20. Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Keera
Apiece of me was missing. My limbs trembled and my stomach heaved.
It felt like the world should stop, but instead, it crashed on around me even faster.
I kept running toward the spot Erix had been before he disappeared into a chaotic sea of action.
Horses screamed and a storm raged in the sky, although it paled in comparison to the chaos whirling inside me.
Erix had looked me in the eye and torn our bond apart.
The place where the tether had been rooted in my belly was sore and aching, as if the lost connection was a physical wound.
The soul-deep ache of loss was punctuated by the sharp sting of betrayal.
As my heart shattered, the molten heat of fury filled in the cracks.
Aderyn yanked my arm, and I gasped. Horses stampeded around and behind us, and she had fallen to one knee, almost bringing me down with her. I tugged to help her, only to find that she’d sunk further down. Her boot had sank into a patch of quicksand.
The screams around me transformed from battle cries to shouts of alarm as horses and people began to sink into the ground. Large patches of quicksand that had not been there before spread, trying to swallow some while others scrabbled toward the remaining patches of solid ground.
Aderyn succeeded in pulling herself free, but we looked around in horror.
Somehow the storm had calmed, and the distraction of fighting with Erix had transformed into a battle against the desert.
I looked over to where Erix had fallen, finding him visible once more as those that had been in combat around him scattered, trying to reach safety.
Erix’s dark figure struggled against the wet muck as he tried to extricate himself.
Alza pranced on a nearby patch of solid ground, head tossing and eyes rolling with concern for her rider.
I needed to get to him. To save him and then scream and rage and demand to know why he would leave me isolated in my own mind when I never wanted to be alone again. Between us, a large patch of wet, sucking earth stretched.
After making sure Aderyn was on solid ground, I charged toward it. Mentally, I reached for the flowing river of magic that would help carry me in an inhumanely far jump to reach Erix.
Only it wasn’t there.
I skidded to a halt at the edge of the quicksand, realizing just in time that I would not have the power to propel myself over the obstacle.
The well of magic in my belly that normally roared to life when I approached was dormant and unresponsive, just as it had been for years at my oasis.
Around me, the world literally crumbled and sank, and I had no magic.
No… it just felt different. Quiet and strange and distant, but ancient and immeasurable in its power. Instead of the crushing, destructive power of nature, I felt the people and horses around me, struggling against the desert that threatened to devour them in her anger.
That same anger surged through me—the rage at a broken heart and the need to make it whole again.
But above all that, I knew one thing: I was a survivor.
Even as rage and betrayal surged through me, I knew I could survive this too.
Now, this new part of my magic called me to help these people survive as well.
It was quieter than the call I always felt pulling me headfirst into the well of my power, but even more inexorable.
Erix had pulled himself free of the sucking sand and now reached down to help a rider he had been fighting just minutes before.
I would rage at him, but not now. The panicked neighing of a nearby horse caught my attention.
I looked around to find a bay gelding almost up to its chest, its thrashing only making it sink faster.
Diving forward, I grabbed his face, trying to help him keep it up where he could still breathe.
Aderyn, lurched forward to help too, untying her sash and joining in with others who were trying to save the animals who had escaped their enclosure. Perhaps they didn’t realize that we had been their enemies not five minutes earlier, or perhaps it did not matter in the face of this new nightmare.
As Aderyn and the others tried to affix ropes and straps to the horses to help pull them out of their sticky trap, I reached out with my mind to try and calm the creatures with the touch of my own magic.
It still felt strange and distant, but it jumped to help me aid the horse in a way it hadn’t when I tried to jump the distance to Erix.
I didn’t have time to ponder as I barked at two riders who worked nearby, “Try to get those straps under its chest, here between his forelegs.”
They rushed to do as I asked, and I nearly froze in surprise.
I didn’t know if they had not recognized me as a prisoner, but they hastened to follow my orders as if I were their lord.
The two riders and Aderyn managed to do as I asked and get its front legs onto solid ground.
Just as I let go of the horse’s face, its nose and mouth no longer under threat of dipping below the line of sand, Aderyn looked over my shoulder and her eye’s widened.
“Keera!” she shouted in warning.
