16. Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
Keera
Erix smelled like the ocean. I had always loved his sandalwood and salt scent, and now that I had the fresh ocean breeze in my nose, I realized that this is what it had always reminded me of, even if I had never smelled it before.
Like a forgotten memory at the edge of my consciousness, Erix was something I had always been journeying toward and dreaming of.
Even as we walked our horses over to the nearly collapsed temple, my eyes kept darting over the sparkling cerulean expanse of the sea.
It was like nothing my dreams had been able to conjure when I thought of our destination.
I wanted to hang onto the pure wonder of seeing it for the first time, but as we approached the crumbling archway of the stone structure before us, apprehension chased away the light, effervescent feeling.
Erix and I stopped in the shadow of the columns and glanced at each other. The other three hung behind us, all sensing the gravity of the moment.
We had come all this way and faced horrible trials—Elion and Aderyn had been drawn away from their purpose of uniting the clans—and now we would discover if it had all been for nothing.
We had to restore the Heart to its rightful place, but the broken weight of its half in my pocket was heavy with uncertainty.
Erix nodded at me sharply, but I couldn’t tell whether he was reassuring me or himself.
“I’ll stay outside with the horses,” Elion volunteered.
“Thank you.” I took a deep breath and stepped into the cool shade of the temple’s interior.
The air was calm and heavy, shielded from the wind rolling off the waves by high walls. Our breaths disturbed the stillness, and I tried to place my feet gently, so as not to make too much noise in this sacred place.
The sun still filtered in through a roof that was half collapsed, making the pillars that had once held up the ceiling cast long shadows. The walls were made of a white stone, every inch etched with patterns that I couldn’t make out at this distance.
While Aderyn and Dhara drifted toward them curiously, my gaze caught on the stone altar in the middle of the room. The air shifted as Erix stiffened next to me, and I knew he focused on the same spot.
It was made of the same white stone as the rest of the structure, which made the blackened marks even more jarring. It was cracked nearly in two, the break charred and dark as if it had done my lightning. Carefully, I approached and looked down at the surface.
A large, circular indent lay on the top, divided in two by the deep crack. Reaching into my pocket, I produced the heavy red gem of the Heart, slotting my half into the indent. The hole cradled the stone in a perfect fit.
I held my breath and my heart hammered in my throat. Erix stepped up next to me, holding his half of the gem. Carefully, he laid it next to mine, lining up the edges perfectly, so it looked like it had never been broken at all. When he let go, though, it shifted, revealing the cloven edge.
I let out my breath in a huff. “It’s not like I actually expected it to be that easy,” I admitted.
“But it would have been nice,” Erix observed.
We stared down at the fractured stone for a shared moment of frustration before Aderyn’s voice snapped us from our contemplation.
“These etchings, I think they tell a story.”
I picked up the Heart, not wanting to just leave it lying there, and shoved both halves into my sash.
“A story?”
I joined her in one corner where she ran her fingers over the stone. Leaning in and looking closer, I found that what I thought had been decorative patterns were actually a series of pictures.
The first thing I was able to pick out was the familiar shape of a tricrith, jumping easily to the forefront of my memory after our journey.
I ran my fingers over the pattern carved into the stone.
It had clearly once been deep and sharp but was now softened and faded with the passage of years.
It was rough under my fingers, and I scrubbed sand out of the indents to make the picture clearer.
“The beasts of the desert,” I commented, and felt Aderyn shiver beside me. Her dislike of tricriths was clear after the ordeal in the nest.
“There are bone spiders and gravehawks over here,” Dhara commented from the stone slab she observed a few feet away. She used her sleeve to wipe away accumulated sand and dirt and look closer.
“I believe the pictures tell the story of the first man to cross the desert and win her Heart,” Erix said, pausing behind Aderyn and me.
“Although, I admit, Lord Alasdar and I did not study them like we should have. I was preoccupied with the broken altar. Perhaps if I had looked closer, I would have some idea of what to do with the broken Heart.”
“Well, we’re here now,” I pointed out with a determined lift of my chin. “And if the answers are in this tale, then we will find them.”
