Brownlok and Koranth both sagged as they stepped into the sand, and Redalia let out a hiss. At least it affected us all.
We walked. And walked. And walked. Yet the mountains remained firmly out of reach. Worse, the sun was stuck in the sky, hovering nearly overhead. Every breath stung, and my tongue was a dry scrap in my mouth.
Finally, when at least another hour had passed and nothing had changed, I stopped and put my hands on my knees, inhaling more sand than air. “We aren’t going anywhere!” I yelled at the ground. I didn’t want to anger the mages, but if we didn’t get out of this heat soon, we’d all die anyway.
Koranth screamed in frustration and stalked toward Chiara. “Why didn’t you say we were going the wrong way?”
She backed away, step by step while I eased between them. “I’d need to look at the map to know which way to go! You didn’t ask me!”
Koranth stopped. Shook his head hard enough that a few chunks of hair fell out and drifted to the red sand. Turned to Redalia. “I knew we needed a better path to the gorge. I told you, Redalia. You never listen to me!”
My head jerked back at his wild accusation, at his body’s decay. Enzo, Jenna, Chiara, and I scooted a little closer. Mari wasn’t close enough to grab from Brownlok, but this might be our only chance. Could we risk it? Brownlok wouldn’t hurt Mari. Not yet.
But if it was kill the mages or lose Mari…could I make that choice? I couldn’t swallow, and my empty stomach rolled.
Redalia didn’t draw her weapon. She tilted her head. “I used to listen to you.” The crewmen clustered tighter, muttering.
Koranth shook his head again, more hair coming loose. “We shouldn’t even be here. We should be in Turia. Expanding Riiga onto the Plateau.”
I looked over at Enzo, and he frowned back. What was Koranth talking about? He’d been driven like a madman toward the Mages’ Library, and now, all of a sudden, he wanted to be in Turia?
Brownlok strode past us and spoke low to Koranth. But Koranth jerked away and spun so he faced open desert instead of his comrades. “No!” he yelled…to himself? “No. This is the way to solidify Riiga’s status.”
Redalia glared at Koranth, her arms folded tight across her chest.
“Get Mari,” I whispered to Chiara. My eyes locked with Jenna’s and Enzo’s. I gave Jenna a tight nod, and she winked out of existence.
Enzo and I leapt at the crewmen, who shouted alarm when Jenna disappeared. A hole opened within me, like someone had pulled out the plug and my magic was draining away. I threw my fist at the nearest man, taking his club from his belt and hitting his temple with it. A sword would be better, but I’d make do.
I swung the club as fast and hard as I could, keeping one eye on Enzo and one on Chiara, who’d dashed to Mari and kept us between them and the mages. Someone got a kick in to my back, and I grunted and fell to one knee, then swung the club behind me, connecting with something solid.
Koranth had drawn his blade, but it was knocked away into the red sand by Jenna’s invisible hand. Or maybe foot. I didn’t know, or care, as long as she could get to Redalia before I had nothing left.
The black blade fizzled to nothing in the red sand. Koranth screamed.
A flash of gold, and Redalia’s dagger was in her hand. She raised it slowly, lazily, and flicked her wrist. Jenna winked back into existence and flew backward, rolling into sagebrush. The connection between us dissolved. I cursed—she was too drained from the poison, too weak to carry a fight like this.
A fist connected with my jaw. My head jerked to the side and I stumbled over someone’s leg, landing hard in the red dust.
“You cannot win,” Redalia snarled, and lifted her hand as though she’d kill Jenna right here.
“Wait!” Chiara yelled, and jumped in front of Jenna’s prone form. “You need her.”
Someone kicked my ribs and the club was ripped out of my hands.
Almost within reach, Enzo lay on the ground, too, weaponless. Overpowered.
Redalia held her gold dagger ready; Brownlok wielded Jenna’s sword. Koranth hadn’t disintegrated like his shade blade. Pity.
Chiara stood before the three mages, her trousers dirty beyond belief, her tunic even dirtier, and her hair a snarled mess. Yet her posture was perfect. Proud.
