody appreciated the desert’s danger quite like Keera.

I used our still clasped hands to pull her closer to me, holding her to my chest and tucking her head under my chin. She smelled of sunshine and earth.

“Together, we will restore the Heart.”

For the first time since escaping Kelvadan, I stayed in our tent past dawn. I thought it might be easier to tear myself away from Keera’s side now, knowing that we would wake up together for many more mornings as we made the long ride to the ocean. Somehow, though, knowing we would not be parted—that she had chosen to stay by my side despite the growing storm in my mind—made it even harder to loosen my hold on her.

She lay burrowed into my chest, hands braced on my bare torso as her even breaths tickled my skin. My arms wound around her waist, keeping her pressed flush to me as we lay on our sides, legs tangled together. Usually, she slept with her hair in a braid to keep the wild waves from getting too hopelessly knotted, but last night she had fallen asleep with me running my hands reverently through the strands. Now it lay in a tangled mess, spread out behind her and draped across her face. The side of her scalp that had been burned bare now had an inch or so of hair covering it, while the rest grew long and wild. Some wayward strands even stuck to my own face, seeming intent on finding their way into my mouth.

I didn’t care.

She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and she wiggled as wakefulness approached. The moment was so peaceful and achingly sweet, that it was hard to remember the dark shadows that lurked at the edges of my mind and the trials that awaited us. Still, as my mind awakened further, they crept in.

We needed to be ready.

I kissed her head once more, before carefully untangling myself.

She grunted in protest.

“Rest,” I insisted. I wanted to be sure that any of the illness lingering from her poisoning was gone before we set out into the sands. “I’m going to practice my forms.”

At that, her eyes fluttered open. They were somehow simultaneously bleary and bright. “I’ll come too.”

My heart jumped. We hadn’t done our forms together in far too long.

We were quiet as we gathered up our swords and pulled on our boots. The silence was companionable as I pulled on my tunic and tabards while Keera shrugged on a vest and belted it around her waist.

The camp was waking up as we padded to the outskirts where we could have open space and privacy in which to practice. We didn’t need to speak as we both took our opening stances, facing away from the tents and gazing out at the endless horizon.

That horizon was where our path would take us—to the edge of existence and beyond, until the desert saw fit to lead us to the ocean.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose, and we began moving in unison. I did not need to look at her to know Keera moved through the deep lunges and practiced guards at the same pace as I. Her magic flowed through the air around us, spilling off her skin in waves in time with my breathing.