Chapter Twelve
Some kingdoms gild their wounds with gold
Their brightest lies are wrapped and sold
The Gateway spits them out into heat.
Not warmth.
Not sun.
Heat—dense and crushing, like the air itself has weight.
Elyssara stumbles forward, boots sinking into fine, pale sand that swallows sound and footing alike.
The sky above is a merciless expanse of white-gold, the sun hanging low and enormous, bleached of all mercy.
There is no wind. No shade. No horizon she can trust—only dunes rolling endlessly in every direction, indistinguishable from one another.
Her first breath burns.
The air scrapes down her throat, dry enough to sting, and instinctively she swallows—only to realize her mouth is already parched, tongue thick, lips pulling tight against her teeth as if the desert has reached inside her and stolen something vital.
“Use your cloak to cover your mouth,” Kael rasps, already pulling his in place.
Elyssara hacks a dry cough—outright rejection of such abject dryness, but pulls her cloak over her nose and mouth, spluttering another dehydrated cough.
Beside her, Kael goes still. Not tense. Calculating. Assessing.
He scans the dunes, eyes narrowing, inky-black curling faintly beneath his skin as if the darkness inside is searching for something to claim, to draw in. There is nothing. No tree. No stone. No life.
Just light.
Too much of it.
“This place…” Elyssara murmurs, her voice rougher than it should be. “It’s empty.”
Kael shakes his head once. “No,” he says quietly beneath his cloak.
“It’s vast. It’s strategic. My family used to visit Caeloria.
Azhareth, specifically. This…” he says, gesturing to the endless expanse, “is what makes it so fucking impenetrable. They don’t even need an army on their shores.
They just watch droves of desperate people and greedy armies perish in their deserts before they even reach the outskirts of the capital. ”
Well, that’s bleak.
“How did your family make it here?” Elyssara murmurs beneath the fabric of her cloak.
“Meraset Harbor. Tucked on the far north-east side of the continent. The waters are dangerous, the journey from Zerynthia even more so. But Maireth and my father were partners in trade, so she allowed us to come. Until she didn’t,” he explains cryptically.
He sputters a dry cough, then adds, “Then we relied on Mavyrn to sneak us in for supplies and resources…” Kael trails off.
“Mavyrn used to Gateway Teddy and me straight into Azhareth’s weavehouses—cloth and salves, all in one place. ”
Elyssara nods, wordless, just dragging her heavy boots through the sand. She isn’t void of thoughts—she never is. Just incapable of putting them into words in the oppressive heat.
“Well, how do we get there now?” she finally asks.
Kael scans the blurred horizon in all directions, ignoring her question. “There’s something else you should know about Caeloria, El.”
Elyssara quirks an eyebrow. She does not need more fucking obstacles.
“That’s not an answer, Kael,” she complains.
But he doesn’t react, just stares toward the horizon like it holds answers she can’t see. “Fantastic. Love that we’re just skipping over the part where we actually stay alive to complete the mission.”
He tries not to react, but his eyes squint as if he’s suppressing a smile.
“They have another defensive measure that makes penetrating the walls of the city proper virtually impossible…” he begins.
Walls and an additional defensive measure? Obviously.
“Of course they fucking do,” she grouses, rolling her eyes.
Kael chuckles under his cloak, and the sound is rich, warm. Like honey. Elyssara’s belly blooms with tenderness. He laughed. Something he hasn’t done in days. Weeks, actually.
“Caeloria sits so far north-east that the sun refuses to fully set for most of the year,” Kael says. “Night lasts a few hours at best. Sometimes not at all.” He gestures to the endless light. “There’s nowhere for shadows to hide.”
Holy fucking Stars.
“So there’ll be no reprieve for us out here, and we’ll also need to penetrate the city walls in bright fucking daylight?” Elyssara snaps sarcastically, shaking her head.
“Yes. But first, we need water and a landmark. Because right now, we look to be in the very center of the Matuli Desert with one canteen between us,” Kael explains nonchalantly. As if the canteen isn’t the only thing standing between them and the End Gate.
Elyssara huffs an exhale. “Really should’ve seen this coming with the stupid hourglass full of sand we used to get here,” she grouses gesturing at the endless expanse of sand, but a smirk quirks her lips, anyway.
Kael laughs again, freely this time.
“We’re lucky we didn’t get a Gateway direct into Azhareth Castle—we’d already be dead. This is the least problematic place to land. And El?” He pauses for a moment, weighing his words. “This place isn’t just dangerous. It’s a distortion. It gleams on the surface, but beneath? It rots.”
Elyssara stills, breath catching in her throat. She can’t help but wonder if he’s talking about Caeloria. Or himself.
The distinction sends a chill through her that has nothing to do with temperature.
“That’s a very specific observation,” she muses. “Are we still talking about Caeloria?”
He sighs, and offers a noncommittal shrug.
Bleak seems to be what he’s going for today.
Already, sweat beads along her spine, gathering faster than it should. The sun presses down relentlessly, drawing moisture from skin and breath alike, and a sudden, irrational panic flares in her chest.
How long have they been here?
Heartbeats?
Hours?
The desert gives her no answer. It doesn’t keep time. It erases it.
She glances back. The Gateway is gone. Only sand remains—smooth and unmarked, as if the world itself has erased their arrival.
Elyssara licks her lips and tastes nothing.
No salt.
No air.
No promise of water.
Her pulse stutters.
As if he felt her falter, Kael presses closer, rising to the moment with certainty Elyssara desperately needs.
“Let’s move quickly, El. We need to start moving or this desert will take me before the madness does,” he says drily, his smile clear in his tone.
Elyssara sucks in a gasp and nearly chokes on it.
“Kael! You can’t fucking joke about it like that! Gods, that was so incredibly morbid.” But a laugh spills from her lips of its own accord.
“You laughed, El,” he quips, shrugging dismissively.
And for the first time in too long, he joins her. Wild and raucous and free.
But she knows it’s not because it’s funny. It’s because he’s allowing her to enjoy this while it lasts. And the thought twists in her chest.
She wipes the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. She’s so fucking hot.
“We need lighter clothes as soon as we see the city, El. Because if Maireth’s army don’t kill us, these fucking leathers will.”
Another bead of sweat tracks down her spine, the leathers trapping in her body heat.
“I think they’ve already begun to.”