3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
Erix
Dhara’s nostrils flared in frustration, and her golden nose ring glittered in the light of the braziers.
Without looking, she shoved the paper at the next lord in the circle, Lord Elion, so hard it nearly crumpled against his chest. He eased it gently from her fingers, but she snatched her hand away as if his touch burned.
“I will gut him like a snake,” she hissed.
“You will have to fight me for the privilege.” My voice was little more than a rumble, like the threat of thunder in the distance.
The air stirred as Keera shifted at my side. I took a deep breath and clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palm. My rage unsettled her. I did not wish to add to the numerous burdens she already carried. I needed to master my mind and my magic.
“Kelvadan will not be easily breached,” Lord Elion pointed out.
“We did it once before,” Lord Noc of Clan Vecturna pointed out. “Could we not breach the walls the same way we did last time?”
I inhaled sharply as a new voice chimed in from the far side of Keera.
“Last time, Kelvadan was in disarray after the death of Queen Ginevra, and the walls and gate were not guarded as they should have been.” Aderyn’s voice was so tight, I could practically hear the wounds admitting such a thing dealt to her pride.
“Calix is cunning, and he was in the city during the last battle. He will not make the same mistakes.”
“Even then, it took the riders of all nine clans, and the battle was cut short,” Keera said, glancing sidelong at me.
“With the strength of only four and a half clans, and Calix well supplied from beyond the mountains, we have little hope of retaking the city,” Lord Dhara concluded, folding her arms across her chest.
“There are five other lords anxious to renew their siege on Kelvadan,” Lord Elion said.
My hands curled into fists on my lap, tight enough that my knuckles ached.
Even with all nine clans, it would be a grim task to drive Prince Calix from Kelvadan, although not as insurmountable as it was now.
The clans had been fracturing from the moment leadership fell into my hands, though, and I had driven in a wedge that splintered them further.
Getting the clans to unite once more would be just as difficult as the battles we faced, but I saw no other alternatives.
“Izumi and the other lords’ blind rage against the great city makes them dangerous,” Lord Dhara said cooly.
“The desert is dangerous. I am dangerous. Yet you followed me into battle when I asked it of you,” I cut in. “We have no safe allies left to turn to. Their anger against Kelvadan can be a sharp blade if wielded properly.”
A muscle in Lord Dhara’s jaw ticked, but she did not object.
Quiet fell around the fire as we all absorbed what needed to be done.
The clans had only been united once before, briefly under my rule for the first siege of Kelvadan.
With the violent fracture rent between the two factions, the broken edges would be even harder to fit back together.
Fit them we must, though, if Kelvadan were to be retaken.
“I will go,” Lord Elion broke the tense silence.
Lord Dhara tensed, and the fire before us flared suddenly before returning to its merry crackle. I had nearly forgotten how Dhara’s power seemed to manifest in flames.
Elion stared at her, as if waiting for her to object, but she raised her chin and refused to meet his eyes.
The other lords watched the strange game between them with raised brows, but Dhara did not rise to the bait.
If I hadn’t been watching closely, I wouldn’t have noticed the way Elion’s proud shoulders slumped just slightly as he looked away.
“I will journey to the other encampment to negotiate with Izumi and the other lords. Before the clans fractured, Clan Tibel often played kaman with Clan Ratan, and I considered Lord Davina a friend. Perhaps I can call on that old friendship to heal the rifts between us,” he continued.
I nodded, still chewing my cheek in indecision. The rift with Izumi had been created by me and should be mine to heal. I shifted, and the two halves of the Heart clacked heavily in my pocket.
There were too many things to heal and too little time.
“I will go with you,” Aderyn volunteered, her voice sure, but growing slightly quieter as she added, “If you will have me.”
Elion appraised her but then nodded sharply. “I will not turn away a warrior who wishes to put themselves in danger at my side.”
I glanced curiously at Aderyn, finding her face stony and her jaw set.
Her skin seemed sallow and drawn, somehow only accentuating the determination written into her expression.
I had promised her that I would help her reclaim Kelvadan as we kneeled over her broken husband, my father’s blood still staining my hands.
I owed it to her and my father and Keera to reclaim the city we had all nearly died for.
