Chapter 2
Chapter two
Alyx
Iwoke to the unmistakable movement of a horse beneath me, but the feeling of incomparable freedom that normally accompanied riding was notably absent.
Instead, I was trapped. Arms wrapped around me, one across my chest and one around my waist, keeping me pressed against a firm object at my back: A strong torso.
The second sensation that overwhelmed me was a decidedly masculine scent—the smokiness of campfires and the spice of strong laka.
My eyes snapped open to the cloudless sky. It was the stained purple of dawn. My neck ached—my head had lolled back and was supported by a leather-clad shoulder, instead of the softness of the silken pillow in my normal sleeping nest.
I tensed and the arms around me tightened.
“You’re safe,” a voice murmured near my ear.
Paradoxically, the assurance only stoked the vague sense of unease in my belly into panic. I wrenched my head forward, beginning to squirm. I tried to pull my arms free of the stranger’s grasp, but he held me so tightly, I might have been wrestling against steel.
The mount beneath me whickered and a bolt of foreign unease cut through my own panic—the horse’s discomfort a clear pang in my power. Against my better judgment, I lessened my struggles. I could never bear the distress of horses, as I felt the bright flame of the desert’s magic so clearly in them.
“Where am I?” I demanded instead.
“It’s hard to say,” the man’s voice came again, tone remarkably light despite the depth of his voice that I could feel rumbling in his chest, pressed flush against my back. “Somewhere between Clan Padra and Clan Katal’s encampment.”
“My parents—”
“Are several hours ride behind us,” he cut in. “And the desert is unlikely to help them find their way to us.”
His confidence in the desert’s favor almost made me scoff, but the way he said it didn’t sound like a boast. Just a fact. The panic that I had calmed on the horse’s behalf began to rise again, bubbling into my throat where it made my voice rise in pitch.
“Yet you have the gall to insist I’m safe?”
I tried to turn my head to see my captor, but held this close to him, I only managed to give myself a cramp in my already stiff neck.
The man’s dark hair fluttered at the edge of my vision, as I looked out toward the horizon.
Rippling sand dunes glowed golden in the early morning light, spreading out endlessly toward the horizon.
The encampment in which I had fallen asleep and the palms of the oasis were nowhere in sight.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” my captor insisted. His casual tone had disappeared, his voice now low and serious. It was such a strange promise from a kidnapper that I was almost tempted to believe him.
My father’s voice scolded me in my head, telling me that I was too trusting—too soft for the harsh ways of the desert clans.
“You seriously think you can get away with kidnapping me?” I demanded.
“I believe I already have.” My captor’s light tone returned.
“Did you…” I swallowed thickly. “Did you hurt my family?”
I had no idea how I could have slept through the fight that must have ensued to get me away. Perhaps I had been drugged? How, I did not know.
“No,” he assured. “I had no need to harm anyone.”
“Then how…” I frowned.
“The desert willed it so.”
My brow only furrowed further. Once again, he seemed assured in the desert’s favor—that she would aid him in my kidnapping.
Unease crawled up my spine, making me stiffen as if to pull away from him, but his hold made it impossible.
The desert’s touch had always been strong in me as well, giving me a way with horses and with healing.
But it had not been enough to protect me from this strange man.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Kelvar. Warlord of Clan Katal,” he proclaimed.
My eyes widened, and once again I tried twisting to see him to no avail.
His mount stamped and snorted at my movements, but this time, it was not enough to quell my struggles.
Tales of Clan Katal’s Warlord had spread across the Ballan Desert like fire through brush.
Stories of the storms he could summon and the immense power that let him wield fire like a sword—not that he needed to.
His skill with a saber was said to be nearly unmatched as well.
Only the strongest Lords could stand against him in a duel.
The last time we crossed paths with Clan Noc, my father and the other Clan Lord had bent together, worrying in hushed whispers about the growing power of Clan Katal, borne by the strength of their Warlord.
“I see my reputation precedes me,” he said, seemingly unperturbed as I nearly unseated both of us in my efforts to turn around.
“I had hoped to let you ride properly, but if you are going to insist on continuing to upset Dileas, I’ll be forced to tie your hands and throw you over her haunches with my bundles. ”
I stopped squirming. “Dileas… is that your mount?”
“The finest horse in the Ballan Desert,” he confirmed.
I pursed my lips, tempted to argue that title belonged to my own stallion, likely now miles behind us in Clan Padra’s enclosures. Instead, I said, “A loyal mount to earn such a noble name.”
Carefully, I let a small tendril of the desert’s magic that grew gently in my mind unfurl, reaching into the consciousness of the horse beneath me. Instantly the mare calmed, and she shook her head and flicked her ears back at me as if to say hello.
I almost smiled despite the direness of my situation.
I let my power stroke her mind reassuringly as her gait evened out, only to jolt as I encountered another lick of magic.
This power was not the friendly warmth of horses I was used to.
It was potent and intoxicating—the crackle of lightning and the siren call of the endless horizon.
I could almost smell the metallic warmth that always accompanied magic as I mentally approached.
I reached out to touch it too, utterly unthinking but called in by the inexorable power.
Kelvar flinched behind me, and my magic snapped back into my skull of its own accord.
“Sands,” he swore, sitting back and bringing his horse to a halt.
Before I could register what had happened, his hold disappeared from around me, and his solid warmth at my back was gone. A moment later, he stood on the ground at my side, and I got my first good look at Kelvar, Warlord of Clan Katal.
