Chapter 1 #2
I sling Ezran’s arm around my neck, hoisting up his left side.
He’s grown so quickly that his bony shoulder digs into mine.
I grunt. Another month and he’ll be taller than me, while at twenty-four years old I’m already shrinking.
Like anything else that manages to survive so long this close to the desert.
Getting the hang of helping him along, I lead us in the direction of our growing shadows. It’s safer to trust the sun.
We barely cover a hundred paces before Ezran starts to whimper.
I grumble under my breath, trying to heave him onward—all too aware of the air shivering with warning.
We need to get back, and there’s still more than a mile left.
But his grunts turn desperate, nearing sobs, and I finally stop.
His shoulders drop, a thin whimper escaping as he sags against my side.
I lean down and lift his pant leg, revealing a swollen mess of red skin. I hiss. He’s not going to die from this, but it’s going to hurt like a lit candle held to his ankle until he can sit down and raise the leg.
He leans against me as he yanks out his waterskin and gulps greedily.
“Slow,” I snap. “That’s all we have.”
I want to be patient with him. I really do. But he makes it so hard sometimes. Are fourteen-year-olds supposed to be this irresponsible? I wouldn’t know. I had to grow up too fast for that.
“C-can we rest?” His brow is shinier than it should be.
“No.” I don’t let him sit down. I’m not sure he’ll get up again. Instead, I pull four of the nine carefully harvested stalks out of my satchel. Gramps will understand.
Adjusting my own flappy twice-repaired shoes, I sling his arm over my shoulder again and press the stalks into his hand.
“Chew these,” I say brusquely. “And don’t you dare spit them out.”
“Thanks, Taera.” Ezran sighs, then stuffs them into his mouth before scrunching his nose and gagging. I clap my free hand over his lips.
“Don’t waste them,” I growl. “They were for Gramps. They’ll ease the pain.”
“Ugh! No wonder he never wants to drink that tea.” Ezran bats my hand away, still making a disgusted face, but continues chewing.
We’re slowly able to move onward. Too slowly. But once I let him spit out the fibrous stems, his grunts fade to more familiar grumbling. My own shoulders loosen. I channel all my saved energy into pushing our limping stride faster.
“Did you hear?” Ezran chirps up. “That girl—your friend Clarice—she’s back, visiting.”
My stomach tightens.
“Just for the harvest, I think,” Ezran goes on, and I start to regret giving him something for his pain, now that he’s talkative and we’re stuck together for at least half a mile more.
“I thought you’d be interested,” he says, “you know, since—”
“I’m not interested,” I say. But I don’t meet his eyes.
“Right,” Ezran mutters.
My stomach tightens again.
I won’t be interested in Clarice. I won’t let myself. Not when it leads to the aching dreams I never fully managed to smother. Thoughts of what my life might have been.
I press the pace.
“Well, there was something else I wanted to tell you,” Ez says, clearing his throat. He avoids my eyes. What sort of ridiculous scheme has he come up with this time?
“No time like right now,” I say, sighing. As much as it exhausts me, I have to be grateful he still tells me his plans, still entrusts his ambitions to me before acting on his foolish impulses. It might be the reason he’s still alive.
“Well, you know I’ve been thinking about my future,” he mutters.
I fall quiet, my ears straining hopefully.
This is all I’ve wanted from him for the past year: to take responsibility.
A small part of me can’t snuff out the spark of hope that he’ll follow through on his word and find work that can support Gramps.
So that maybe, in some far distant future, I can go and study like I once hoped.
I slam the rising eagerness back down, but it smolders below the surface.
“Yes?” I urge, swallowing.
“I—I want to be a relic hunter.”
My foot misses the patch of sand I’m aiming for. It scuffs, and I teeter forward toward a faceplant, catching myself at the last moment. I’m speechless.
A relic hunter? This has to be a joke. I try to laugh, but it sounds forced. My brother doesn’t join in, and the sound cuts off.
“You can’t be serious,” I say, staring at him.
He looks away, awkward, which is especially uncomfortable with our arms linked and his weight on me as we limp.
“You cannot,” I repeat through clenched teeth, “be serious.”
“I am!” He glares back at me.
I gargle back the horror in my throat.
“No.”
He may as well be declaring he wants to farm tarantulas for their silk. Or become a fisherman. I shake my head, staring at my crazy brother like the fool he is. Does he have no sense left in him at all?
Ezran’s shoulders stiffen, and he shoves more gusto into his limp. “I’ve thought about it,” he says.
“No you haven’t,” I mutter.
“Just listen!”
“No, you listen.” My tone is level, and I’m faintly satisfied I can sound reasonable in the face of such a ludicrous idea. “I take you out here for one afternoon, turn away for one moment, and you get yourself stung by a desert-cursed scorpion.”
“I didn’t mean to.” His voice rises, defensive.
“It doesn’t matter if you meant to!” I half-shout. “How exactly would you have gotten back on your own?”
“I would have been fine.”
Reaching my breaking point, I pull away from him. “Fine? Go ahead.”
His eyes blaze, his jaw sets, and he limps forward with a determination I can almost admire. Almost. He’s basically hopping on one foot and will tire himself out too quickly.
“You idiot,” I mutter, then scoop up his arm again and shove us forward, supporting his weight so he doesn’t burn out his good leg in less than a minute. He tries to shove me away, but I don’t let go. He’s my idiotic little brother, but he’s still my idiotic little brother.
“Or I would’ve just sheltered until the swelling came down,” he says, jutting out his chin.
“Sheltered?” I say, incredulous. “Through a storm?”
His face freezes, and he frowns, and we both know there’s nothing to say. No one could survive that.
“Even with the tide out, that’s crazy,” I add, trying to draw the conversation away from the horrors we might soon be facing.
He gives a boastful smile. “That’s what relic hunters do, you know. They go out onto the sands.”
“In search of treasure that doesn’t even exist!”
He huffs. “You don’t know that.”
“You—” I don’t have the words for how stupid, how terrible and reckless of an idea it is. “You’re going to get killed!”
“I’m not,” he says firmly. “I’m smart, and strong, and I could be a guide for city folks who want to go on expeditions.”
“A guide,” I echo. “You know they always end up disappearing, right?”
“I wouldn’t,” he says. “I’ll be safe.”
“You stepped on a scorpion because you weren’t even paying attention!”
“You’re just jealous,” he grumbles, “because you didn’t get to go do what you wanted to do.”
“I’m not—this isn’t—”
“Jealous that I can withstand the desert, and don’t have those ridiculous urges anymore, like you still do.”
My face heats, but I don’t try to deny it.
“I’d make more gold on a single tour than you make in a month, Taera,” he says, an excited buzz to his tone.
“Of course you would,” I hiss. Relic hunters—guides—they make bucketloads of gold. “Right up until you’re never seen again.”
“Pay off every debt. Add real ham to the stew every night, with those little golden potatoes that haven’t gone orange from the soil.”
“You’re ignoring the part where I never see you again—where Gramps never sees you again.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“I will not talk about this,” I snap, my anger threatening to spew words I’ll regret. I focus on fixing my eyes straight ahead and getting him back to safety. I won’t let him throw everything away.
The air turns cooler, which—although pleasant—spells danger. I don’t point out the warnings in case Ezran, in another gargantuan lapse of judgment, hasn’t noticed them. If a storm hits, we’re in a very, very bad position.
I just keep him moving.
We almost make it.