Nesryn shouldered her bow, pressing a hand to her pocket. Falkan—
A little leg pushed against her in answer. Alive.
She wasted no time rushing to the ruk, drawing her own Fae blade from the sheath Borte had found for her and slicing at the thick strands. It clung to her fingers, ripping away skin, but she severed and sliced, working her way down the wing as Sartaq hacked his way down the other.
They reached Kadara’s legs at the same time.
Saw that her talons were empty.
Nesryn’s head snapped up, scanning the pass, the piles of disturbed shale—
The hatchling had been thrown during the collision. As if even Kadara’s talons couldn’t keep shut against the pain of impact. The baby ruk now lay on the ground near the lip of the pass, struggling to rise, low chirps of distress echoing off the rock.
“Up, Kadara,” Sartaq commanded, his voice breaking. “Get up.”
Great wings shifted, shale clacking as the ruk tried to obey. Nesryn staggered toward the hatchling, blood unmistakable on its fluffy gray head, its large dark eyes wide with terror and pleading—
It happened so fast Nesryn didn’t have time to shout.
One heartbeat, the hatchling had opened its beak to cry for help.
The next it screamed, eyes flaring as a long ebony leg emerged from behind a pillar of rock and slammed through its spine.
Bone crunched and blood sprayed. And Nesryn threw herself into a stop, swaying so hard she teetered backward onto her ass, a wordless cry on her lips as the hatchling was hauled around the rock, flailing and shrieking—
It went silent.
And she had seen horrific things, things that had made her sick and kept her from sleep, and yet that baby ruk, terrified and pleading, in pain and dragged away, going silent—
Nesryn whirled, feet slipping on the shale as she scrambled toward Kadara, toward Sartaq, who beheld the hatchling being snatched behind that rock and screamed at Kadara to fly—
The mighty ruk tried and failed to rise.
“FLY,” Sartaq bellowed.
Slowly, so slowly the ruk lumbered to her legs, her scraped beak dragging through the loose rock.
She wasn’t going to make it. Wasn’t going to get airborne in time. For just beyond the web-shrouded tree line … Shadows writhed. Scuttled closer.
Nesryn sheathed her sword and drew her bow, arrow shaking as she aimed it toward the rock the hatchling had been hauled behind, then the trees a hundred yards off.
“Go, Kadara,” Sartaq begged. “Get up!”
The bird was barely in shape to fly, let alone carry riders—
Rock clacked and skittered behind her. From the labyrinth of rock within the pass.
Trapped. They were trapped—
Falkan shifted in her pocket, trying to wriggle free. Nesryn covered him with her forearm, pressing hard. “Not yet,” she breathed. “Not yet.”
His powers were not Lysandra’s. He had tried and failed to shift into a ruk this week. But the large wolf was as big as he could manage. Anything larger was beyond his magic.
“Kadara—”
The first of the spiders broke from the tree line. As black and sleek as her fallen sister.
Nesryn let her arrow fly.
The spider fell back, screaming—an unholy sound that shook the rocks as that arrow sank into an eye. Nesryn instantly had another arrow drawn, backing toward Kadara, who was just now beginning to flap her wings—
The ruk stumbled.
Sartaq screamed, “FLY!”
Wind stirred Nesryn’s hair, sending shards of shale skittering. The ground rumbled behind, but Nesryn did not dare take her eyes off the second spider that emerged from the trees. She fired again, the song of her arrow drowned out by the flap of Kadara’s wings. A heavy, pained beat, but it held steady—
Nesryn glanced behind for a breath. Just one, just to see Kadara bobbing and waving, fighting for every wing beat upward through the narrow pass, blood and shale dripping from her. Right as a kharankui emerged from one of the shadows of the rocks high up the peak, legs bending as if it would leap upon the ruk’s back—
Nesryn fired, a second arrow on its tail. Sartaq’s.
Both found their marks. One through an eye, the other through the open mouth of the spider.
It shrieked, tumbling down from its perch. Kadara swung wide to dodge it, narrowly avoiding the jagged face of the peak. The spider’s splat thudded through the maze of rock ahead.
