15. Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
Erix
The silence around the campfire was thick. Unlike the last time we had survived one of the desert’s more difficult ordeals, the joy born of still being alive hadn’t found us. Instead, we all sat quietly, each haunted by whatever demons we had been shown.
At first, I had busied my fingers with cleaning and bandaging Keera’s burned arm.
She had been right: The injury was barely a shadow of the burns she had once endured as I desperately tried to keep her clinging onto life after our battle with the lava wyrm.
But my chest still squeezed so tight I could barely draw breath at the knowledge that I had done this to her.
Now, my hands itched for another task, but I resisted sharpening my new sword. I still carried Kelvar’s broken blade with my things, and I didn’t want to subject the blade I had been given from Clan Jal’s supplies to the same fate of over-sharpening.
Instead, I found my mental fingers toying with the tether between me and Keera.
What once had been a fragile thread—forming the first moment I touched her, although I hadn’t even realized it at the time—was now a tangled braid of many fibers.
It had always been a comfort to me, but after today’s visions, something about its presence filled me with a sense of dread.
Feeling Keera’s magic would only ever be a balm to my aching soul, but tonight, I couldn’t stop thinking about what the bond meant—what it might lead to. The image of Kelvar’s skeletal fingers, outstretched inches away from Alyx’s perfectly preserved hand, kept flashing in my mind.
A similar bond had doomed them to their fates, because Kelvar couldn’t bear to let it be severed.
Today, my fear of losing Keera had led to me burning the one thing I loved more than the desert.
It had happened once before, when I had turned my blade on her in the haze of battle, the time I had thought her lost to me in Kelvadan.
I plucked compulsively at the bond between us, feeling Keera’s slight discomfort from her injury, although I could tell she tried to shield me from it. She fidgeted where she sat next to me, and I knew I needed to stop.
Abruptly, I stood. Everybody looked up from where they had stared blankly in harrowed memory. “I’m going to check on the horses.”
Indeed, I still worried about Alza after our separation today.
Soon after the magical fog had cleared, we had found the horses standing in a group nearby, seemingly unbothered by the mystical turn of events.
Alza had snorted at me, as if chiding me for overreacting when I threw my arms around her neck.
Apparently, the desert did not subject her chosen animals to the horrors of her visions, even when she had no qualms torturing her riders.
Dhara shook her head. “They need rest as much as we do, if we are going to face more trials tomorrow.”
I clenched my fists but stayed where I stood.
She was right. We all needed to sleep tonight, including the horses, if we were going to be fit for whatever awaited us tomorrow.
We had already stayed up too late, reluctant to turn in and face dreams that may reconjure the fears we had already faced in our waking hours.
With a sigh, I sat back down. “There is one piece of good news.”
Everybody looked at me skeptically, as if unbelieving there might be a bright side to the hunger and thirst and the danger we all faced.
I took a deep breath. “Last time I crossed to the ocean, I faced terrifying visions too. And they meant we were close. Very close.”
Dhara and Elion and Aderyn looked among themselves with the faintest sparks of hope in their eyes. Meanwhile, Keera’s eyes locked with mine, gaze equal parts anticipation and apprehension.
Soon, we would reach the ocean and the empty temple waiting there. Then, we would have to face the next uncertainty. The Heart needed to be healed, and if the temple it had been stolen from didn’t hold the answers, I didn’t know where to look next.
The slight tang on the breeze was my first hint.
I always enjoyed the smell of the desert—the sunshine and dry earth.
It didn’t escape my notice that it was the same warm scent that rolled off Keera’s skin.
I chased it down at the back of her neck and between her breasts, breathing it in like an addict any time we were close.
So, I noticed it instantly when the smell shifted—a slight fresh saltiness that woke memories more than a decade old. As we rode on, I said nothing to my companions of my observation. Not yet, at least.
This might be another one of the desert’s tricks, convincing us the ocean was close only to dash our hopes and our spirits with it. But after another hour of riding, Keera looked up hopefully, and I caught Aderyn turning her nose into the growing breeze as well.
“Is that…” Keera asked in wonder.
We all looked among ourselves, hope sparking in the mood that had been somber since the misadventures in the mist two days earlier.
I wanted to say that we might still be a day’s ride away.
The wind could carry surprisingly far. But Keera’s face—the one that so often wore every expression openly and brought me hope even in the bleakest of circumstances—had been pinched and guarded since the visions in the fog.
I couldn’t bring myself to wipe away the edge of a smile that lit it now.
