28. Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Keera
Doran’s camp was in nearly as much disarray as the clans after the hasty retreat, but I barely spared it much thought as Warrick led the group to where his boats had been pulled up the beach.
The men were hard at work on them—as they had been before—but now I saw that they did not work on the wooden sides.
Instead, they were building something off the sides: Long narrow wooden planks that nearly lifted them off the ground.
On occasion, when conditions were harsh and a clan wanted to carry more water on their journeys to follow the herds, they would construct sleds. Horses could pull heavier water barrels this way, until they were empty and lighter. The effect with the boats was similar.
“Our horses will not be pulling your boats,” Aderyn said automatically, clearly thinking along the same lines I had been. While Aderyn had been quiet during the meeting with the other lords, Izumi and the Lords of Clan Ratan and Miran now looked at her curiously as they nodded approvingly.
She might not be of the clans, but she honored the ways of the desert, and that was the surest way to win their respect.
A seed of an idea that had taken root in my chest began to unfurl a tentative tendril, but I turned my attention away from it.
If we could not retake Kelvadan, a discussion of who would rule the city would be purely theoretical. I preferred the practical.
Warrick scoffed in response. “I would not expect such. I’ll admit I understand little of your ways, but the fact that you love horses more than your own children is apparent.”
“We can love both,” Aderyn muttered, and I did not miss the way her hand drifted to her now obviously swollen belly. There was no hiding from the others that she was expecting a child.
“You’ll notice we kept the masts up.” Warrick pointed at the tall wooden poles at the center of the boat, adorned with curled canvas.
It looked almost like a tent flap, rolled up to be kept open.
“In the flat lands of the desert, I was hoping there would be enough wind to carry them. After all, the swells of the dunes look so similar to the waves of the sea. I figured, why not sail them as well.”
“These vessels look heavy. You are unlikely to be able to sail as fast as our horses,” Izumi pointed out.
“I will admit, I was concerned when we first made land. But then, an unnatural storm whipped in. If that wind could be harnessed and maintained…” Warrick trailed off, looking pointedly at the group.
Erix pressed his lips together in a hard line at the reminder of his loss of control. While the imminent threat of his magic seemed to have cooled in the wake of Kelvar’s message, it still smoldered, ready to reignite at any minute.
“We can help with the wind,” I offered. Erix wasn’t the only one who could call down storms.
He nodded his agreement. “It can be done. How long will your preparations take?”
Warrick cocked his head in thought. “Maybe a fortnight. Although, extra hands would make the work go faster. Perhaps the clans have some workers who could aid us.”
The lords looked among themselves. To my surprise, the newly minted Lord of Clan Padra spoke up first. “My people will help. My wife’s brother is a skilled craftsman. He will join you.”
With a grumble of agreement, the other lords volunteered their own people, and it was decided.
Warrick rubbed his hands together. “Soon, the warriors of Doran will sail the sea of sand.”
I sighed and scrubbed my hand over my head. Every inch of me was coated in sweat and dust from a full day of helping the clans rebuild their encampment. Supplies had to be organized, and horses needed to be tended. Both Erix and I leant a hand wherever we could.
As I rubbed my scalp, sand dusted down and I frowned.
The longer half of my hair was braided out of the way, but the shorter side where my hair had once been burned away was now an awkward length: It couldn’t fit into a braid with the rest, but it was enough to get in the way.
I hadn’t looked in a mirror recently, but I worried I looked unkempt.
It would not inspire confidence in a high lord.
I paused for a beat outside the tent that Erix and I had erected for ourselves—while it was in the middle of the circle made by the other lords’ tents, marking the very center of the encampment, it was a good deal smaller.
In fact, it was the kind of tent that would usually be occupied by a single rider, but it suited us just fine.
After all, I could sense Erix wasn’t even inside yet, despite the late hour. I had last seen him helping Clan Miran’s horse master tend to a gelding’s cracked hoof.
Giving it just a second’s thought, I turned away and headed to another nearby tent, erected just outside the central circle. It too was small and worn—borrowed from Clan Ratan. It made me frown.
I pushed aside the flap and ducked my head inside. The light of a flickering lantern lit the space, and a shuffling noise hit the air as Aderyn spun around. I didn’t miss the way she snatched her hands away from her belly, which she had been staring down at while caressing gently.
“Keera.” She seemed surprised. “I thought you would be busy with the other lords still.”
“I’d rather have your advice than theirs any day,” I admitted.
At that her lips twitched. It had been long months since the nights we spent bent over papers together trying to figure out how to hold Kelvadan together at the seams. I hated to admit that there was much about being a queen I was happy to be rid of, but the long hours with Aderyn were not one of them.
She was my first friend.
“And what advice could you use from me tonight?” Aderyn asked.
“You’re bald,” I observed.
“We’ve known each other for a while and you’re just realizing this now? How are you such a good sword fighter if you’re this unobservant.”
I huffed. “I’ve noticed. I was just thinking about how you keep yourself that way… unless it’s natural.” I backpedaled rapidly. Aderyn’s bold appearance had always seemed an indelible part of her unyielding facade, but perhaps it hadn’t been a choice.
