Chapter 2
Taera
We’re more than halfway back before things take a turn for the worse.
Not that any part of today’s scavenging has gone well, after my brother managed to cut my harvesting short and revealed the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard.
My sour mood worsens as I think about it, my mind refusing to do anything but play out tragic scenarios: Ez losing limbs, losing his way entirely, being eaten alive out there…
Of course the most dangerous gambler’s death would appeal to my brother.
Not something reasonable like farming millet, or working lumber, or even making tinselberry pies to sell at the market.
He has to pick the most foolish, most reckless option his thrill-seeking mind could come up with. Relic hunter.
Ezran’s breathing grows ragged again, inflammation and the pressure to keep moving no doubt making the pain worse. When he quits complaining and begins wheezing, I cave.
I offer him the remaining stalks meant for Gramps, and this time he doesn’t even grimace at the bitter taste of the milky sap.
“We’ll talk later,” I say sharply, breaking the silence. It’s more of a threat than a promise. “And not in front of Gramps. Don’t give him more nightmares.”
“Fine,” he spits out through his teeth.
It’s a good thing the village is in sight. If it can be called a village. It’s barely more than a smattering of huts, brown and withered.
That’s when our shadows fade.
Goosebumps ripple across my arms. I don’t want to turn—I don’t want to know why the light is blocked out. But it’s better to know. I steel myself and turn my head.
My mouth goes dry.
A colossal wall of dust billows over the ground we were scavenging. A towering monstrosity taking up half the sky, dark and churning, red and angry with sand.
A sandstorm.
Fresh energy rushes through my limbs. I could make it home on my own, but with Ezran, I’m not sure.
For the first time, I’m grateful that our battered family hut teeters right on the edge of safety, the closest in sight.
I will not leave Ezran behind. I will not lose any more of my family to the desert.
I heave him forward, not saying what we’re both thinking. We have minutes, and we’ve slowed to a near-crawl. To Ezran’s credit, he ups his pace, hopping along the dusty sand until he’s trembling and shaking. I risk a glance back.
Not enough time.
We’re still too far. Cool wind brushes my back, aching in its song. I tighten the cloth around my face with my free hand, but both our waterskins are now empty, drained by Ezran’s desperate thirst, so there’s nothing left to wet the cloth. I look behind us once again.
The storm roars toward us, having easily swallowed half the distance since I last checked.
Calling the rasping, rumbling wall of sand a storm feels wrong…
It’s so much more. Wet cloth won’t save us when our skin is blasted away and our flesh is ground down to bone.
Ezran has slowed down to a painful shuffle, wincing with every step, despite the herbs he’s chewed.
Desperate, I glance around. Nothing. Of course there’s nothing. I stare at the storm for one paralyzing moment, then crouch. I have nothing left but my own two feet.
“Get on my back,” I say. He doesn’t argue—none of his usual stubbornness, no quips—just clambers onto my back.
I exhale through gritted teeth, force myself upright, and stagger a few steps.
I’ve never been more thankful for every pail of water I’ve lugged through the village, for the wiry musculature I’ve inherited and honed through hours of trekking across barren dirt, digging stiff roots, and wrangling our garden into growing grayish greens with nothing but my own grim determination.
I heave Ezran across the ground, half-stumbling as I attempt to run. At least he’s twiggy and even leaner than me, with not enough food to match his spurt of height.
I don’t need to look back to hear the deep hissing of the storm, the whooshing of air agitating around us.
Every inch of exposed skin starts to sting—my hands, and around my eyes.
I squint, tracking the blur of brown up ahead—the hulking cairn of flat orange rocks marking high tide.
The dust burns in my chest, even sucked through the wrappings across my face.
It’s taking too long. When I finally stagger past the tower of rocks, the wind snaps us sideways, forcing me to lean to keep from being knocked over.
My lungs are raw and ragged, and my throat tastes of iron.
The sky is as dark as night, the red-gray sandclouds billowing forth ready to engulf everything.
I stumble to the door of our gnarled, sand-eaten hut, its mud-reinforced outer walls chipped away to take on the texture of lizard skin, scraping my hand as I brace against them.
“Gramps,” I try to shout, but my voice is so hoarse it’s swallowed completely by the pressing wind.
“Gramps!” Ezran bellows.
