Page 85 of Heart of the Desert

My own hackles rose, the predator lurking inside me rising to match her own. I had shed the name of the Viper like a snake shedding its skin, but it hadn’t been completely inaccurate. As we crossed sticks and leaned into each other, I froze, every muscle perfectly still as I readied to strike.

Aderyn stood over us, holding the ball above our heads. Keera grinned at me for one long second, and for a fleeting moment, nothing else in the world mattered—not the game of kaman or the war or the Heart—as long as I got to be on the receiving end of that smile.

Then the ball plummeted to the ground between us, and I lashed out. I rammed my shoulder into Keera’s, knocking the angle of her stick aside just enough to sweep the ball through my legs and to Dhara who waited behind me.

Keera wasted no time driving her elbow up under my ribs, pushing me back enough to slip by me. Warrick jumped into her path, and Dhara charged up toward the net at the far end of the field. Warrick and Keera locked their sticks together, Keera trying desperately to push past him as he brought his bigger bulk to bear. I was so distracted by the way Keera reared back, ready to slam her face into Warrick’s with reckless abandon, that I barely noticed Izumi running in from the side.

I lunged in front of her, successfully guarding Dhara, but it was too late. While Izumi distracted me, Badha slipped by me, swiping the ball out of Dhara’s control expertly. Izumi disentangled herself from me just in time to bat it away and run down the field in the opposite direction.

The game raged on, back and forth across the open field until the air was thick with dust and shouts. While some of the men from Doran had been hesitant at first, they eventually jumped in with fervor, exchanging bruises with clansmen like they were born to it. As I watched Keera charge after Elion down the field only to be nearly taken to the ground by Dhara, I mused that she had been right.

In the Ballan Desert, nothing bred trust and banished fear quite like the challenge of combat. When bloodshed was not an option—or at least more blood than was spilled by the occasional split lip—kaman seemed the next best alternative.

“Erix!” Warrick shouted, the only warning I was given of the ball now speeding in my direction, swiped away from Aderyn, who had been about to slap it toward the net. I raised my stick, ready to bat the ball toward our own end of the field, when Keera flew between me and it.

I took off after her, but she ran like the wind. Her hair came free of its braid and tickled my face as I chased her down. I might have longer legs, but Keera had the free spirit of the desert in her, and it carried her with incredible speed. The reckless abandon with which she did everything poured down the bond between us, spurring me on. Ten yards away from the net, I abandoned my stick entirely, giving up on stealing the ball away and intent on just stopping her.

I lunged forward, catching her around the waist. I tried to tackle Keera and pin her thrashing limbs beneath me, but she reared back. I overbalanced with the sudden shift of weight, and I crashed down onto my back with her on top of me.

The sudden press of her weight down onto me caused our bond to roar to life, demanding more loudly enough to drown out the shouts of the warriors around us—Keera had managed to bat the ball into the net just as I grabbed her.

I tightened my arms around her waist, keeping her pinned atop me as I desperately tried to suck in a breath. Both the force of my fall and my desperate need to roll Keera over and pin her beneath me made it hard to take in air. My madness may have calmed a touch, but it had not cooled my desperate need to lose myself in Keera with it.

She squirmed, I thought to get away, which made my mouth water and the predator in me rise again. Then I realized, as she got her arm free, she was trying to point. She gestured to a dark speck in the sky, black against the blazing orange of the setting sun.

“Is that Zephyr?” she asked, voice still breathless.

“No,” I said automatically. “We left him with Neven.”

“But—”

An eerily familiar screech split the air, and the hair on the back of my neck rose. I sat up, jostling Keera in my lap. The shape wheeled closer, revealing distinctive banded wings that approached at a frightening speed.

Zephyr nearly crashed into us, barely letting me get my arm up in time before he slumped down, having to dig in his talons to avoid falling off. Dust coated his rumpled feathers and he seemed to stagger, as if staying upright was too difficult for him.

“Why—it is too far to fly alone…” Keera started.

“Unless there was no other choice.” My heart sank as I took in the small, rolled piece of paper tied to his leg. It looked just like the desperate messages I had him carry to Keera again and again when we had been separated, to no avail.

This message had reached us, but fear filled me that it did not bring requests for peace but instead was a portent of violence.

As Zephyr swayed, Keera gently untied the paper from his leg. I did not have to see her face to feel the fear filling her as she read the words—it dripped down the tether between us, cold and bitter as their meaning sank in.

“It’s from Lord Koen. He and the other Clans have been under attack by Prince Calix and Viltov. They have evaded them until now by staying on the move, but they have sustained many injuries in their retreat, and he says he has foreseen a battle that can no longer be avoided. If you do not return soon, there may be nothing to return to.”

Cold washed over my body as Keera stood, both from her words and the loss of her proximity. We were out of time. If we could not save the clans from Calix’s attack, then we surely would not be able to retake the city.

Dhara stopped before us, the blood rushing from her face making her tan complexion look gray. The fire in her eyes still burned but now tinged icy with the realities of the message, “We need to return, and with an army in tow.”

Aderyn stopped in front of Keera, stick forgotten and hanging limply at her side. “Neven…” she murmured quietly as she stared at the letter in Keera’s hand, as if she could hear his voice through the paper if she just listened hard enough.

I pushed to my feet beside Keera. “We must ride out to help the other Clans—Otush, Tibel, Vecturna and Jal—who need our aid in the fight against Doran.” I spoke loudly, so that the large crowd of riders gathered around could all hear me clearly.

A rush of whispers, sounding like the hiss of the ocean over the next rise, ran through the onlookers. The sound was full of both apprehension and uncertainty.

“The plan was to retake Kelvadan,” Warrick spoke up. “Would it not be wise to turn our attention toward retaking the city and driving out Viltov while their attention is turned to the other clans?”

My blood heated. I would not sacrifice half the clans to death after I had just convinced the riders of the desert to stand as one. I opened my mouth to say as much, but Keera stepped forward before anybody could speak. The fire had not faded from her eyes after the game of kaman, and now it flared hot as the sun. I did not know how Warrick did not flinch away from it. Pride swelled in my chest as she lifted her chin—gone was the doubt of a woman who feared she had failed as queen.