I continued to trace the etchings into the next drawing, finding a figure facing off against a long feline creature. “Here is the first man fighting a sichat. And here he is again killing a bone spider.”
Aderyn leaned in and shook her head. “No, that’s a different person. The clothing is different and the design of the saber. This one has curved quillons, but this one has a basket handle.”
“Maybe the artist just took liberties.” I shrugged.
“No,” Dhara said from across the temple. “There are definitely two people. Here they are approaching the ocean and there are two horses.”
Erix stepped away to look where she pointed. I kept tracing the story along, finding that indeed, two distinct figures faced off against foe after foe until I reached the image Dhara indicated. Two horses bearing riders rode toward the sun rising over the ocean. They held hands.
“It’s a couple. A man and a woman,” Dhara said victoriously.
Indeed, in the next picture, the two figures kneeled facing each other with their hoods pushed back. The details of their features were lost to time, but their shapes and the long tail of a braid blowing in the wind indicated Dhara was right.
I reached out and touched the very center of the picture, where their hands were clasped and something dripped from them. Blood.
They were married, just the way Erix and I had been, kneeling alone in the sand and joining our life force together. I had heard the crashing of waves and felt the ocean breeze on my face when our blood dripped onto the sand. My brow furrowed as I wondered what it could all mean.
Just next to the picture of the wedding in the sand was something that made my breath catch.
The couple stood before a familiar temple—its grand scale and beauty in contrast to the ruins we stood in now—and held between them was a round object.
If the engravings had ever been painted, the color had worn off long ago, but I imagined it glittering the rich red of freshly spilled blood.
This had to be the tale of the Heart. I leaned in closer, my nose nearly brushing the rough stones as if I could dive into the scene and demand answers.
If there were any to be found though, I did not seem to have the wisdom to glean them from the simple illustration.
The Heart was notably absent from the next picture.
However, where all the pictures until now had focused only on the two figures, this one depicted them riding at the head of a large group of riders, seemingly all ages and sizes.
“They became first lords of the clans,” Dhara breathed beside me, all of us having tracked the story along the wall. She reached out and ran the pad of her pointer finger delicately over the woman’s figure, where they led the caravan.
“Clan, singular,” Erix noted. “It appears there was only one clan in the beginning, led by the two of them together.”
“They must have divided over time into the clans we know today,” Dhara observed.
“The riders of the desert don’t seem to like to stay together,” Aderyn huffed, and Dhara narrowed her eyes at her, but didn’t seem truly frustrated by the barb.
“They were all one people once, though,” I murmured thoughtfully. These two riders, whoever they were, tamed the desert and brought them all together.
A bolt of frustration ran down the tether in my belly, shocking me with its sudden intensity after the distraction of my curiosity.
“It tells nothing of the Heart, though,” Erix growled.
My stomach sank. He was right.
“Maybe we missed something,” I said, looking around to see if there were any etchings we had yet to examine. “Or there is some hidden meaning.”
“Some of the wall is collapsed.” Aderyn pointed to the crumbling corner. “Perhaps we can uncover those pieces and find more answers.”
It was a sound plan, but something about the temple felt empty, the same way that I had expected the broken Heart to be overflowing with the desert’s magic, only to touch it and find it shockingly mundane.
The two halves lay heavy in my pocket like nothing but a sparkly rock, fit only to be used in my sling for hunting.
I shook myself from that hopeless line of thought. We had not journeyed this far to be discouraged so quickly. I trailed Erix over to the broken wall, hoping to rearrange the tumbled slabs into some semblance of their original form.
Before I could take two steps, Elion’s voice drifted in through the open ceiling.
“Come out. Hurry!”
The urgency in his tone lit a fire in my veins. The trials of the desert should abate when we reached the ocean, according to Erix’s prior experience. But the desert’s laws seemed to no longer apply these days.
All four of us hurried outside to where Elion waited with the horses. There was no monster or disaster waiting for us though. Just Elion staring at the horizon, shading his eyes from the sun and contemplating the ocean with the look of utmost concern.
“What is it?”
He pointed out over the water. “Something is out there, and it’s coming closer.”
