Until the groups spread across the desert converged, I hadn’t realized how many nomads there were. Hundreds, perhaps even a thousand. More than any single clan on Glasnith, and that number grew each day, thanks to the Dragonmen’s attacks and the spreading rumors that Garreth was not only a prince but a prophet, the only one capable of standing up to the Dragon.
Stories, like those from the scriptures. Only as real as the faith people put into them.
The nomad warriors kept to the outer edges, surrounding those who were too young or old or ill to fight if Dragonmen attacked. Garreth had wanted Quinlan and me in the center of the group, but we’d both defied him to ride in the rear.
I turned to look at Quinlan. “How long do you think it will take Garreth to forgive me?”
My brother had calmed some, but he still refused to look at me. We’d had quite a row after he discovered I’d set Andrithur free. It worsened when Garreth and a handful of warriors tried to go after the invader, and I’d kept their horses still as stones.
“Not long,” Quinlan said. “You are his clan. His kin.”
Maybe. But Garreth had an army of nomads following him across the desert who believed him to be their savior. I had no one except him and Quinlan.
Wraith nipped at my foot, as if to remind me I had him too. I felt the hum of the stallion’s energy, just as I sensed it in all the horses, the birds above, the catamounts and coywolves hiding in the rocks, every creature that haunted the desert. Hundreds of heartbeats. A well of hungers. Their souls brushed mine like ribbons waving in a breeze.
That night, we stopped to rest near a stream, and nomads crowded around the cookfires, talking and eating. I sat down next to Quinlan, picking at my bowl of lentils.
Garreth and Zabelle stood away from the rest of us, their heads bent close as they spoke. They were a study in contrasts. Zabelle was long and lean, while Garreth was broad muscle. Zabelle’s skin was rich copper to Garreth’s sun-crisped beige, her hair coal black to his rusty brown, her eyes golden topaz and his like spilled whiskey. Garreth had told me how Zabelle found him wandering in the Green Desert after he’d been exiled, woozy from blood loss, delirious with fever from the festering wound where our father sliced off his warrior-mark. She’d saved his hand, overruling the nomad healers who’d wanted to amputate it. In turn, he’d helped her save her people, a thing she could have done herself were she not a foreigner and a woman in a land that undervalued both.
To some, the two of them might have looked like a prince and his commander, planning and strategizing, but I’d witnessed how Garreth and Zabelle found each other’s gaze from across the camp. The air seemed to crackle when they were together, the heavy hush that came when two dominant forces were about to collide.
Gods, is that what Reyker and I are like when we’re together? The thought drifted into my mind, falling like a lash as the loss of him cut through me.
From where the horses were hobbled next to the stream, Wraith whickered, sensing my agitation across the distance.
Quinlan leaned toward me. “Do you want to move closer so we can hear them better?” He gestured across the fire, where one of the nomads from Savanna was telling a story about being chased by lions, waving his arms through the air. The others listened, laughing. Among them, I spotted Brayen. The Skerrian boy who’d shot the poisoned arrow that nearly killed Reyker. The reason I’d gone to the Grove of the Fallen Ones and given them a taste of my blood.
Rage swept over me in a torrent, dousing everything in its wake.
The horses gave my anger voice, all of them shrieking and rearing, fighting their hobbles. Garreth and Zabelle drew their weapons, as did every warrior, and the rest of the nomads fell quiet, everyone searching the night for threats.
Dark amusement sliced along the edge of my mind, but it wasn’t my own. It was the cacophony of an ancient god’s mirth.
The nomads slept wherever they found room, with their weapons beside them. I volunteered to be on the first watch.
I wandered farther from the group than I should have, needing a moment alone. What I’d done—tonight, agitating the horses, and days ago, when I’d nearly commanded birds to attack Garreth and his men—had frightened me, and I sensed I’d only skimmed the surface of my powers. If I lost control, could I call a dangerous creature without meaning to? Could I influence it to harm someone, if the desire was conflicted, as it was with Brayen?
“I don’t want these gifts,” I said, hoping the Fallen Ones were listening. “Take them away. I’m not going to help you.”
Something fluttered from beneath my sleeve. It glistened like a snowflake, but it felt like silk in my hand. I held it up to the moonlight, even though I already knew what it was. A moonflower petal. Like the ones Reyker had showered over me in my dream.
When I glanced up, Reyker was standing in front of me.
My knees buckled.
It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him.
He looked just as he had the night we’d celebrated the Birth of Summer in Ghost Village—small braids wound through his hair, deerskin trousers and jerkin. His eyes were bright, full of joy. Full of life.
“Reyker?”
He smiled at me, and I fell apart.
I choked on a sob, wanting so badly to believe the lie. To ignore the small things, like how my skoldar was silent, when it should’ve tingled from the nearness of him. Or how I knew that if this was truly Reyker, he wouldn’t just stand there—he would already have pulled me to him, held me close, whispered my name. Those were intangible differences, so I latched onto one that was solid, indisputable.
“You aren’t him.” I forced myself to look away from that beautiful, deceptive face. “That jerkin was ruined. He was shot with an arrow while he was wearing it. It was covered in his blood. I had to cut it off him.”
He didn’t move. He kept standing there, flashing that glorious smile.
“Who are you?” I unsheathed my sword. “You dishonor his memory with this cruel trick. He isn’t here to make you pay for it, but I am.”
lira.
The god’s voice echoed through my head. The sword fell from my hand.
Was he looking out at me through Reyker’s eyes, as he had that day in Ghost Village when I had played the part of his beloved Aillira? Was that why he’d chosen to show me a vision of Reyker from that precise moment in time?
you will free us.
“I won’t. Leave me alone.”
The thing that was not Reyker stepped forward and stroked my cheek. I tried to resist leaning into him, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t him, but it was his face, his body. Maybe I could pretend, just for a moment—
Not-Reyker struck me with the back of his hand. The blow slammed me to the ground.