Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty Nine
Iwoke early the following morning to daylight streaming in through the cracks of the poorly constructed stables. Groaning, I rolled from the hay, rubbing my eyes tiredly before the sound of soft snoring grabbed my attention.
A smile curved my lips as I stepped lightly to stand before a sleeping Roan, his back leaning against the entrance of the stables, his legs stretched out and crossed before him, so anyone who entered would have to step over him.
Nudging him gently with the toe of my boot, I raised a brow as his eyes shot open, immediately landing on me.
"What are you doing out here?" I asked, amusement coloring my tone.
Shifting, he stretched out his arms. A sleepy, annoyed look screwed up his face.
“Someone got into a fight and was banished to sleep with the reptiles.
" As I opened my mouth for a retort, he was on his feet in an instant, his form towering.
"I wasn't going to have you sleeping out here alone, little menace.
Especially not with those men still roaming the town. "
My throat was dry as I took a step back, creating a bit of distance between. “How do you know they didn't leave?"
He shrugged, that infuriating smirk settling on his lips. "I have my ways."
Snorting, I made my way back to the stalls. “Must you always be so mysterious? Are we not friends?"
He was silent as I approached Aziza's stall, running a hand down the nose of the Tolokok who had awoken during our exchange. “You ready to be back in the desert, you grump?"
The only response I received was a swishing of the Tolokok’s tail, her beady gaze following my every move.
I turned as Roan approached from behind, breath stilling as my eyes locked with his, his hand reaching towards me. Anticipation shifted to confusion when his deft fingers plucked something from my hair. A teasing grin formed upon his face when he pulled away, a few strands of hay in his grasp.
My eyes narrowed as I shoved him away, muttering beneath my breath as I combed through my black tresses to remove any more.
"Are we friends?"
The question was said with a gentle hesitancy that had me stilling.
I looked up once more to see that green and silver stare boring into me, unraveling me bit by bit.
Were we? The question was a fair one, one that I should easily have answered.
Yet under his watchful eyes, the intrigue written all over his face, my tongue felt tied.
Too heavy to voice those answers, too afraid to break the tentative tension that was our relationship.
"Syra!" Gianni's voice called out, startling me from the trance I'd fallen into as he and the rest of the group entered the stables. Their steps slowed as they took us in. Amusement lit his dark eyes as he slowly asked, "are we interrupting?"
"No." I answered quickly.
"Yes." Roan grumbled at the same time.
A nervous laugh slipped past my lips at the contradiction, my brows raising in question at Roan. He merely shrugged, crossing his arms.
"Okay…" Kairen drawled out, before giving me a smile. “Let's try not to make any more trouble today, agreed?"
Eyes twinkling, I strode to my bed of hay, grabbing the journal before I tossed it to him. "I don't know Prince, perhaps I should make more trouble, seeing as it gave us exactly what we need."
Rena curiously peered over her cousin's shoulder, Bran crowding in too as Kairen began to flip through the pages.
"Is this..." his golden eyes were wide as he looked up in shock, his words trailing off.
"A collection of tales and fables from around the continent? Yes, yes it is." My grin was pure satisfaction. “And I've marked a particularly interesting passage with some hay for you all."
His elegant fingers quickly opened to the page, a wrinkle forming between his brows as he read, eyes widening the further he got. Rena and Bran read from over his shoulder as Roan leaned back against the stall door, his face blank as stone.
"Have you read this?" Kairen asked incredulously, glancing at his friend. When Roan shook his head, he tossed him the journal. It took only a minute for Roan to get through the tale, his own shock evident when he finished.
"Have you ever heard anything of the Demon Princes once being Gods themselves?" I questioned.
"Never," Kairen murmured back. “They teach that the Goddesses came after the Great Weeping of the Skies, but it's never once been mentioned that the skies wept for fallen Gods. Only that it was a natural disaster that flooded the land and the Goddesses were born to restore and save humanity. That people from all over were called by some magical instinct to settle upon the land and help repopulate, to serve Soli and Lua. In return they were blessed with the gift of magic.”
Bran rubbed a hand across the stubble that grew on his chin, his warm eyes intense with hesitance. “It could just be a story, meant to intrigue or scare tavern patrons. Told to fill the coin bags of those who tell the tale."
I shook my head, "I don't think so," a frown tugging at my lips. "I'm not sure how to explain, but it doesn't just feel like a story."
"Perhaps at least part of it could be true?" Rena thoughtfully suggested, taking the journal from Roan as she began to flip through it herself.
"I hate to break up whatever," Gianni gestured between us all, "this Demon Prince talk is, but we need to get saddled up and head out. I want to get as far as we can before the heat amps up."
He turned back, hesitating, before he said, “My people have been stewards of this land long before Lua or Soli ruled from high above. Long before settlers came and we began to share the deserts and the northern forests. While we are Solerian, our ancestral stories have passed down generation by generation. The Old Gods are no longer remembered by most, but their tales are still sung late in the night. I do not know if they are the Demon Princes, but they did exist. Once.”
Silence reigned and he continued, “I do not know where they went or what became of them. If they truly fell in the Great Weeping or if they simply stopped existing when the prayers became few and far between, I suppose it depends on whether you believe any God can truly just vanish? I do hope that book of fables helps with whatever you’re searching for. ”
The pace was once again brutal as Gianni guided us over sandy dune after sandy dune. How the man could possibly have a bearing on where we were or what direction we traveled was beyond my comprehension. I simply wished we could arrive at Amareshi as soon as humanly possible.