But then Kadara was up, into the gray sky, flapping like hell.
Sartaq whirled toward Nesryn just as she looked back at the pine forest.
To where half a dozen kharankui now emerged, hissing.
Blood coated the prince, his every breath ragged, but he managed to grab Nesryn’s arm and breathe, “Run.”
So they did.
Not toward the pines behind.
But into the gloom of the winding pass ahead.
CHAPTER
43
Without the brace, Chaol was given a black mare, Farasha, whose name was about as ill-fitting as they came. It meant butterfly, Yrene told him as they gathered in the palace courtyard three days later.
Farasha was anything but.
Yanking at the bit, stomping her hooves and tossing her head, Farasha savored testing his limits long before the desert-bound company finished gathering. Servants had gone ahead the day before to prepare the camp.
He’d known the royals would give him their fiercest horse. Not a stallion, but one close enough to match it in fury. Farasha had been born furious, he was willing to bet.
And he’d be damned if he let those royals make him ask for another horse. One that would not strain his back and legs so much.
Yrene was frowning at Farasha, at him, as she stroked a hand down her chestnut mare’s night-black mane.
Both beautiful horses, though neither compared to the stunning Asterion stallion Dorian had gifted Chaol for his birthday last winter.
Another birthday celebration. Another time—another life.
He wondered what had happened to that beautiful horse, whom he had never named. As if he’d known, deep down, how fleeting those few happy weeks were. He wondered if it was still in the royal stables. Or if the witches had pillaged him—or let their horrible mounts use him to fill their bellies.
Perhaps that was why Farasha resented his very presence. Perhaps she sensed that he had forgotten that noble-hearted stallion in the north. And wanted to make him pay for it.
The breed was an offshoot of the Asterions, Hasar had tittered as she’d trotted past on her white stallion, circling him twice. The refined, wedge-shaped head and high tails were twin markers of their Fae ancestry. But these horses, the Muniqi, had been bred for the desert climes of this land. For the sands they were to cross today, and the steppes that had once been the khagan’s homeland. The princess had even pointed to a slight bulge between the horses’ eyes—the jibbah—the marker of the larger sinus capacity that allowed the Muniqi to thrive in the dry, unyielding deserts of this continent.
And then there was the Muniqi’s speed. Not as fast, Hasar admitted, as an Asterion. But close.
Yrene had watched the princess’s little lesson, face carefully neutral, using the time to adjust where she’d strapped Chaol’s cane behind her saddle, then fiddle with the clothes she wore.
While Chaol was in his usual teal jacket and brown pants, Yrene had forgone a dress.
They’d swathed her in white and gold against the sun, her long tunic flowing to her knees to reveal loose, gauzy pants tucked into high brown boots. A belt cinched her slim waist, and a glinting bandolier of gold and silver beading sliced between her breasts. Her hair, she’d left in her usual half-up fashion, but someone had woven bits of gold thread through it.
Beautiful. As lovely as a sunrise.
There were perhaps thirty of them in total, none people Yrene really knew, as Hasar had not bothered to invite any of the healers from the Torre. Swift-legged h
ounds paced in the courtyard, weaving under the hooves of the dozen guards’ horses. Definitely not Muniqi, those horses. Fine indeed for guards—his men had received beasts nowhere near their quality—but without that awareness the Muniqi possessed, as if they listened to every word spoken.
Hasar signaled to Shen, standing proud at the gate, who blew a horn—
And then they were off.
For a woman who commanded ships, Hasar seemed far more interested in the equine heritage of her family’s people. And seemed more than eager to unleash her skills as a Darghan rider. The princess cursed and scowled as the city streets slowed them. Even with word given well in advance to clear the path out of Antica, the narrow and steep streets checked their speed considerably.
And then there was the brutal heat. Already sweating, Chaol rode beside Yrene, keeping a tight leash on Farasha, who tried to take a bite out of not one but two vendors gawking from the sidewalks. Butterfly indeed.
