As the Gazer bobbed closer now, a flash of a memory suddenly slammed into Sonara.
A beam of blue light split the darkness, chasing her down as she sprinted across the sand, her hair yanked loose from its braid. She dove into the shadows just as Soahm’s ragged scream split the night.
“Sonara!”
She turned to face him.
But he was already gone.
A flash of anger rippled through Sonara, threatened to pull her under to a place she kept hidden,dark and deep. It was there, always, beside that ember of Duran’s soul, beside the cage she kept her curse locked in.
Settle,Sonara told herself. For if she fell into that place, if she tumbled headlong into the abyss, she feared she’d never be able to climb back out again.
Duran’s ears suddenly pricked up as he sensed the shift in her soul.
He slid to a stop, nearly throwing Sonara from his back.
“No!” she shouted. She dug her heels in deep. “It’s getting away!”
But the beast would not move, so focused on relieving the tension he surely felt surging between the two of them, at the presence of the Gazer.
Perhaps he remembered, too, that night in Soreia.
Perhaps he still felt the fear of the events afterwards, when they’d been forced to perform the Leaping.
When their bodies had been broken on the rocks, and the current called them home.
Sonara sighed deeply as the Gazer bobbed away.
“It’s alright, beast,” she said, as Duran glanced backwards, peering at her with one big, dark side-eye.“I’malright.” He nickered as she ran her hand across his neck, that ever-gentle sound softening her anger.
It helped her to think clearer, to push aside the emotions so she could focus on the facts.
All her second life, she’d dug for information about the Wanderers, always seeking them out in hope of finding answers to what happened to Soahm. But she’d never discovered who had taken her brother, orwhy.
Sonara sat there, following the Gazer with her eyes until it was a speck in the distance. She stared until her eyes watered from the effort not to blink. Until the desert horizon swallowed it whole, and whisked it away as easily as Soahm had been that fateful night.
“I will find you,” Sonara whispered to the horizon. She dug her fingers deep into Duran’s mane. “Until it kills me, Soahm,I will find you,and bring you home.”
Duran’s hooves thundered across the sand as the day bore on, and Sonara held fast to his braided mane as she tried to catch back up with the others.
She was all body, no mind, just the beat of hooves and the flap of Razor’s wings in the distance as she circled every so often, allowing Duran to follow her trail. Even as they came into view, Sonara kept her distance from the female riders on the pale steed, unwilling to get too close. Unwilling to trust them yet.
They shouldn’t have paired with Markam in the first place, to steal the king’s ring. It had been months since they’d seen him last, and only desperation had brought them to accept a job with the Trickster.
Now, whatever Jaxon had agreed to had extended that partnership with Markam.
Again.
That thought plagued Sonara all day, until the suns grew tired and tucked themselves away behind the Bloodhorns, in a natural valley that spanned a mile wide before stretching directly upward into mountains again. Despite the unknown, a weary smile widened Sonara’s lips as she saw the telltale form of Sandbank in the distance,the trading post at the bottom of a sandy hill that stood like a lone sentry in the desert.
The trading post was old and dusty but, bless the blasted place, it had a saloon. The days were hot, but the drinks inside the saloon were cool. And the rumors that spread about guts and glory were plenty.
Sonara leaned back, and Duran slowed to a stop, his hooves squeaking in the windswept sand. Sweat dripped from his neck and belly, his sides heaving with heavy breaths. Foam had gathered on his chest, the mark of a steed who’d done his best to carry her, hardly stopping all day.
“You wonderful, beautiful beast,” Sonara said, patting his neck and wrapping her arms around him, despite the fact that he smelled more like a wet steed than he ever had. He huffed, his heavy heartbeat pounding beneath her ear as his soul-ember heated with pride. A steed was never one to balk at a compliment. Especially not one as proud as Duran. She glanced at Sandbank in the distance as she pulled away. “You always know the way home.”
Home.
