Chapter 25
KARA
We have to be getting close to the top of the canyon. My muscles tremble uncontrollably. I’m spent. I don’t know where I’m getting the strength to continue climbing. Every time I lift my arm, it feels like all I can do—but then, somehow, I do it again.
When I falter, his hand is on the small of my back, bracing and supporting.
I’m too exhausted to even begin to feel aroused, but the thoughts are there, if fleeting.
We climb into the dark. Climb and climb, hearing the thing coming after us, which keeps me moving no matter how much I want to give up.
Sweat covers my body. My shirt is sticking.
My breath is ragged. My fingers slip from the crack, hand flying free—and if not for him, I’d fall.
His grip on my waist keeps me in place, but I can’t.
Can’t keep climbing. I’m paralyzed. Unwilling to make him climb with me, but physically unable to continue. Tears of frustration swell in my eyes.
“I can’t,” I whisper, muscles trembling uncontrollably, pressing myself to the rough stone wall of the canyon. “I’m done. You should go. Save yourself.”
“Kara,” he grumbles my name, and despite everything my heart speeds up and warmth flushes my skin. “You are stronger than you know.”
I look down, into his dark eyes gleaming with the dim light of the moon cresting the canyon. He doesn’t blink or look away. His horns glint, then his face changes, his mouth widening. It takes me a second to realize he’s smiling. Only when I see his teeth do I realize that’s what he’s doing.
“Beautiful,” he says in almost a growl. “And mine.”
I gasp. Tears fall, and something in my chest lets go. Relief. Acceptance. And along with that letting go comes a surge of strength. A second wind. I nod sharply, look up, and reach for the next handhold.
My fingers lock. My legs hoist. He shifts his weight while I pull, the movement precise—muscle and claw cooperating in a way that feels like choreography we’ve never practiced.
We are two pieces that fit by force and will.
The rim looms, a shadowed edge that promises breath and view.
The wind has a different voice the higher we climb—less a blade, more a shove that sets grit into spirals.
We continue. It’s not far. The edge comes closer. My second—or is it third—wind is fading, but the lip is so close that hope pulls me forward. At last, I find a toehold, swing an arm, and with his steadying press, I haul myself over the top.
I can’t do anything but lie on my belly, gasping.
Every muscle is quivering. All I taste is sand and dirt.
My hands and knees are raw from the climb.
He climbs over the edge with no fuss, landing quieter than I expect for the size of him, tail coiling.
He doesn’t sprawl or show any signs of exhaustion from the climb; he has the posture of the always-ready.
Shoulders square to the horizon. Lochaber in hand—not slung, gripped in a way that says he’s ready to use it without a moment’s hesitation.
I push myself into a half-sit, scoot across the ground, and glance over the rim. The canyon is smothered in dark and deep shadows. I don’t see whatever it is coming up after us, which makes my heart beat faster.
I push myself up, arms and legs quivering with the effort, but I get to a full sitting position. I close my eyes and take the moment to breathe, letting the muscles recover.
When the quivering mostly stops, I rise to my feet and get my first look at where we are now.
The desert fans out in folded dunescapes, like dark, rolling waves, one after another.
Massive. Empty. This is the Tajss I’m familiar with—endless dunes of reds and white striations for as far as the eye can see.
Scanning the dark emptiness, something catches my attention. There—a thin line of possibility cutting across the horizon. It’s farther off, but something glints. Could it be? It might be water, or it might be a lie.
“Do you see that?” I ask, pointing.
My arm protests the motion, muscles trembling. He glances where I’m pointing—a fast turn of his head—then back to staring over the edge of the canyon wall.
“Oasis,” he says, voice deep and soft.
Something swells in my chest. It feels like the world is opening up in some new way. I look over to him, back to that moonlit glimmer, then back to him.
Hope. This is what hope feels like.
A prickle along the back of my neck pulls my attention back to the imminent danger we’re in. I turn around and look over the edge again, studying the canyon wall this time, trying to see where the threat is.
He moves closer—never obtrusive, never soft, just there.
He presses against me—not heat, but an anchoring that says you will not be taken from me.
His hand hovers near mine, thumb rubbing a slow, almost casual line against the back of my hand.
The contact is small and fierce and somehow more intimate than any declaration.
I think of the pods in my pouch, of the way hunger has thinned us since we’ve emerged from the tunnels, of the mouths waiting back at the roughshod settlement.
If we can survive what’s coming, we could hopefully turn the body into meat and hide and marrow.
Food. Desperately needed food that will let everyone eat.
For the briefest instant, I imagine what it will be like to return with it. Cheers. Exclamations. Acceptance.
His tail swishes, dragging across the sand.
He rustles his wings, partially opening then closing them, but his eyes never stray—staring down into the shadow, calculating.
Planning. Ready. He puts his arm out in front of me, then moves back.
I move with him—four strides—putting space between us and the edge.
He looks over, meeting my eyes. There are no pretty words, only a promise in his look.
We do this together.
I nod, slow and fierce. He adjusts the angle of his lochaber, then glances to me as if asking something far older than words—permission, trust, an acceptance of the bargain.
I slide my hand into his without thinking; for a heartbeat we are tether and anchor, warrior and partner.
We stand together on the rim of the canyon, and below, the monster approaches.