12. Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Keera
It took us hours to find our way out of the tunnels, but eventually, an orange glow appeared in the darkness—the blood-stained light of the setting sun.
We were able to traverse the tunnels more quickly without the fear of being ambushed, and Aderyn had noticed a dry breeze carrying the smell of baked earth that we followed to a passage that sloped up toward the surface.
A heavy sigh tore out of me as I felt the warmth of the sun on my face again. It was still scorchingly hot, even at dusk—although the temperature would plummet dramatically over the next hour—but I reveled in the burn on my face after a full day underground.
An enthusiastic whinny cut the air, and a cloud of dust approached. I smiled despite myself as I recognized a golden silhouette in the haze.
“Daiti!” I cried as he nearly barreled into me with the force of his greeting. He butted his head against my chest so hard I stumbled back a few steps and snorted as if scolding me for leaving him behind.
The others’ horses all greeted them with their own forms of enthusiasm. Aderyn’s roan mare pranced in happy circles around her while Alza pressed her face into Erix’s as he muttered soothing words of praise. Elion rode his own horse into the group with a look of abject relief on his face.
Stopping in the middle of our weary group, he dismounted with none of the strength and grace I was accustomed to from him. In two long strides he crossed the open distance between him and Dhara before sweeping her into his arms and crashing his lips into hers.
We all stiffened for a moment—Dhara included.
For a fleeting moment, I thought we might not be done with bloodshed for the day.
Then, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all the fervor with which she had fought the tricriths. He molded himself to her so forcefully that she bent backward, but he held her fast.
Despite the direness of the day, my face broke into a smile, and I met Erix’s gaze over the kissing couple. His eyes were molten as he stared at me, and I knew we thought the same thing. Tonight was a good night to celebrate being alive, despite the challenges that lay ahead.
“All right, all right,” Aderyn cut in gruffly when Dhara and Elion came up for air. “Let’s find a place to camp before we all become thoroughly distracted.”
Dhara and Elion separated, but I didn’t miss the way their fingers stayed tangled until the last possible second, as if now that they had finally let themselves touch each other, they couldn’t bring themselves to be apart.
“Once we do, I need to know everything that happened down there,” Elion demanded. “I had been searching everywhere for another way down into the caverns all day.”
The crackle of the fire was comfortable in its familiarity after such a harrowing day. It was a pleasant reminder that life in the desert continued, even after so much death. We all sat around it as Erix relayed the tale of what happened after our tumble into the tricrith lair.
When he reached the part of the story where we were separated, his gaze flickered to Aderyn, and the pace of his story stuttered. We all looked at her and she sighed heavily.
“There’s no point in hiding it,” she said, staring straight into the fire. “I’m pregnant.”
I blinked, the words taking longer than they should to sink in, like rain into earth so dried by heat that it could barely absorb moisture.
Aderyn chewed her lip as the group stared at her in shock.
“Hopefully we reach our destination before I’m too big to ride a horse.”
I slid sideways and wrapped my arms around her.
She stiffened momentarily before wrapping her arms around me in return.
A bubble of fear grew in my belly—fear for what this journey might mean for Aderyn and the new life she carried.
But I just squeezed Aderyn tighter, trying to imagine what this moment would be like if we were still in Kelvadan, without the weight of the desert’s fate crushing us into the earth.
“You don’t hug,” she commented to me, even as she squeezed me in return.
She was right. I hadn’t ever embraced anybody but Erix since my exile. But this was more than a hug—it was a promise.
“We will heal the desert and retake Kelvadan,” I assured her, low enough that only she could hear. “And your child will grow up knowing tales of how you saved your home.”
Aderyn let me go and held me at arm’s length. “They will grow up knowing the most loving of families.”
The back of my eyes burned as I nodded my agreement.
This should be a joyous time for Aderyn and Neven, but instead she was spending it facing unknown perils on a journey of insurmountable difficulty.
I had lost Kelvadan—her family’s home—but I would pay whatever price it took to regain it.
So, her child would know the loving family that I had spent a decade of exile yearning for.
