Lazaris, the menacing black blade with a single stripe of blue running down its center.
Forget diamonds. Blades were a girl’s true best friend.
Sonara strapped Lazaris to her waist, the aura of the sword—that had once belonged to her brother—like a healing balm to her soul.
Blood and metal and bone.
Sonara smiled, and whistled twice, high and loud.
Duran’s ears pricked up, and in an instant, he was trotting towards her, head held high.
Dirt and grime, the after-scent of hard work and summer heat and wheat sprouts, crushed beneath layers of solid teeth.
Beside his aura, Sonara couldfeelthe ember of Duran’s soul heating in her chest,feelhis excitement as he tore across the sand. His coat was a blur of red-brown like cavern rocks, his body all muscle on large feathered legs and hooves. In his first life, his eyes were red as hot coals. But now they were dark as a starless night.
The steed was her family, theonlyfamily she needed other than Jaxon.
Duran reached her, dark eyes boring into hers, nostrils blowing hot air into her face. Their connection brightened, a certain feeling ofrightnesssliding into place as she patted him on the small white star in the center of his forehead. Sonara dug her fingers into his dark mane and flung herself onto his back. He snorted as if to say hello, and she was home again in an instant.
“To Sandbank, then?” Sonara said. “Where we’ll receive the terms of this little deal you’ve made with Markam and his strange new companions.”
Jaxon bit his lip. “I did it to save you. I hope you remember that, when we discover whatever it is that I’ve signed us up to do.”
“Markam saved us both,” Sonara said, as she watched Markam climb atop Razor’s back. He whistled, waving for Jaxon to join him so they could fly south. “I’m grateful… however damned we might be, in his debt again.”
Markam was a Trickster. A liar. A true Shadowblood, who cared not for the lives of anyone other than himself. He hadn’t saved them out of the goodness of his heart. No, there was always a second layer to his actions; a driving force that made his heart beat so cold.
“Onwards, then,” Jaxon said.
“Do me a favor?” Sonara asked, as Jaxon walked away, heaviness treading with him across the sand. “When you’re up there, high above the clouds… push your brother off. Then we’ll have no debts to pay.”
Jaxon only chuckled, and went to join Markam and Razor. He climbed slowly atop her, just barely settling himself before Razor leapt into the skies. With each mighty beat of her wings, the wyvern rose until she was a mere speck in the distance.
Sonara watched the brothers go, chewing on her lip. Frustration threatened to build within her, but she forced it down. She trusted Jaxon. He was her counterpart, nearly as much as Duran. He’d earned that trust through fire and blood, over the course of ten years traveling together. Never once had he betrayed her. Markam, on the other hand…
Sonara sighed, her attention turning to the pale steed as both ladies galloped away. “Whatever you’ve gotten us into with them Jax, whoever they are… it had better be worth the fight.”
She looked back at the wrecked caravan, the roofless wagons with smoke still snaking into the sky, the bodies of the fallen guards scattered around it.
Then she clicked her teeth and urged Duran forward.
She rode, on and on into the blazing suns, with the distant shadow of Razor’s wings above them, the sharp kiss of her sword at her side, and the taste of sweet freedom on her tongue.
Chapter 4
Sonara
The Deadlands were hell.
Sonara had always hated them, from the first day she and Duran crossed over the kingdom’s southern border. She’d been thirteen then, and now, ten years later, she hated Jira’s domain even more.
It was like a fragment of home; sand, sky, and sweat, but there was something missing.
The sea. Deep blue and beautiful, like a little piece of heaven.
And even though it was the sea that had killed her, some part of it still called her home.
The Deadlands had only a few small bodies of water: the largest was the Briyne, a salt river that spanned from Soreia all the way to the Wastes. It snaked right through the gates of Jira’s fortress, giving him the keys to the main trading route between all three kingdoms.