I opened my mouth to say I would go too—that I knew Izumi better than almost anybody here. Perhaps I could reason with her.
A scream split the air, sticking my words in my throat. I whipped my head this way and that, looking for the source of the noise.
All the other lords stared at me in confusion. Could they not hear the shouting?
Keera reached out as if to lay a hand on my arm, her brows knit with concern. Before she could touch me, I caught sight of a man, running through the encampment. His sword was drawn.
I recognized that sword.
He disappeared around a corner with a flap of black fabric, but I was already on my feet. I pounded after him, my feet churning in the soft sand. Even running as fast as I could, I only just tracked him through the encampment. His dark robes disappeared around tents like whisps of smoke.
“Erix!” Keera shouted after me, but it sounded distant, even though I knew she was just behind me.
I emerged from the last ring of tents into the open dunes, skidding to a halt as I found the man standing completely still with his back to me. I had planned to attack whoever ran through the peaceful camp with a sword drawn, but nobody who intended to be a threat would willingly turn their back.
He looked back over his shoulder and smiled.
I knew that face.
It was mine, but not. It was the face that had winked at me in the mirror when I was sure I had made no such expression. It was the face that was carved into a tall stone statue, wearing a carefree smirk—the one I had glared up at so many times as a child, cursing our similarities.
My knees hit the sand.
Kelvar opened his mouth, and the voice of the desert came out.
I nearly screamed in pain at the volume of it—the way the desert had always sounded in my mind, a million voices chattering over one another in every conceivable language and cadence.
Above it all, though, this time I was able to pick out three words.
“Heal our heart.”
Then he was gone. Silence pressed in around me, and I stared at the spot where he had been. Not even a pair of boot prints marked the sand to indicate where he had stood.
“Erix!” This voice was familiar and lacked the otherworldly tone that made me want to peel my own skin off. It was nearly jarring as Keera fell to her knees beside me. Her hands were on my face, but I didn’t look away from where Kelvar had stood just moments before.
“Did you see him?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“See who?” Keera asked, her tone concerned.
“Kelvar. He was here. He… he spoke to me.”
Keera’s sharp intake of breath confirmed my fears. My madness had been encroaching for years, and now it was finally upon me. I was out of time, but I had one more task to do for the desert. Even my hallucinations reminded me of this.
“You’re tired,” she started, as if she could reason away his apparition, but I shook my head. I pulled free of her grasp and turned to look at her.
“It’s not the first time,” I admitted. I hadn’t recognized it when Kelvar winked at me in the mirror in Kelvadan, thinking it a distortion of my own reflection, so similar were our faces.
But seeing him now, I knew his movements were what danced at the edge of my vision.
“I’ve seen him before, although I did not know it. ”
Keera’s brow furrowed, but her expression did not hold the fear or despair I dreaded. She seemed to face this news with the same stubborn determination with which she approached every challenge. “Why him?”
I frowned. While I knew Kelvar had succumbed to insanity in the end, none of the tales told by my family said what his visions were of.
Just that he would argue with thin air or become distracted by sounds nobody else could hear.
Maybe my fracturing mind called forth visions of the one thing that had weighed on my consciousness for years, reminding me of my purpose even as my time ran out.
“Because it is his legacy I’m trying to undo,” I thought out loud. His words echoed in my mind.
Heal our heart.
He spoke in the desert’s voice, begging me to finish what I had started.
“Keera,” my voice nearly cracked, and I cupped her face. Her golden eyes were overbright with worry, and I stared, trying to memorize their molten patterns—the furrow between her brows and the stubborn set of her jaw even in the face of the inevitable. “I have to go,” I admitted.
“I know,” Keera murmured softly, not as sad as I thought she might be.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you save Kelvadan. I’m sorry I have to break so many promises to you. But if I don’t take the Heart to the ocean now, it might be too late.”
“Kelvadan is part of the desert, you know,” she said, covering my hands with her own as I cupped her face. “We must heal the desert in order to save the city and the clans.”
“Then you know I would not leave you willingly,” I impressed upon her. I might carry the desert’s Heart, but mine would be left with Keera.
She pried my hand from her face, holding it in her own, slotting our palms together so the twin cuts across them aligned.