Chapter 32
Hot, humid sweat dripped down Adara’s face, her damp hair plastered to her cheeks beneath the scarf wrapped around her head and the lower half of her face.
The extra fabric only made the heat more unbearable, but she’d rather not have the scorching sun burn her skin as they trudged across the desert.
Her entire body ached from prolonged hours of riding on horseback, but it was better than having to walk across the rolling sand dunes that stretched for miles and miles.
The morning after Livisian, the Andreilians had quickly reconvened and hiked to Yersva, where Dominic tortured a man into creating proper documentation to present to the guards before they were allowed on the ship to cross the Narphin River into Tarin territory.
Then they’d made their way to Senarim—a city located on the outskirts of the desert that stretched across the continent—and had stolen horses and a caravan.
On the white mare beside her, Asher tugged down his brown headwrap and lifted a canteen to his dry lips, sipping lightly. “Remind me again why we’re doing this,” he panted, pulling the scarf back over his face and wiping sweat from his brow.
“Yeah, how much longer until we reach the Ruins?” Caleb asked from Asher’s other side, gently stroking his horse’s mane.
Adara shook her head, glancing forward at Dominic leading their group with such determined ease.
He seemed to know exactly where they were going, but Adara figured he wouldn’t appreciate their complaining and refrained from asking.
Ace, Tyson, and Desmond rode ahead with Dominic.
The rest of the Andreilians were crammed into the caravan while Adara, Asher, and Caleb brought up the rear, with the horses trudging along.
“I can’t breathe in this stupid thing,” Caleb muttered, wrestling his face free of the scarf that had once been white but was now stained with dust.
“What did you and Dominic do after everyone split up again?” Asher asked.
Conversation made her throat ache and her lips crack, but Adara stifled the desire for water and spoke anyway, desperate to get her mind off the exhaustion weighing on her.
She shrugged nonchalantly, trying to suppress the smile that threatened to break out across her face as she imagined Dominic lying on the roof with her, with their elemental magic entwined as tightly as their fingers, pointing out the constellations and telling their stories.
She recalled the rose he’d tucked behind her ear, beneath the circlet of flowers already adorning her head, as they walked back to the inn, with her new book in hand.
She prayed her gifts and dress would stay undamaged, tucked into her pack beneath her cloak to provide some protection from the sun’s rays and windswept sand.
“Just stayed out late, wandering the city, talking,” she answered.
Caleb shot her a wry grin, arching his brows.
He rolled his blue tunic sleeves to his biceps, trying to stay cool in the blazing air.
Adara did the same, sleeves rolled to her elbows, gloves discarded in her rucksack.
Her hair was tied back at the top of her head, but the long strands still clung to the back of her neck.
She removed her headscarf, if only for a few minutes to let some fresh air caress her skin.
“Right,” he droned, snickering. “Talking. So, while you talked—” he said, fingers forming quotation marks in the air, “with him, there was no touching at all?”
Adara hesitated, pulling the black scarf up once more to hide the blush rising to her cheeks as she recalled Dominic’s arms around her, his body pressed against her back when she woke again this morning.
Her fingers tingled, sparks igniting beneath her skin as if her own magic remembered his hand in hers last night on the roof.
“None,” she said straight-faced, tugging down her sleeves again before the exposure to the sun could redden her skin.
Asher’s stare burned holes in her. “You’re lying,” he concluded, eyes crinkling with a smug smile.
She glared right back with the same simmering intensity. “Whose side are you on?”
“Are you . . . blushing?” It was Caleb this time who tortured her with more questions.
“What? No!” Adara purposely slowed their pace so the others wouldn’t hear.
“It was nothing.”
“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t mind telling us,” Asher said.
Caleb nodded in agreement.
Adara sighed, finally giving in. “Okay, fine. The only thing that happened between us is that we had to share a bed, and I may have woken up with his arms around me.”
Before she even finished her sentence, Caleb was already gushing with a toothy grin, squealing like a little girl.
Desmond and Tyson’s heads whirled from up ahead and Sawyer peeked his head out between the canvas flaps of the caravan at the noise. Thankfully, Asher clamped a hand over Caleb’s mouth to shut him up. Caleb’s blue eyes crinkled with triumph and Asher jerked his hand away.
“Gross!” Asher yelled, wiping his hand on his pants.
“Ew, your hand tastes like sand!” Caleb replied, spitting on the ground. He pulled his scarf up to cover his mouth and nose.
Adara laughed, the sound muffled by the fabric over her face, and shook her head at them. “I’m glad you find my love life so amusing when it will inevitably lead to one of us dying,” she said, gesturing to Dominic’s back as he rode at the head of their group, Ace by his side, speaking in low tones.
Caleb’s face instantly fell, a frown creasing his brow.
“Don’t remind us,” Asher said sullenly.
They all knew the fate of imminent death that loomed over them.
The sadness in Asher’s eyes made Adara believe that he and Caleb truly would grieve if she ended up on the losing side of this war, yet something nagged in the back of her mind, telling her it was all a lie to make her let down her guard.
They would never choose her life over Dominic’s.
Sure, they might be sad to see her go, but if they could protect Dominic, she knew they wouldn’t hesitate to do so.
Which made her wonder . . . how much of their friendship was real?
Were they extending kindness to her to get her closer to them, and eventually Dominic?
She didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t know what she’d do if the friendships she had made were another lie.
Adara held a hand over her heart. “How touching to know you like to forget about our gruesome deaths waiting at the end of all this.”
Caleb shoved a hand through his blond hair, slicking the damp strands back under the headwrap. “I try not to think about that!” he said defensively, hands held palm up before him.
“If it makes you feel any better, I threw a dagger at him yesterday, so I doubt either one of us will be falling in love anytime soon,” Adara said with a shrug. Perhaps this whole game of love was a worthless waste of time.
She had started to enjoy Dominic’s presence at times, but she could never love him.
She didn’t even consider him a friend, not like the Andreilians.
He was something else. She hadn’t yet determined what he was to her.
A tool. A gateway to power. Something to be used and tossed aside when you no longer need him, was what she should have thought.
Someone who could be more.
“Hate to break it to you, Adara, but trying to kill someone is not how you make them fall in love with you,” Asher said with a laugh, trying to lighten the mood.
She held her hands up and smiled. “I know. I know. I’m terrible at this.”