The dark hair I had caught a glimpse of earlier was pulled up into a knot at the back of his head, although part of it still spilled down his neck, and tendrils fell forward to frame his face.
His features were proud, his jaw strong.
He was much younger than I’d expected for someone of his reputation, but what struck me the most were his dark eyes, currently wide with surprise.
I stared into them, dumbstruck for a long moment. Then, he broke eye contact, shaking himself, as if he had been doused in cold water.
“Do you make a habit of reaching into other people’s minds uninvited?” he demanded. Up until this point, his voice had been light. I would have almost called it friendly, if it weren’t for the fact he had kidnapped me. Now it was rough but not quite angry.
My shoulders tensed as I shrank back, realizing what I had done. I should have known his power, great as it was rumored to be, would have been intertwined in his own mount’s mind. I had unwittingly run my mental fingers over his own consciousness in my quest to befriend his horse.
“It was an accident,” I insisted. It did not seem wise to anger my kidnapper, but I had been reckless.
“That was a lot of the desert’s magic in my mind for an accident,” he pointed out.
I swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry.” My voice was thin.
I should have known better than to reach out so carelessly. My father always warned me against the dangers of my power—of the untamed desert. It made him protective and fearful in equal measures.
Kelvar blinked, and then his shoulders relaxed from their tense posture, although I sensed it took him great concentration. The stricken expression he wore melted into a confident smirk, seeming both practiced and charming.
“It’s fine,” he conceded. “Given that I’m the one who kidnapped you, it feels odd for you to be apologizing to me. You know, I don’t even know your name.”
“Alyx,” I offered, glad I had not overly angered my captor in my indiscretion.
“Well, Alyx”—he said my name gently—“it’s time I let Dileas rest anyway.”
He reached up toward me as if to help me down from his mare’s back, but I ignored the outstretched hand. Instead, I swung my leg over and jumped down unaided, landing lightly on my feet before him.
He blinked as I stared up at him, finding him almost an entire head taller than me now that we stood face-to-face.
Then he shrugged and walked around to stand at Dileas’s head, patting her nose and murmuring to her in a low tone I could not discern.
The mare responded by bumping her head into his torso affectionately.
I took advantage of the first reprieve I’d had from my captor since my uncomfortable awakening, looking around.
Endless golden sand stretched in every direction, offering no sign of where we had come from or where we were going.
Even if I managed to escape from my kidnapper, I would not make it far on foot without any supplies.
Kelvar likely knew it as well if he was willing to let me stand here, unbound and unguarded.
I chewed my lips, finding them already dry and chapped, not an uncommon plight in the dry heat of the desert.
Kelvar had not been openly hostile to me.
In fact, he had been strangely kind, apart from when I had unknowingly shoved my magical fingers into his own power.
But my parents’ worried faces hovered in my mind.
They had always warned me that the desert’s power, burning so brightly in me, would make me a target. I did not know what the Warlord planned for me, but I doubted it would be good.
I glanced down at myself and winced, finding I still wore the thin shift I had gone to sleep in and nothing more. I didn’t even have shoes on, and my bare toes dug into the sand, already hot underfoot in the morning sun. There was nothing on my person I could use to my advantage.
Then, a faint glitter at the edge of my vision caught my attention. I looked up to find several packs roped to Dileas’s back, and sticking out of one of them, the glimmering handle of a dirk.
I chanced a glance toward the horse’s head, where Kelvar had now opened a water sack and was letting Dileas drink.
She slurped loudly, covering any noise my movements might make.
Before I could second guess myself, I grabbed the handle of the knife and yanked it from the pack.
I hid it behind my back, having nowhere on my person to stow it.
No matter. I did not plan on concealing it long.
After long moments, Dileas finished drinking, and Kelvar moved to tie the water sack to her back once more. Then, he stepped toward me, a hand reaching to the water skin at his own belt.
“Are you—”
I didn’t let him finish the sentence, whipping the dirk out from behind my back and pressing the tip to his throat.
He stilled, and his eyes flashed, but then his confident smile returned, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes?” he asked, as if I had simply called his name to catch his attention.
“Bring me back to Clan Padra,” I demanded.
“And why would I do that?”
I looked pointedly at the knife in my hand, its tip currently resting on his Adam’s apple. He went nearly cross-eyed looking down at it at this proximity.
“That’s a horrible grip, Flower,” he mused. “One would think you had never wielded a knife before.”
My lips twisted in a grimace, both at the endearment he used so casually and his observation.
Before I could respond, he moved lightning-fast, ducking under the blade in my hand while grabbing my wrist. He twisted, and I yelped as the knife dropped from my hold. He plucked it out of the air deftly.
Then he held it up before me. “Don’t tuck your thumb under your other fingers,” he explained, showing me the proper grip.
“And with your smaller size and inexperience, you’ll have better luck taking people by surprise.
Stab them in the back, between their fourth and fifth ribs if you can manage it. Or go for their eyes and groin.”
I pulled back, looking at him quizzically. “And why are you telling me how to properly hold the knife I just used to threaten you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe so next time you do it, you will be a tad more… well… threatening.”
I huffed and spluttered in indignation, but he ignored me, only moving to tuck the dirk back into the pack I had pilfered it from. Then, he rifled inside and emerged with a length of rope.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, “as ill-conceived as your escape attempt was, it does officially take any chance of leaving you unbound to ride on your own off the table.”
I eyed the rope in his hands distastefully, and his responding smile was equal parts rueful and mischievous.