“We’re traveling south,” I say to him when he draws to a stop in front of me, his head tilted expectantly. “All the way to the ocean.”
It will be a long journey, a risk for him to be incontact with me for so many hours, just as it was a risk for him yesterday to carry me to Perotia on the western coast.
Even more perilous, given my intended destination.
He hasn’t backed away from me yet, so, with a deep breath, I continue, “I’m going to the Tol-Dakri Tribe.”
A shiver runs the length of his body, and he thumps his tail against the sand, a sign of agitation.
I give a nod. “I know the danger I’m asking you to fly into.”
Again, I wait for him to back away.
I have no other way to get there, but I won’t force him to carry me. If he’s unwilling, he could become a liability.
Slowly, he angles his head closer to mine, his tail continuing to thump as he peers hard at me, his eyes bright with a wisdom that only a desert creature could acquire.
He knows this land. All its shifting sands. All its perils.
I stand my ground. “I have no choice.”
The thumping slows. Then stops.
With a soft hiss, he lowers his head, a sign he’ll carry me.
Acknowledging his courage, I press my forehead to the side of his face, a brief thanks that, ironically, only puts him in greater danger. “Thank you, friend.”
I haven’t named him. If he already had a name, I don’t know it. He slithered out of the sand two years ago and presented himself to me for reasons I don’t understand.
Quickly, I strap the satchel to his back, but I’m not unaware of the final shiver that runs the length of his body.
His concern is warranted.
I may be the Ember King, but the Tol-Dakri don’t fear my fire.
They’d rather skin me alive than help me.
Chapter Fifty
Thyra
Icome back to myself with a scream. “Darkness!”
I’m certain the blade vision only consumed me for a few seconds, but I struggle to focus on my surroundings, aware only of the clamp of Antony’s hands around my shoulders, anchoring me as I sway toward him, my heart pounding.
Desperately, I try to hold on to the image of the place I saw in the vision.
The book’s pages had vanished, and instead, I was standing in the same field of ash where I encountered the False Queen, and she told me I would be her vengeance.
She wasn’t there this time. Instead, the field stretched out around me, empty and dark, but in the background, I heard shrieking.
Not voices.
More like…the boughs of a tree scraping…or groaning under a terrible weight…
The shriek of wood before it snaps.
As the sound shot through my hearing, terrible pain stabbed my heart, and I wanted to make it stop. All of it…