I grabbed the blade she had given me when she pulled me from the tent and raised it as I spun, just in time to catch another saber with a clang. Izumi’s snarling face was inches from mine as she bore down on me.
My legs trembled, my body still working out the aftereffects of the poison smoke that Aderyn had wafted out of the tent.
Izumi’s saber gave her more leverage than the short dirk I had borrowed.
Before she could drive me to the ground, I twisted out of the bind, dancing to the side as her sword fell toward the earth.
But Izumi was fast, redirecting herself and taking another wild slash.
I danced back as she snarled at me. “You and your Viper did this. It is your fault the desert isn’t healed yet. Your fault that Kelvadan still stands in defiance of her ways.”
Shaking my head, I circled around her, trying to keep my distance. Fighting an opponent as skilled as her would be difficult even if I wasn’t armed with only a knife. With my magic behaving strangely, I didn’t wish to engage her.
Rage and betrayal still itched beneath my skin, but they weren’t directed at her. Staining the sand with her blood wouldn’t solve anything.
“It’s the Heart,” I insisted. “Help us fix it.”
Izumi’s blade wavered an inch, although her fierce expression didn’t budge.
“If you don’t, the desert will continue to hurt your people. Those you love.” I gestured around us at the chaos of the camp. Izumi did too, a haunted, desperate look in her eyes.
Then, her breath caught as her eyes landed on something in the distance.
“Sandstorm,” she breathed. She charged past me, seemingly uncaring that I could stab at her unprotected side as she did. I turned to see where she went, only to find the tent Aderyn had pulled me from collapsing into a pit of wet sand.
“Wait!” I shouted, running after her. It was only two rows removed from the epicenter of the fighting and chaos surrounding Erix. Izumi must have assumed Badha was still tied in the tent, trapped as it was sucked below the surface.
But Aderyn had cut her binds as well when she had found us. I did not watch where she had gone, too desperate to get to the storm I felt brewing in Erix, but she would not be in the collapsing shelter.
Izumi didn’t hear me shout or didn’t care. She sprinted toward the spreading quicksand as the top peak of the canvas was pulled beneath it.
“No!” I shouted again, loath to see a meaningless death added to this landscape of destruction, but it was too late.
Without breaking her stride, Izumi dived headfirst into the pit.
She was willing to risk her life to save Badha, not knowing she was already saved.
I swore and skidded to a stop at the edge, my toes already sinking into the wet, silty ground.
Aderyn had joined me in my chase and we stared in horror. But I understood—I had jumped into quicksand after Erix before I realized I loved him. And Izumi still had the Heart.
“Sands,” I swore, unwinding my hood from around my head and handing one end to Aderyn. “You’ll be able to pull me out?”
I meant it as question, but it came out as a statement. Aderyn just nodded sharply. “Carry a baby, carry you. I do it all.”
Wrapping the other end of my hood around my wrist, I took a deep breath and jumped into the sand. I would have preferred to enter in a more controlled manner, but Izumi’s dive would have carried her deep, and I needed to reach her before she ran out of air.
I found her quickly as her thrashing limbs churned that sand around her. Reaching out blindly, I tried to wrap my arms around her waist, but she twisted and fought—thinking I was trying to pull her away from saving Badha.
I grimaced as her fist scraped against my jaw in slow motion as she writhed against me. Everything felt heavy and thick as my lungs started to protest the lack of air. Eventually, though, I managed to grab a hold of her awkwardly and tugged on my hood to signal Aderyn.
The sand tried to suck us deeper as we were pulled free, turning thicker and more solid as we pushed through it. Izumi continued to twist and thrash, but her movements became weaker as she ran out of air.
My own lungs burned and white spots flashed behind my closed eyes.
Sluggishness began seeping through my limbs.
The end of my hood in my grasp began slipping through my fingers as I struggled to hold onto both it and Izumi.
Aderyn was strong, but the hold of the desert sucking us down was just as inexorable.
I couldn’t let Izumi go, though—not when the Heart of the Desert was still tucked into her sash. And she didn’t deserve to die for the one act of selfless love I had seen from her, among all her fear and anger.