She snorted. “No, I shave it. Why?”
I gestured helplessly at the side of my head.
“You don’t want to grow it back out?”
I shrugged. “I liked it long, but I can’t stand growing it out—at least not right now.
I can’t keep it out of the way, and I don’t want it in my face in battle.
Maybe after… this just isn’t the time to be worried about it.
” I avoided saying after we retake Kelvadan.
As much as I wanted such a time to be, it seemed unlucky to voice such a thought.
To make plans for a time without war when so much battle and bloodshed still stood before us.
“Some inconveniences in battle can’t be helped.” Aderyn grimaced, “But this one we might be able to do something about.”
She gestured me to sit as she rustled around in her packs. I followed her instructions, even as I furrowed my brow.
“I would hope some inconveniences are joyful,” I probed. While Aderyn was one of the more direct people I had met—a trait I appreciated in a time when I was so inexperienced with others and the subtext they often defaulted to—I still tried to step lightly around this conversation.
“Some things are both joyful and terrifying,” she admitted. She stepped up behind me with her supplies and ran her fingers through the short side of my hair, testing it.
“Those things seem to be worth it.” I thought of the way Erix held the power to shatter my heart and mind in the palm of his hand and knew that it was true.
The thought of being left alone again after experiencing such a connection was the worst pain I could imagine, but I had no doubt Erix warranted the risk.
“Besides, you’re the bravest person I know. ”
Aderyn ran her blade gently over my scalp, and a dusting of dark hair fell to the ground. “I’ve never been this scared before,” she admitted quietly.
For a moment, the only sound in the dimly lit tent was the quiet rasp of the knife over my skin.
“The coming battles will be a challenge for all of us,” I admitted.
Thus far Aderyn hadn’t let the growing swell of her belly keep her from riding and fighting and aiding others in any way possible, but I didn’t envy her facing a fight with the extra unwieldly weight.
“I’m not afraid of fighting,” she admitted. “I fear not fighting.”
I frowned, even though I knew she couldn’t see my face as she stood at my back.
A rustle of air brushed over my newly bare scalp, the sensation making me jump as she sighed and leaned in close to get a good look at her work.
“I am desperate to retake Kelvadan,” she admitted as she continued.
“I want my child to be raised there—for it to once again be the safe haven and home it always was for me. And how can I look my child in the eye and teach them to be brave when I couldn’t free the people I swore to protect?
But what if I can’t fight when the time comes? Or maybe I shouldn’t? What if Neven…”
“Neven loves your warrior’s spirit,” I assured her, even as I swallowed around the thick lump in my throat. “He would never ask you to lay down your sword.”
“He’s lost so much already,” she murmured. “His hand. This time together that should have been so joyful. I don’t want him to lose anything else. But I also don’t want to lose Kelvadan.”
I swallowed heavily. I didn’t know what to say to such a fear, for there were no promises I could make. I would move mountains to reclaim the desert and protect the ones I loved in the process, but I could not assure anybody’s safety in the desert. Death was always present in the Ballan Desert.
So instead of promises, I just tried to listen. Thankfully, Aderyn was a woman of action as well, and I knew she understood the value of my silent presence when there was very little to be said. She would not appreciate hollow promises.
We sat in comfortable silence as she continued shaving half my head. Her touch was gentle but sure, the sensation of newly bared skin oddly ticklish. Absorbed in my own mind, a thought from earlier surfaced. “You care for Kelvadan more than anybody.”
“It’s home.”
“It’s more than that for you.”
“Just like the desert is for you.”
I smiled. It was something we had never quite agreed on, despite our similarities in so many ways.
She craved the constant bustle of people and adored the majesty of the towering walls and intricate architecture of the Great City.
While I had come to love what it represented with all my heart, I still craved the endless horizon and the stars above me as I slept.
“If—When we retake Kelvadan, it will need a queen that loves it,” I pointed out.
Aderyn’s fingers paused on my head for the barest of seconds, but I still felt it.
“Queen Ginevra made you her heir, and Erix is her son after all.”
“The purpose of a high lord is to represent all the people of the desert, not just those of one clan or city.”
Aderyn sighed. “We will see what is left of the city to rule once Calix is done with it.”
I swallowed, but I held on to the hope that she hadn’t said no. I understood why Ginevra had made me her heir in a time where people needed a symbol to believe in. It was something both she and Lord Alasdar had understood—a cause was a powerful way to unite a divided people.
But even as I was crowned, Aderyn gave her sweat, blood, and tears to the people of Kelvadan. They deserved a leader who loved their home as much as I loved the open desert.
“There,” Aderyn declared, brushing away the last few hairs that clung to my now-bare skin. “Now you just need some decorative ink and we’ll match.”
A sharp exhale that was almost a laugh escaped me. “I don’t think the stripe would suit me the way it does you, but I’ll consider it.”
I stood and turned to face her. Even as I stood a head taller than her, she seemed larger than life. “I’ll consider too,” she murmured.
I gave her a single squeeze on the shoulder before ducking back out into the night.