“You and Darina have one hour to pack,” he says. His voice is low, close to a threat. It seems to be aimed at himself more than at me. “One hour.”
He turns on his heel, and he’s gone. The front door slams shut behind him.
I stand there, with my palms still buzzing, the wetness cooling in my panties, and I can’t believe what just happened.
Chapter Fourteen
Osric
I stand at the bottom of the stairs, car keys in hand. My control is nearly gone.
The car is already loaded. I did it while they were upstairs, arguing and packing. Water, money, and travel supplies.
I keep my eyes glued to the door and wait.
Esme comes down first, carrying her heavy bag, and Darina follows a step behind with hers. Darina is quiet. Her jaw is set, her shoulders are drawn in, and she keeps looking between me and Esme, though she doesn’t say anything.
Esme is far from quiet, though.
“You want us gone, so let’s do this,” she says. “I packed. I’m not going to stand here and ask you to keep me. It’s embarrassing enough that I had to ask once, and you rejected me so hard that you nearly pushed me to the floor.”
At that, Darina shoots her a concerned glance. I grit my teeth and reach out for their bags, throw them in the back, then motion for them to get in.
“You don’t get to be the wounded one,” Esme says as she settles in the back seat. “You’re the one throwing us out.”
Her anger should make this easier. It does the opposite. Her eyes are bright and furious, too proud to beg, too upset to be quiet about it. Part of me wants to laugh, and part of me wants to close the distance between us and shut her up with a kiss. I do neither. I get into the front seat and start the car while I hear her huff at my back.
Nim watches from the shaded ledge above the door. She doesn’t come down.
I check the sky, curse under my breath, but keep driving. The light has gone flat and coppery, the color that announces a storm. The heat is too still. There’s no wind moving throughthe trees, and the cliffs around Haara stand out sharp and hard against the pale ground. Low on the horizon, there’s a smear of black where the sky should be clear.
Neither of the women notices. The signs mean nothing to them.
I tell myself we can reach the lower terraces before it breaks. We have to, because I can’t have Esme in the house for an hour longer. I won’t survive another night locked in my room when she’s down the corridor.
For a while, the road is clean. Dust curls up behind the wheels and drifts sideways, the thornbrush along the shoulder bends in small, nervous movements, first in one direction, then in another. But soon enough, the wind descends hard, the copper light thickens, and the sky darkens. Ahead of us, across the whole width of the desert, a wall of dust rises and starts to move.
It’s an Otheeran blackstorm.
I push the car harder.
Blackstorms come with the monsoon season. They’re not supposed to come now. This one is early, too early, and it’s either an anomaly or a warning. I don’t really care which, because we’re out in the open with nothing to shelter us.
The front moves quickly. It rolls over the desert and covers the road, the cliffs, and the last of the sky. The first grit reaches my face and stings across my shell. The wind hits the car full on, and I feel the frame groan and shudder.
Darina cries out. Esme grabs the side of the vehicle and holds on.
“What’s happening?” she yells at me. “Osric?”
I pull off the road before the wind can shove us sideways into a wash or roll us over. The car stops with a lurch. Around us, the air is full of dust and thorn fragments, and small pieces of black stone ping and crack against the metal. I can see nothing past the hood.
I get out. The wind nearly takes me off my feet, I brace against it and haul the back door open.
“Under the car,” I say. “Now.”
Esme doesn’t move. She stares at me through the flying grit with her hand still locked on the frame.
I have no room left for her pride.
