Isaac snorted.“Like you had no choice.”
“Got a right to defend me and mine, don’t I?”
“No one forced you to turn to piracy.”He stomped into thesand, feeling the kicked-up sediment burning against his ankle.“You chose thatpath of your own free will.”
Suddenly, he heard a growl behind him.When he turned, hesaw Zaria’s teeth emerge from beneath a curling lip.“Look here, you foppylittle shit, I won’t be lectured by some spoiled cunt who’s lived naught but a bleeding life of luxury compared to mine.”
His heart raced.He stopped in the sand.The heat swirledaround his head.“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“No.”She stepped forward, poking a claw down into hischest.“You tell me, Isaac.You ever gone a day in your life without food inyour belly?”
Isaac stared back at her.
Her claw pressed deeper.“You stand on a street corner, andyou watch some fat pig nobleman saunter by with fresh bread in his hooves, andyou listen to the little pup next to you crying from hunger, and you tell meyou wouldn’t snatch that loaf without a second thought.”
The air was hot and swirling.
“Maybe I would,” Isaac said.“Even still, I wouldn’t pretendto be better than I am.”
Her ears flattened.The poleaxe on her back glinted in thesun.Carefully, she leaned over him, speaking in a low growl.“How about youkeep your focus on tombs and mages and absent fathers?Clearly, it’s all youintend to know.”
She shouldered past him, knocking him to the side with abrush of her leather vambrace.Isaac caught his balance in the sand.He triedto steady his breath.
Eventually, he followed her.
They continued on.The distance across the dunes was slowlyscraped away, like sand brushing grooves into rock.With a shawl tied aroundhis torso, Isaac felt some measure of relief from the heat, though it ended upbeing little comfort in the end.His legs ached.Each step through the sand wasmore exhausting than the last.Retrieving a waterskin from his pack wasdifficult with his hands tied in front of him, and the water itself wasinvariably hot.
A short distance ahead, Zaria kept a steady marching pace.Her tail flowed through a hole in her knee-length trousers, shifting with eachof her steps.The wild mohawk of hair on her head and neck flowed down herupper back, brushing up through the white fabric of her shawl.Below hershoulders, her vest was beginning to tinge with spots of fresh red.She musthave wounds on her back, ones that still wept with blood.
He hadn’t seen her receive any injuries during their escape,though she had been a prisoner of the pirates for some time before.
Had they tortured her?
Were those old wounds reopening again?
Further down, at the base of her tail, the curve of her ass—
Isaac blinked, looking away.He tried to recall his map.Zaria had taken possession of it, but he knew the gravesite was fairly close.If they kept travelling at their current pace, they would reach the tomb of thenecromancer before noon tomorrow.
He felt a quiver in his chest.
He almost couldn’t believe it.All his life, he had imaginedhow the unplundered capital of the ancient necromancers would appear.A tombbuilt around the colossal skeleton of some ancient giant, sinking deep into theearth, its corridors built under the arches of ribs and petrified muscle.Howdusty were its halls?What kind of engravings would line the burial chambers?Where would his father lie amongst all that ancient ruin?
In less than a day, he would finally know.It almost didn’tseem real.
He glanced at Zaria again.
He couldn’t fail his father now.
“So,” Isaac called out, his voice rusty from exertion.“Whatdid you do to anger your friends?Why did they imprison you?”
Zaria’s tail immediately stiffened.“I’d cease my gab if Iwere you, Isaac.”
“You were giving plenty of it before.”
“At your expense.Not mine.”
He quickened his pace, closing the gap between them.“Was itjust between you and your shipmates?”