Koranth dragged his hand down and formed a new black blade out of the air and sheathed it. “How do we reach those mountains?” he asked Chiara, his voice deadly low.
Sweat dripped down my back and red dust covered me, seeping into my skin like poison. I was so far away. So tired and drained. I wouldn’t have enough magic if they hurt her.
“If you read the poem in the corner, it explains.” She hesitated a long moment. Winced. “There’s…a key. You need the key.”
I clenched my teeth to keep from correcting her. She’d lied to keep the Medallion in my boot. But if they found out…
Koranth had frozen, his left eye twitching. “The key,” he muttered. “Where is the ring?” he bellowed, his voice echoing strangely despite the open desert.
He pulled his black sword. I leaned forward, ready to run to Chiara. A crewman pressed his club to my temple.
Koranth marched toward Brownlok. “You had it. You’re hiding it from me. I knew you were a traitor!”
Brownlok raised a hand. “You are mistaken, I—”
Mari jumped between them. “No! Don’t hurt Erron!”
Jenna, Enzo, Chiara, and I, and even Brownlok, all lunged for Mari. Koranth grabbed her, holding his sword to her throat. “Give me the ring!” he screeched, spit foaming at his mouth. The longer Koranth stood there, the more he came into focus. Like his edges had been blurred into the air, but now they sharpened. “I’ll kill this one first. And then your precious Jennesara, then—”
I’d been so focused on Koranth and Mari that I’d forgotten Redalia was even there. But now she stood behind Koranth, a scowl on her face. A gold tip poked through Koranth’s chest. Her dagger. She’d— His eyes disintegrated as we watched, turning to nothing but dust in his head.
Mari darted out from under Koranth’s limp form and ran to Enzo. He turned her away so she wouldn’t see Koranth’s sightless eyes.
Redalia pulled her blade free with a jerk, and Koranth fell to the side. His black blade disintegrated. Brownlok stumbled to his knees.
Chiara put a hand over her mouth like she’d be sick. I was too thirsty to throw up.
“Now,” Redalia said, her voice dangerously low. “Where is the ring?”
Brownlok sheathed Jenna’s sword, which I didn’t think wise, given how Redalia glared at him. “Atháren has it.”
Redalia turned her venom on me. Better me than anyone else. I held up my hands, and the man holding his club to my temple backed off. “I have it here.” I dropped to one knee. My hand slid past my pocket where the ring nestled and into my boot. “But we’ll still need the map.”
Redalia took the bait and looked at Koranth’s body, at his bag. My fingers wrapped around the knife in my boot. I stood, stepped forward, and threw in one solid motion.
It should have hit her right in the heart, or where a normal person’s heart would have been. But she caught the blade in her bare hand, a hair’s width from her chest. A smile bloomed on her face like a bruise spreading under the skin. Then she laughed, a small chuckle growing until black tears streamed from the outside corners of her eyes and trailed down her cheeks.
She took my knife, turned it, and thrust it directly into the boulder next to her. As though the solid rock were nothing more than soft bread. She raised her hand, which dripped blood from the deep gouge, and licked her palm.
A sharp gust of wind blew razor bits of sand into my skin, and even with Koranth dead, I couldn’t help but feel our situation had gotten infinitely worse.
“You see, young king?” she said, turning her palm toward us. “We
are more alike than you know.”
Her palm was perfect once again, not a scratch or scar marring it. My hands fell limp to my sides and my legs threatened to give out.
Redalia was a healer.
Enzo helped Jenna stand, and she took Chiara’s and Mari’s hands until we were huddled together again.
I’d almost pulled out Cris’s energy—exactly like Redalia had done to my father. That’s what Brownlok had meant when he’d said that anything could be twisted.
Her dagger glinted in the never-ending sun. It would be nearly impossible to kill a healer as powerful as she. And with an artifact?
We didn’t stand a chance.
“You like this, young king?” she asked, smirking and lifting the dagger higher. “Don’t touch it if you want to live. There’s a reason Kais didn’t steal my artifact. I enchanted this little beauty so it could only be wielded by one stronger than I am.” She twirled the dagger one final time and slipped it into its sheath. “And since I absorb the life force of everyone I kill, I’m very powerful.”