Sweat was ever present, even when I thought my body would have no water left to give.
My thighs began to ache within a few hours of resuming the journey and my throat grew dry and scratchy once more.
Any semblance of comfortability I had found in Beshmel was burned away under the scorching desert sun.
"Doing okay?" Roan asked from where he rode beside me as we crested the top of a dune, his own voice hoarse and ragged.
I nodded, pulling the fabric lower over my eyes to shield from the glare of the sun as I glanced at him. “Just ready for this leg of the trip to be over and to head north."
He murmured his agreement at the same time Aziza's head snapped to the left, her tongue flicking out as if sensing something within the air. I frowned as the Tolokok’s body grew hesitant, falling further behind the others as her large head swung from side to side.
Running a soothing hand over her scaled neck, I leaned forward slightly at her distress. I searched the rolling dunes, the blinding sky above, but I found nothing amiss.
Aziza began to move faster, Roan’s own Tolokok keeping pace, trying to rejoin the pack that was now a good distance ahead.
"What's happening?" His voice was low, his body tense with worry. I shook my head, eyes still searching the desert before I saw it from the corner of my eye. An unnatural rippling of the sand to the left, as though something moved beneath it.
“Gianni—”
Time seemed to still for only a breath, only a moment, before the sand exploded.
A scream wrenched from my throat as I flew from Aziza, eyes slamming shut against the harsh grains that tore into my mouth, eyes, even my ears.
I was choking on it as I hit the hot ground, body rolling.
My fingers dug, nails ripping as I tried to find purchase, my skin rubbed raw by the hot and unforgiving granulates.
My body slid to a stop near the base of the dune, every inch of me aching, ears ringing as I tried to make sense of what happened.
My breath caught as a screech rent the air, my head pounding against the shrill sound.
Rolling, I groaned as I stood and began my ascent back up the daunting dune before me.
Cursing, I slipped and stumbled every few steps I took.
Every inch, every breath a fight until I made it to the top.
Pulling my daggers free, my eyes swept the desert for what had attacked.
Heart in my throat I watched as a creature slithered across the sand towards my Tolokok. A great beast, every inch a snake, yet at least twenty feet long and thick as ten logs laid together.
"Syra!" I turned to where the group was racing back towards me, still in shock as my eyes trailed over them. Only one seemed to be missing.
I whipped my attention back, frantically searching for—
There.
A flash of white in the sand.
Panic clawed its talons through my gut as I stumbled down the side of the dune. My boots struggled to find purchase as I cursed and pushed away the pain that flared across my ravaged skin, locking it away in the back of my mind. Later. I could feel it later.
His body laid still and prone upon the sand, his Tolokok beside him. Aziza stood before them, her eyes tracking every movement of the predator that slithered their way.
"Roan!" I was moving faster now, keeping my eyes fixed on the creature.
A scream wracked through me as I was suddenly lifted in the air, but it was merely Gianni, his gaze fixated on the man I was racing towards.
His Tolokok moved swiftly, giving the desert monster a wide berth.
As we reached the three, I slid from the saddle, dropping to my knees as I assessed Roan's wounds.
He was bleeding heavily from a laceration on his leg, but his chest still rose and fell.
He would not die today. I refused. I would burn every temple that graced this wretched kingdom’s soil to the ground until ash rained from the sky. I would every fight Demon Prince until—
"Syra," Gianni warned, his voice low and tense. I glanced up, heart hammering as that monster slithered closer and closer. It seemed hesitant now that a second Tolokok had joined the fight, guarding the prey it sought.
Without a thought, I slapped Roan hard across the face.
His eyes shot open, rage burning in his silver and green stare, but I didn't waste a moment before I was shoving him up, pushing him onto Aziza's saddle.
Praying the adrenaline would shadow whatever pain he currently felt, long enough to at least reach safety.
I turned to his Tolokok, grief threatening to overwhelm me when I saw no rise and fall of the creature's chest. Blood trickled and stained the sand from a fatal wound in its head.
Quickly I cut Roan's packs free of the saddle ties before pressing a palm to the creature's black scales. “May your journey to the Kingdom of the Goddesses be safe."
"Syra!"
I jumped atop Aziza's back, Roan's body slumped before me as I held him tightly. The Tolokok gave another ear ringing screech before she dashed across the sand, Gianni and his mount only steps behind.
As we gained ground to meet the group ahead I didn't dare look back, my fear threatening to swallow me whole.
"Fire!" Gianni yelled, his voice tight with terror. “Blast it with fucking fire, now!"
I felt the searing flame that soared overhead, a scream bubbling in my throat as I squeezed my eyes shut. With Roan's body pressed beneath me, I couldn't get lower on the saddle, couldn't press away any further from the flames that licked against my skin.
I could hear the sizzling of my skin, the crackles and pops sounding until I felt nothing but excruciating pain, nothing but the awful horrible—
A dark alleyway.
A crowd of chained Luanthians. My mother tied to the stake, her eyes upon the moon—
Burn the bitch.
Burn them all.
Burn.
Burn.
Burn.
And then the world fell away.