He kept one eye upon the mare and the other upon the city passing by. And as they rode for the eastern gates into the arid, scrub-covered hills beyond, Yrene pointed out landmarks and tidbits of information.
Water ran through aqueducts wending between the buildings, feeding the houses and public fountains and countless gardens and parks scattered throughout. A conqueror might have taken this city three centuries ago, but that same conqueror had loved it well. Treated it well and nourished it.
They cleared the eastern gate, then passed down a long, dusty road that cut through the sprawl beyond the city proper. Hasar didn’t bother to wait, and launched her stallion into a gallop that left them waving away her dust.
Kashin, claiming he didn’t want to eat her dust the entire way to the oasis, followed suit after giving a small smile toward Yrene and a whistled command to his horse. Then most of the nobles and viziers, apparently having already taken bets, launched into various races at breakneck speed through towns cleared well in advance. As if this kingdom were their playground.
Birthday party indeed. The princess had likely been bored and didn’t want to look too irresponsible to her father. Though he was surprised to find that Arghun had joined them. Surely with most of his siblings away, he would have seized the chance to hatch some plot. But there was Arghun, galloping close to Kashin as they blended into the horizon.
Some of the nobility remained back with Chaol and Yrene, letting the others put some miles between them. They cleared the last of the outlying towns, their horses sweat-soaked and panting as they ascended a large, rocky hill. The dunes began just on its other side, Yrene had told him. They would water the horses here—then make the last leg of the trek across the sands.
She was smiling faintly at him as they ascended the crag, taking a deer path through the scrub. Horses had trampled through here; bushes were broken and shattered under careless riders. A few bushes even bore speckles of blood, already dried in the brutal sun.
Someone should flay the rider who’d been so reckless with their mount.
Others had reached the top of the crag, watered their horses, and moved on. All he saw of them were bodies and horseflesh disappearing into the sky—as if they simply walked off the edge of the cliff and into thin air.
Farasha stomped and surged her way up the hill, and his back and thighs strained to keep seated without the brace to steady him. He didn’t dare let her get a whiff of discomfort.
Yrene reached the summit first, her white clothes like a beacon in the cloudless blue day around them, her hair shining bright as dark gold. She waited for him, the chestnut mare beneath her panting heavily, its rich coat gleaming with hues of deepest ruby.
She dismounted as he urged Farasha up the last of the hill, and then—
It knocked the breath from him.
The desert.
It was a barren, hissing sea of golden sand. Hills and waves and ravines, rippling on forever, empty and yet humming. Not a tree or bush or gleam of water to be seen.
The unforgiving hand of a god had shaped this place. Still blew his breath across it, shifting the dunes grain by grain.
He had never seen such a sight. Such a wonder. It was a new world entirely.
Perhaps it was an unexpected boon that the information they sought dwelled out here.
Chaol dragged his attention to Yrene, who was reading his face. His reaction.
“Its beauty is not for everyone,” she said. “But it sings to me, somehow.”
This sea where no ships would ever sail, some men would look upon it and see only burning death. He saw only quiet—and clean. And slow, creeping life. Untamed, savage beauty.
“I know what you mean,” he said, carefully dismounting from Farasha. Yrene monitored, yet did nothing but hold out the cane, letting him find the best way to swing his leg over, back groaning and wobbling, and then slide down to the sandy rock. The cane was instantly in his hand, though Yrene made no move to steady him while he finally released the saddle and reached for Farasha’s reins.
The horse tensed, as if considering lunging for him, but he gave her a no-nonsense glare, the cane groaning as he dug it into the rock beneath him.
Farasha’s dark eyes glowed as if she’d been forged in Hellas’s burning realm, but Chaol stood tall—as tall as he could. Didn’t break her stare.
Finally, the horse huffed, and deigned to let him haul her toward the sand-crusted trough that was half crumbling with age. The trough perhaps had been here for as long as the desert had existed, had watered the horses of a hundred conquerors.