I eased down to my knees in the sand. We wouldn’t win this fight. Couldn’t.
Chiara
Redalia shook her long cloak out and sat demurely on a red boulder, its edges worn down by wind. “Now,” she said, turning her burning gaze on me as Brownlok moved to stand at her shoulder, “the key.”
I rubbed my aching throat.
If we gave up the keys, we gave up our last hope. Time to prove my worth. “There’s a problem,” I said softly.
“Yes, what?” Redalia snapped. “Speak up.”
I clenched my hands at my sides. “One of the keys is—” I started, but Ren reached into his boot and pulled out the Medallion before I could finish. He handed it to me, along with the ring, and closed my fingers around them.
His gaze burned into me, even as he spoke to Redalia. “There’s no problem.”
Redalia tilted her head. “I suggest you find us a way through this desert, because I do not like being here.” She pointed the tip of her dagger at me. “You will be the first to die if you delay.”
She turned to speak with the captain, demanding more water. Brownlok stayed by her side, watching Mari carefully.
“She still wants to find the library?” I crouched, setting the keys in the dirt.
Ren knelt next to me. “She’s always been after it—”
“No, Graymere has always been searching for it. And now Koranth,” Jenna said.
“She has her dagger,” I continued, studying the artifacts closely, trying to see with new eyes. “So why bother with all of this?”
Intricate runes covered the Medallion’s face, once-deep etchings now soft and smooth with time and countless kings running their fingers over them. The ring was flat on both sides, unadorned save for one tiny mark, a chip on the edge.
Jenna turned each of the artifacts, flipped them over and back. “The Black Mage’s crystal staff is in the library. And Graymere’s sword.”
I wiped the sweat trickling down my temples. Redalia was already unbeatable. Why would she need more power?
“Three keys,” I muttered. “The map.” Ren addressed Redalia and Brownlok. “We need the map.”
Redalia smiled. “Then come and get it.” She gestured to Koranth’s body, which stared at the sun with sightless eyes. I swallowed down my rising stomach. The map was still in his bag at his side.
Ren pressed his hand against the ground to stand, but Redalia shook her head. “The girl—or no one.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
It wasn’t. I didn’t want to go anywhere near that man. I could still feel the phantom pressure of his arms around me when he’d used me as a shield against Jenna before Graymere attacked the palace. It had been at his urging that Sennor cornered me in the garden.
But it was also my fault we were all here. Ren had followed me, and so had Mari, Enzo, and Jenna. I had been the one to figure out the clue. To find the map.
It was my fault Cris was dead. My fault the mages would soon find the Black Library.
The first step was the longest, and then I was at Koranth’s body. Already, his skin flaked away as though he’d been dead for months, not minutes.
I knelt in front of his corpse. Held my breath. Carefully lifted the flap of his bag and reached inside. Koranth’s weight shifted, almost like he flinched.
I jumped away with a scream, but the map stayed clenched in my hand.
Redalia’s gaze drilled a hole in my back as I returned to the others, but I’d done it. Now we’d have to figure out a puzzle no one had solved in hundreds of years. Or we’d all die.
No pressure.
“The solution is in the poem,” I muttered. “I’m sure of it.”
Three keys to find the library black:
one in snow, the heart of attack.
Another within the heart,
and surrounding it, too,
a ring of flax, of brown and blue.
Two make up one, the key to the door.
Two kingdoms to hide, to be found nevermore.
The final key, not a key at all,
marks the journey’s end,
its start at the wall.
Hidden both deep and high
Where neither snow nor heart can find
Where waves ne’er reach
and vineyards touch the sky.
You will find what you seek
behind the falling door,
that gives life, but takes it more.
It would take me days to decipher this. Days we didn’t have. I turned to Jenna. “You do it. You defeated Graymere; you can figure this out.”
She frowned and studied the map, then shook her head slowly. “I didn’t even realize the words on the back of the drawing were important.” She leaned closer and pointed at two lines. “These, though. I saw this written in the margins of a book when I was researching Graymere. ