Aren collapsed.
“No!” she screamed. “No!” Then a fit of coughing made words impossible.
Catching hold of him under the arms, she dragged him, step by agonizing step. Falling and forcing herself back up again, checking constantly to ensure the wall was still next to her.
But he was so damned heavy. Twice her size, and she was spent. Was exhausted and choking, and if she could just lay down and rest . . .
“No!” The word forced itself out between choking breaths.
Step.
Step.
The wall disappeared from beneath her left hand. Trusting her memory, she moved forward until she collided with a building. Lowering Aren to the ground, she kept one hand on his as she felt for the door.
There.
It was open, and she dragged Aren inside, laying him down next to the back wall. She retreated to the door, shoveling handfuls of sand out of the way, then hauling on the wood until it shut, the heavy latch falling into place.
Her eyes burned, and with every third breath, she coughed, her mouth full of grit and too dry for her to spit. But Aren, she feared, was in a worse state.
He hadn’t stirred from where she’d dropped him. He coughed almost continually, but it was the dehydration that concerned her most because it could kill him. Would kill him, if she didn’t get him water soon.
But the storm could last for hours. Days. And the waterskins strapped to their sides were as dry as bone.
Leaving her scarf wrapped around her face, Lara crawled in the direction of his coughing, fumbling around until she got her fingers against his naked throat. His pulse was racing, and his skin was burning hot with fever. “Aren.” She shook him. “Aren, you need to wake up.”
He grumbled and stirred, pushing her away.
“Damn it,” she snarled, panic rising in her chest. “Don’t you dare die on me, you idiot.”
She needed to retrieve water from the spring, and she needed to do it now, storm or no storm.
After pulling down the scarf covering his eyes so that he wouldn’t wake up blindfolded, Lara felt her way back to the door. Making sure her scarf was secure, she pressed her shoulder against the door and pushed, her boots sliding on the stone floor as she fought against the wind.
Slowly, it opened a crack, and then the storm caught it, wrenching the wood from her hand and slamming it against the wall of the building.
Sand and wind swirled inside, her ears filling with a thunderous roar as she fought to get it closed again. She put herself between door and building and straightened her legs, pushing the door shut. She jammed her knife into a hinge to keep it from opening again, then she began to crawl.
The only sense left to her was touch, and Lara moved with painstaking slowness because if she lost her way, she wouldn’t make it to the spring, much less back to Aren, before the storm killed her.
Her memory guided her, fingers trailing along the sides of buildings and digging deep to find the path of mosaic stone that had been buried by sand. The last time she’d come this way had been to that fateful dinner, about to fake her sisters’ deaths in order to save their lives. Memory filled her head with the click of her heels, the smell of food on the air, the feel of silken skirts against her legs. The only thing this journey had in common with her last trek was her terror.
Inch by inch, she moved in the direction of the spring, coughs wracking her sides and her hands burning as the sand abraded them. The wind hit her from one direction, then the other, knocking her down and pummeling her body with stones and branches torn from the plants in the oasis, blood trickling down her skin in a dozen places.
Her head throbbed so badly she could barely think, disorientation making her question every motion she made, nearly freezing her in place.
Keep going, she silently screamed. Only a dozen more paces.
But what if she were wrong? What if she’d gotten turned around?
Lara froze, panic choking her as much as the sand, her breath coming in too-fast pants that gave her lungs nothing of what she needed. Dizziness washed over her. Her arms and legs cramped, her body curling in on itself until she was a tight ball in the sand.
Keep going. You are the goddamned Queen of Ithicana! You will not be defeated by sand!
With painful slowness, her limbs obeyed, and she crept forward.
Her memory told her that the footbridge over the spring was right ahead, but as the low stone walls lining the path ended, all that she felt ahead of her was sand. Keeping one foot pressed against the wall so she wouldn’t get lost, Lara stretched out, leaning her weight on one hand as she reached around, feeling for something familiar.
Then the ground collapsed beneath her.
She toppled face-first into a mixture of sand and water. Flailing, she rolled, getting her knees underneath her and sitting up, waist-deep in the slop.
Cursing, she remembered the last time a sandstorm had hit the compound and how it had taken weeks to dredge the spring, and another month before it flowed normally. The water would be drinkable, but she’d need to filter it.
Unfastening one of the waterskins from her waist, Lara tore a piece of fabric from her clothes and wrapped it over the opening, making sure it was tight. Then she plunged it into the soupy mess, waiting until the waterskin was full before pushing aside her scarf and taking a mouthful. It was gritty and tasted terrible, but still the feel of the cool water in her mouth was nothing short of bliss, and she rinsed her mouth and spit before taking a long swallow.
Lara drank as much as she could without making herself sick. She refilled the waterskin as well as Aren’s, ensuring they were fastened securely to her belt before moving back onto the path.
The water gave her strength, and she crawled swiftly back the way she’d come. “I’m coming,” she muttered between coughs. “Hang on.”
Reaching the weapons building, she muscled the door open, securing it behind her. Over the roar of the storm, she could make out Aren’s coughing. Crawling blindly toward him, she lifted his head and shoulders so that he was resting against her, then unfastened the lid to one of the waterskins.
Waiting for a coughing fit to subside, she pried open his mouth and trickled some water inside before pushing his jaw shut until he swallowed, repeating the process. The fourth time, he choked and spluttered. Pulling out of her grip, he rolled onto his side.
“Aren?”
“More water,” he croaked, and Lara pushed the waterskin into his grip, listening to him swallow until she deemed it enough, then snatched it back.
“More.”
“Any more and you’ll just puke it up,” she told him, drinking from the waterskin herself. “And I’m not going back out there to get more until the storm eases.”
Lara sat against the cool stone of the wall, taking another sip of water. Her eyes stung with maddening fierceness, and she prayed the damage wouldn’t be permanent. They needed to be flushed, but for that, she required cleaner water than she had. She was soaked from having fallen into the spring, sand scratched in places where it really shouldn’t, her guts ached, and all of her muscles were cramped. But worst of all, she was freezing, her wet clothing like ice against her skin as the desert’s temperature dropped in the growing night.
“Where are we?” His voice was raspy. “What is this place?”
It was a secret place. A place she’d never intended to ever return. “This,” she whispered, unbuttoning her sodden dress and pulling it over her head, “is where it all began.”