Farasha seemed to grasp that they were to enter that ocean of sand and drank heartily. Yrene led her horse over, keeping the chestnut a healthy distance away from Farasha, and said, “How are you feeling?”
“Solid,” he said, and meant it. “I’ll be aching by the time we get there, but the strain isn’t so bad.” Without the cane, he didn’t dare try to walk more than a few steps. Could barely manage it.
She still put a hand on his lower spine, then his thighs, letting her magic assess. Even with the clothes and the heat, the press of her hands left him aware of every inch of space between them.
But others gathered around the ancient, enormous trough, and so he pulled out of Yrene’s assessing touch, leading Farasha a safe distance away. Mounting the mare again, though …
“Take your time,” Yrene murmured, but remained a few steps away.
He’d had a block at the palace. Here, short of climbing onto the precarious lip of the trough … The distance between his foot and the stirrup had never seemed so long. Balancing on one foot while he lifted it, pushing down with the other to propel him up, swinging his leg around the saddle … Chaol went through the steps, feeling the motions he’d done a thousand times before. He’d learned to ride before he was six—had been on a horse nearly his entire life.
Of course he’d been given a devil of a horse to do this with.
But Farasha held still, staring toward the sifting sea of sand, to the path that had been trampled down the hill—their entry into the desert. Even with the shifting winds hauling the sands into new shapes and valleys, the tracks the others had left were clear enough. He could even spy some of them cresting hills and then flying down them, little more than specks of black and white.
And yet he remained here. Staring at the stirrups and saddle.
Yrene offered casually, “I can find a block or bucket—”
Chaol moved. Perhaps not as graceful as he’d like, perhaps more struggling than he’d intended, but he managed, the cane groaning as he used it to push upward, then clattering to the rock as he let go to grab the pommel of the saddle, right as his foot slid—barely—into the stirrup. Farasha shifted at his weight while he hauled himself higher into the saddle, his back and thighs barking as he swung his leg over, but he was up.
Yrene strode to the fallen cane and dusted it off. “Not bad, Lord Westfall.” She strapped the cane behind her saddle and mounted her mare. “Not bad at all.”
He hid his smile, his face still over
-warm, and nudged Farasha down the sandy hill at last.
They followed the tracks the others had left slowly, the heat rippling off the sands.
Up, and down, the only sounds the muffled thumping of their horses and the sighing sands. Their party meandered in a long, snaking line. Guards had been posted throughout, standing with towering poles topped with the khagan’s flag and insignia of a dark running horse. Markers of the general direction toward the oasis. He pitied the poor men ordered to stand in the heat for a princess’s whim, but said nothing.
The dunes evened out after a time, the horizon shifting to reveal a flat, sandy plain. And in the distance, waving and bobbing in the heat …
“There we make our camp,” Yrene said, pointing toward a dense cluster of green. No sign of the ancient, buried city of the dead that Hasar claimed the oasis had grown over. Not that they expected to see much of anything from their vantage point.
From the distance, it might very well be another thirty minutes. Certainly at their pace.
Despite the sweat soaking through her white clothes, Yrene was smiling. Perhaps she, too, had needed a day away. To breathe the open air.
She noticed his attention and turned. The sun had brought out her freckles, darkening her skin to a glowing brown, and tendrils of hair curled about her smiling face.
Farasha tugged on the reins, her body quivering with impatience.
“I own an Asterion horse,” he said, and her mouth curved in an impressed frown. Chaol shrugged. “I’d like to see how a Muniqi measures up.”
Her brows narrowed. “You mean …” She noted the flat, smooth spread of land between them and the oasis. Perfect for running. “Oh, I can’t—a gallop?”
He waited for the words about his spine, his legs. None came.
“Are you afraid?” he asked, arching a brow.
“Of these things? Yes.” She cringed at her mount, restless beneath her.
“She’s as sweet as a dairy cow,” he said of Yrene’s chestnut mare.
Chaol leaned down to pat “Butterfly’s” neck.
She tried to bite him. He yanked on the reins enough to tell her he was fully aware of her bullshit.
“I’ll race you,” he said.