Several burning seconds later, the door flies open to the screaming sand. I half-support, half-shove Ezran through it. Hot, angry wind barrels in after us, sending every hanging bundle of herbs, flowers, and stalks whipping wildly, straining against their knotted twine.
It takes everything I have, legs trembling, to lean back against the heavy door and try to latch it. The latch slips. Ezran slams his shoulder against the door as well, and together we hold back the raging wind just long enough for me to wiggle the thick beam into place, barricading the storm out.
The fire in the hearth is already lit. I stare at it, panting.
“I thought you were sheltering somewhere else.” Gramps’s calm voice cuts through my panic. Deep crinkles overtake his eyes as he smiles toothily. “The desert must be watching over us. My two favorite grandchildren home just in time for supper.”
“Your only grandchildren,” Ezran objects, but Gramps just chuckles. His perpetual ease jars against my still desperately beating heart, and the shaky reality of the danger we escaped. Not that I’ll worry him by telling him how we nearly didn’t make it.
We slump down by the low, uneven table, not even trying to keep our battered clothes clean from the dirt floor. Really the table’s just an oak slab, but it’s where we sit together.
Ezran lets out a deep groan as he straightens his leg and props his foot atop a piece of firewood, before collapsing onto his back, arms splayed, taking up far more than his fair third of the hut. I chuckle in a rush of giddiness that we actually made it back.
My eyes flit to his swollen ankle and I quietly assess how serious it’s become.
The bitter, frustrated part of me doesn’t want to care—wants him to learn his lesson about the dangers of the desert.
But if he were to end up with an infection because I didn’t treat his sting…
Guilt rises hard and fast. I’ll have to make a salve for it.
Anxiety pools in my stomach. I hope the storm blows over by morning.
For now, I should at least clean the wound.
My own legs throb at the mere idea of moving again.
But Gramps is on his feet, with a pot already simmering on the fire.
That should be me.
I settle for one long, luxurious minute of not moving at all.
My breathing hitches and steadies, my sand-scoured lungs soothed by the wafting warm scent of yams and carrots, fresh thyme and the mouth-watering salt of a hambone.
I don’t even mind the heat of the fire. Sweat already drenches the thick burlap of my pants and orange-smeared tunic.
The shirt I washed just last night. I sigh.
The heat of the sweet air against my damp skin makes my head light.
The ache still pulses in the back of my skull, but no longer the pain of desperation.
Now it’s the pressure of the storm, weighing inside my head like an anvil.
It never lets me forget it, the pain tugging harder with each battering assault against the door.
The sound is deafening, yet soothing in a way I don’t understand.
Worse, it’s exhilarating. I love the unnatural power it carries, the way it sweeps across the skies and nothing can stand in its way.
I love the taste of the sky’s rage seeping through the cracks in the shuttered window and under the door.
It feels… alive. Like it’s eating into the baked mud of our walls to suck out nourishment.
“Supper’s on,” Gramps announces. More than a minute has passed, and I leap to my feet before he tries to heave the heavy pot off the coals by himself.
My legs protest, already stiffening, but I push through the worst of it and retrieve our carved wooden bowls from their hooks on the wall, willing my shaky limbs not to turn completely to stone.
I line up our bowls with our three matching wooden spoons, then ladle the stew, even going as far as taking my brother his supper. I haven’t forgotten what he told me earlier, but I won’t talk about his ridiculous idea of becoming a relic hunter around the table.
We all swallow down scalding spoonfuls of thick orange potato and barley. The table is quiet with comfort, Ezran’s terrible plans momentarily set aside.
“You didn’t have to cook.” I try to give Gramps a stern look, but he just shrugs.
“It was my pleasure.” His crooked smile makes me feel ten years old again and safe from the entire world—back when Mom was still around.
I swallow and turn away. Still, the hot food in my stomach lightens my mood several shades. But when I scan the pots and spoons, my brow tightens. Gramps prepared everything except his own tea, which he knows will soothe his aching joints.
Wordlessly, I get up and set the water to boil.
Outside, the storm continues to build, wind screaming against the walls and shredding the peace of our silence. My fear for Ezran resurfaces. A relic hunter. Sands take me. As if we don’t have enough to worry about without him wanting to prance off across those cursed dunes.