She pushed her hood back and turned her face skyward, the picture of freedom and beauty that had made me believe that there might be something more important to me than restoring my family’s legacy.
So, when she cried out in celebration and kicked Daiti into a run—not that he ever seemed to need much urging to dash off across the sand—I didn’t stop her.
Instead, I leaned over Alza’s neck and urged the mare on after her.
Alza leapt into motion with an eagerness much more suited to a filly than a horse of her age and dignity, but I couldn’t blame her.
The voices of the others and the pounding of more hooves added to the song rising in my blood, telling me the others gave chase as well, but those sounds quickly fell away. They all rode fine horses and were strong riders, but none were quite as fast as Alza and Daiti.
The wind whipped my hair and stung my eyes as we raced over the sand toward the promise of the horizon. While Keera had a head start, Alza and I gained on her as Daiti flagged slightly—too large and powerful to be as fast as Alza over longer distances.
As we gained on them, the golden stallion’s flowing tail tickled my face.
For the first time in months, the rush of my magic didn’t feel just like a curse, as it crashed through me in the unbridled freedom of a reckless ride.
The force of it was still stronger than I was used to, even with the outlet of a horseback chase, but it was just manageable enough that it didn’t drown out the spark of wonder that shot through the tether with Keera as we crested the next dune.
Sparkling below us was a vast expanse of crystalline blue, bright as a diamond in the afternoon sun. Foamy waves crashed against a sandy beach before sliding back to rejoin the endless sea, stretching out farther than my imagination could comprehend.
We had reached the ocean.
Now, Keera and I were side by side as we galloped, and we made no move to slow as we barreled toward the beach and the sea beyond. The salt on the air stung my eyes along with the force of the wind, and I reveled in it.
Keera whooped in celebration as we crashed straight into the surf, and my heart wrenched.
It was a noise of unbridled joy after so much sorrow, and it only served to remind me how much she had suffered to get to this point.
Once, she had wanted to cross the ocean just for the satisfaction of seeing all the desert’s beauty, and I wished for a moment I had been able to take her on the journey, free from the weight of responsibility and heartache.
I shook the thought away in favor of watching her clutch on to Daiti as he bucked and pranced in the waves swirling around his legs.
He seemed as amused by them as Keera, who laughed at his antics.
Even Alza stood on her back legs and pivoted for a moment before crashing back down into the water and stomping at it in fascination.
As Daiti turned, Keera looked up and met my gaze with a broad smile that stabbed like a knife through my heart with the intensity of the feelings it summoned in me.
I would give anything to make sure she still smiled like that at the end of all this.
I would carve out my own beating heart if I had to.
I urged Alza forward until I could lean off her back and loop my arm around Keera’s waist, pulling her toward me and pressing my lips to hers.
I pulled her halfway off her horse, crushing her into me and holding most of her weight in my arms. Daiti grumbled and moved closer, negotiating with Alza to let us embrace, but I didn’t care.
Instead, I was consumed with the way Keera kissed me back with abandon, looping her arms around my neck and trusting me to not let her fall.
Her lips worked frantically against mine as I held her.
We had ridden through hell together—survived a journey I once hadn’t planned to make it back from—and all I could think about was drinking in every second I could with her.
My visions in the fog had strengthened the seed of doubt in my mind that Keera would escape my madness unharmed, and seeing her full of wild joy and freedom, made me want to hold on to our bond even tighter, even when I feared it would strangle her.
Pulling back for air, she laughed against my lips as the others arrived. They also let their horses frolic in the surf. For all that they were some of the fiercest warriors to ride the desert, each of them looked utterly struck with wonder at the sight of the ocean.
I pulled back too and looked over the awe-inspiring sight, my hand on Keera’s waist. Although I had seen the sea once before, the effect was no less striking.
Water was such a scarcity in the desert, and so much of life among the sands revolved around chasing and preserving it.
Even if the water of the ocean couldn’t be drunk, it made me shiver to think of so much in one place.
It was magnificent. Keera, clearly thought so too, her mouth hanging open in wonder as she scanned the view, making me want to kiss her all over again. Before I could, her gaze snagged on something along the beach.
“Look.” She pointed off to the left.
I had been so focused on Keera’s joy and the relief of finally reaching the sea that I hadn’t even seen it—the true reason we had made such a perilous journey.
Half collapsed and barely even a structure anymore, but still unmistakable, was a white stone edifice. The columns around the entrance were crumbling and the salt wind had worn away at the engraved walls, but still I recognized the temple. It was the home of the desert’s Heart.