I looked away quickly, before I could think on it further. Imagine what it would be like for that to be my childhood, loved and safe. This makeshift family around me was more than I could have ever dreamed in the loneliness of exile—more than I even deserved.
“I knew I brought this along for a reason!” Elion proclaimed, drawing my attention from Aderyn’s own overbright eyes.
I turned to see him pull a large flask from the inner pocket of his robe and brandish it in the air. The hyena’s head decoration on the stopper glimmered in the firelight, the shine of its eyes making it look like it was cackling.
“You brought laka?” Erix asked.
“Clan Tibel’s finest laka,” he explained. “I figured this journey would supply us with either a cause for celebration or a reason to drown our sorrows. I’m pleased it was the former.”
“I will not be partaking,” Aderyn said, holding her hands up palm out.
“More for the rest of us,” Dhara quipped, grabbing the flask from Elion and taking a hearty swig. I didn’t miss the way Elion’s gaze softened as he watched her wipe her mouth with the back of her hand as she passed the flask around to Erix.
Erix didn’t drink either, passing the flask to me. I quirked my head at him, and he shrugged. The gesture was casual, but the image of the wounds on his arm—clearly self-inflicted—flashed in my mind. A pang of hurt flickered through me, and I lifted the flask to my lips and took a healthy swallow.
He had hidden how badly his madness affected him from me.
I guessed that was why he didn’t want to risk the alcohol.
It was why he had turned to inflicting pain in secret to banish the visions.
I did not begrudge him the relief—only that he did not give me the opportunity to offer him my own reprieve with my touch.
He was the other half of my soul, and when he shied away, I was pulled in two.
His pain was mine, but I could not feel it for him when he hid it.
The laka burned my throat and warmed my belly as I reached past Aderyn to hand it back to Elion. The warmth was almost enough to keep some of the unsettledness in my belly at bay. Maybe a few more swallows and it would dissipate like the heat rolling off the sand in the chill of the night.
Meanwhile, it only amplified the heat of Erix’s gaze on me as we passed the flask around the fire and enjoyed a brief moment of celebration in the quiet of the wilderness.
Perhaps we could find our way back to each other once more.
It was still not too late to offer my touch in place of pain and shield him from the demons that plagued him.
“We need more fuel for the fire,” Erix observed, pushing to his feet and dusting his hands off on his pants.
We had sat around the blaze sharing stories later into the night than might be strictly advisable, given that we needed to continue making good time tomorrow. Still, it had been pleasant, and now Dhara and Elion drifted closer together by the second as Aderyn’s eyelids drooped with exhaustion.
“I’ll come with you,” I volunteered and stood as well.
Erix nodded and we headed out in the direction of a patch of boulders dotted with scrub that we could collect for the fire. From the sidelong glances he stole at me and the tension shivering in our tether, I knew his mind had drifted to the same place mine had.
Ever since we reunited in the caves, I had been wanting to get him alone—to run my hands over every inch of his skin so I could catalog and care for every injury I would find there.
Calm him with my touch and convince him to turn away from his path of self-destruction.
I needed to feel every inch of him around me—inside me—to assure myself that this madness would not take him from me.
I would not let it.
As eager as I was, though, Erix’s desire was even more urgent, hitting me with the force of a galloping horse as we rounded a large patch of rocks and were hidden from the camp.
My back slammed into the boulder as Erix pushed into my space, devouring my mouth with single-minded intensity.
I moaned and he swallowed the sound down, using the opportunity to swipe his tongue into my mouth.
His fingers at the back of my head were firm and insistent, tangling in the curls at the nape of my neck and tipping my face back.
My own hands tangled in his curls, tugging to a point that I was sure flirted with the edge of pain, but it only seemed to spur him on.
“Sands, I need you,” he murmured against my lips, warm breath feathering across my face adding to the heat already building in my cheeks. “The moment that rock came down between us, I wanted to rip the tunnels down to get you back.”
“I knew I’d find you again—” I cut off with a breathy gasp as he bit down on the tendon in my neck, hard enough to jolt me from the languid haze working its way through my blood…
although it wasn’t unpleasant. “I promised you we’d face all our challenges together, and I’d sooner die than break my promises. ”