21. Chapter 21 #2
We stopped in the shadow of the crumbling structure, looking at the way the walls had been worn smooth on the outside by the constant breeze rolling off the ocean.
A clack from my side finally drew my gaze toward Izumi.
She reached into her sash and pulled out the two broken pieces of the Heart.
I had been so focused on getting Keera back that I hadn’t even processed that she had it.
She looked down at it, with her brow furrowed. “This is truly the answer? Not the destruction of Kelvadan?”
I sighed heavily. The Heart and conquering Kelvadan had always been inextricably linked in my mind, but that was the result of my own anger. Kelvadan was the representation of the failures of my family which had broken the desert, but it was not the true cause of my pain.
The actual source of my anguish and the desert’s pain seemed to shift once again as I pondered Kelvar’s words.
He had trapped Alyx between life and death in the tower at Kelvadan, and in doing so, the Heart had shattered.
Once again, the answer seemed to lie in the Great City, although not in its destruction.
Perhaps we could find a way to release Alyx from her preserved state and heal the Heart—if I believed the words of Kelvar.
Doubt gnawed at me, even as my heart told me he did not lie. I could not afford to be wrong.
As I stared at the Heart, I knew that Kelvadan’s existence had never been the cause of the desert’s anger.
“Yes,” I admitted. “It was locked in the palace at Kelvadan. Attacking the city was always a means to an end. And I had my own reasons for wanting the city to fall.”
“But no longer?”
I sighed. “You’re not the only one who was changed by love.”
“Two warlords, brought to their knees by women,” Izumi snorted.
“It seems to be a tradition.”
Izumi made a face at the broken gem in her hand. “Perhaps it is my lack of the desert’s magic, but this Heart doesn’t seem to be anything beyond a shiny rock.”
I shook my head. “It’s not just you. It must have lost its power when it was broken. I had hoped the temple would hold the answers, but so far, we have found none.”
Bitterness coated my tongue and laced my words. If Kelvar was right, we had wasted precious time journeying in the wrong direction—to the ocean—when the key to healing the desert lay with Alyx in the city. A city occupied by our enemies, whose people we had left to suffer.
My face heated and I grit my teeth. A stubborn part of me insisted that there still must be answers to be gleaned here, at the place from which Kelvar had stolen the Heart.
“Show me,” Izumi handed me the two halves of the Heart and gestured to the open archway, leading into the shadowy interior.
I led the way inside, and both the harsh sunshine and the sound of the ocean faded as the walls closed around us.
Izumi walked around, examining the cracked altar and the engraved walls with the same curiosity I had.
She had been here before when she found Keera and me, but she would not have had time to inspect her surroundings, and she would not have known the significance of the place.
“They tell the story of the first people to cross the desert,” I offered.
Izumi nodded her understanding. She paused in front of the last picture, where the man and wife rode at the front of a massive clan of riders. “One clan, led by two lords.”
“Something that hasn’t been achieved since.”
“You led all the Clans for a moment,” she said.
“We were splintering from the very beginning.”
She cocked her head. “Perhaps we were going about it wrong. Maybe we don’t need to be fully united as one clan. Perhaps all the lords—even the monarchs of Kelvadan—could maintain their rule, but unite under a common leader… or two, as there were here.”
Izumi looked at me meaningfully. I swallowed. I had consciously shied from leadership my whole life, pushing even further from it when Keera was queen and I strived to pose no threat to her rule. I knew Keera too feared such power after losing Kelvadan.
“Who could hope to command lords and kings?” I asked, trying to bat away Izumi’s suggestions.
“The ones with the power to save all the land all of us call home,” Izumi argued. “People who have earned respect by risking their lives to save the desert’s people, even when they did not belong to their own clan or city. They would not replace lords but bring them all together. Be… higher.”
“High Lords of the Ballan Desert,” I breathed.
It was a vision as enticing as it was terrifying.
All the riders of the desert, whether from the sands or the city, uniting to cast out Prince Calix and give the desert what it needed to heal.
And this time, they would not be united by fear and false promises, but by common purpose.
With Keera leading at my side, the burdens of leadership would be shared between us instead of multiplied by the isolation of power.
I had run from such a role my whole life, but the story on the walls of this temple tried to tell me I could hide no longer.
“Of course, such high lords would be able to treat with foreign powers in the way a single faction never could,” Izumi continued. “You could make alliances that would help us reclaim Kelvadan.”
I clenched my jaw, some of my anger from earlier reappearing at the reminder of who else camped near the ocean. “Or they could have the power to cast out those who were wrongfully welcomed by those who were blinded by a need for revenge.”
Izumi crossed her arms, her mouth pressing into a hard line. “I may have realized I was misguided, but I was not wrong about everything.”
“You were wrong to invite a man like Warrick into our midst. He is hungry for power and will do anything necessary to get it,” I ground out.
“A lord would do anything for the defense of their people. General Warrick should fit right in,” she snapped.
“He does not know or respect the ways of the desert.”
“But he knows the ways of our enemy,” she pointed at me, as if she were about to jab me in the chest but thought better of it at the last second.
I wasn’t sure if I was frustrated or relieved that her suggestion that I put myself forward as leader of all the desert hadn’t tempered her tendency to argue with me.
“We know what Viltov and Prince Calix are capable of well enough. We do not need another foreigner to tell us that he is ruthless and evil. You went too far in your blind campaign against Kelvadan by bringing Doran’s armies here.”
“And your fear keeps you from going far enough. Kelvadan must be retaken, and the Heart must be healed. You and Keera will only be able to lead the clans to victory if you are willing to take the necessary risks.” Her tone was firm, and her words made me look down at the Heart still clutched in my hand.
Kelvar had said a price must be paid. I only wished I knew what it was before the desert exacted her payment from me.