I mirrored his posture, squinting in the direction he indicated.
At first, I had the odd impression that distant horses galloped over the water as what looked like the heads of animals bobbed up and down.
Then a memory of Prince Calix jovially describing his boat in a palace hallway what seemed like a lifetime ago surfaced.
These were ships.
I tried to count how many there were, but quickly lost track after a dozen, with the way they bobbed strangely on the waves. I did not know how I had mistaken them for horses at first as I watched, their movements not nearly as elegant and fluid as the creatures of the desert.
One thing was clear though—there were too many for the five of us to fight alone. If Erix and I truly unleashed the strength of our power, we might be able to cripple them, but it would buy a pyrrhic victory, likely to annihilate our own little band in the process.
“We can’t let them see us,” I said, my voice quiet despite the fact that the ships would not be close enough to hear me even if I shouted with all the force in my lungs.
It was as if some latent instinct reared its head, like a snake in brumation rising from its burrow at the sign of a threat.
I was a single exile hiding at my oasis, hoping to escape the notice of a passing clan.
But as I had then, I also knew I couldn’t run away.
I needed to creep closer. I had to find out why they had come and what their intentions were.
I jerked my head at Erix and the others.
“Take the horses and ride down the beach,” I murmured. “I’ll spy on them and see if I can learn anything.”
Erix shook his head. “There’s no need to risk you being seen. We know it’s Calix. His people used to worship the sea the same way we worship the ocean. It has to be his warriors.”
“Why would they sail to the coast when they can already come through the mountains?” I asked. “I have to know.”
“I agree,” Aderyn cut in. For the first time since the ordeal in the fog, her voice was the clear, commanding tone I had often found so reassuring in Kelvadan.
“We have to know everything we can about Calix and his plans. For Kelvadan. Perhaps it is why the desert brought Elion and I this way on our mission to find aid for Kelvadan.”
I nodded at Aderyn. I had come to the ocean to save the desert. All of the desert. If healing the Heart was still a mystery to me, then I would take what chance I could to cripple Calix’s hold on Kelvadan and the grasp he sought to tighten on the clans.
“Go,” I assured Erix. “I’ll be fine. I robbed you once, I know how to remain unseen.”
He frowned. “I caught you.”
“You wouldn’t have if I hadn’t gotten greedy and tried to take your sword. I know better now, and I already have my own blade.” I gestured to the saber at my hip.
He pursed his lips but nodded. I sensed his unease like a nest of vipers in my own belly, but he knew I was right. After a decade of creeping in and out of encampments in the dead of night, I was better suited for stealth. And one person was less likely to be spotted than two.
Quickly, Elion and the group mounted up and turned to ride away along the beach, parallel to where the waves met the shore. I clucked my tongue at Daiti, indicating he should follow, and he put up more of a fuss than Erix did, but eventually followed.
As they disappeared from sight, I found myself a shadowed alcove in the eroding walls of the temple to crouch in. I shoved myself into the smallest possible ball, hiding myself from view behind a toppled pillar where I could just peek out over the top and watch the ships approach.
My heart steadily accelerated as I watched them grow closer to the shore. Large, dark canvases drifted above their elongated shapes, looking like unanchored tents—sails, Calix had called them—to catch the wind.
I understood why I had thought they were creatures at first. Wooden shafts emerged from the sides to propel them through the water, almost like spindly legs, and by now I was sure that they had some sort of animal head engraved on the very foremost point, although it appeared more canine than equine.
Finally, the leading ship bumped against the sandy bottom, shallow enough that the man in the front of the boat was able to vault over the edge and land in knee-deep water.
I didn’t expect to recognize Calix’s agent, although I prepared to feel anger at his presence in my country. It was bad enough that Viltov’s Prince had installed himself in Kelvadan as a false king, but the sands belonged to the clans, and they would not suffer invaders.
Then, a flash of copper hair shone in the sun as a familiar face scowled out at the sandy landscape, and dread rose in my throat.
General Warrick.
I didn’t know what the warrior from Doran was doing on our shores, but the sight of his face made unease wash over me like icy water, despite the blistering heat of the afternoon sun.