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“It’s not amusing. He’s still weak.”
Draven’s mood darkened. “His actions led to hundreds of deaths and the destruction of your home. He can suffer a little sand.”
Larkhadsuffered. Scars mottled his body, but most of his scars were deeper, hidden in his eyes, visible only when he thought nobody was watching. “Draven, he’s paid, many times over.”
“He lost a finger,” he grunted. “How does that in any way make up for it?”
“He’s lost more than that.” I wasn’t going to be drawn into an argument and started down the dune after Lark, hearing Draven skidding behind me.
Draven didn’t know Lark like I did—I was beginning to suspect nobody did—and I only knew Lark because he’d shown me tiny pieces of himself, the smallest hints of his truth, hidden under all the lies, the acts, the drama. I’d slowly, carefully, put all those pieces together. He cared. I knew his heart, despite him guarding it so fiercely it sometimes appeared as though he didn’t have one.
“Are we going to survive this?” I asked Draven, lowering my voice so Lark, several paces ahead, didn’t hear.
Draven caught my hand and drew me to a halt. “Arin, I won’t let anything happen to you. We’ll survive, or I wouldn’t have brought you this way. We could have done with some water, and supplies, and—”
“—a kareel, apparently.”
His smile cracked dried sand from his cheek. “Trust me?”
“I do.” But I was afraid and didn’t want him or Lark seeing it. I was supposed to be the one who never gave up on hope, the Prince of Love! All I’d been lately was the Prince of Failure.
I’d planned to assassinate Razak and had failed, making everythingworse. Before that, I’d plotted for years to weed Razak’s influence out of my court and failed there too.
Draven squeezed my fingers, trying to convey how he’d keep me safe, but if it hadn’t been for me, he’d still have a home, a court. He’d lost everything too, because I’d dragged him into my pursuit of vengeance on Razak.
The soft understanding on his face turned my insides. He was a good man, and I’d ruined him, like I’d ruined my court.
I tugged my hand from Draven’s and marched up the dune to Lark, already waiting at the top, breathing hard. “Take a moment,” I told him.
“You don’t need to slow for me. Draven’s right, we must keep moving.” Lark heaved himself onward, deliberately outpacing me again until I marched alone, stranded between him and Draven.
Although, Draven soon caught up. “He’s angry,” he muttered, with Lark far ahead of us.
“He’s angry Razak won.”
“But he didn’t win,” Draven replied, expression muddled. “Razak didn’t get the crown. And he’s still behind bars. He’s still a prisoner.”
“Exactly where he wants to be,” I said, echoing Lark’s words.
I knew Lark was furious, because that fury lived in me too. Razak had slipped through our fingers. But it was more than that. It was personal, because I’d vowed to save Lark, and Razak had taken him, hurt him, cut another finger off, choked him, and worse, considering the pale scar on his wrist. I should have stopped it. I hadn’t then, but I would now. I’d keep Lark safe. We were together now, and I’d keep him at my side. Razak couldn’t have him back, ever.
“Is he going in the right direction?” I nodded toward Lark striding across the top of a dune.
Draven’s hand settled on my shoulder, stopping my progress, and he pointed ahead of Lark, at the stars in the sky. “You see those three stars there, just above Lark?”
I saw a whole lot of stars above Lark. “There’s many.”
He leaned closer, and his warmth chased the desert cold away. “The three making up a pyramid?”
I rested against his arm, shivers subsiding. Three stars in a row winked above Lark. “Oh, I see them.”
“If we track under them, before they dip below the horizon, we should arrive by morning.”
“Arrive where exactly?”
“A trading camp, you’ll see.”
“And then what? What do we do then?” I turned my head and found his face intimately close. His dark eyes widened, pupils filling, absorbing starlight. We were as close now as we’d been in his bed—how many nights had it been since we’d lain together? It felt like days, months even. So much had changed. I’d been angry at Lark, afraid, and hurt by the news he was Razak’s brother. Draven had been there and willing, and… It had been right at the time, but now I wasn’t sure.
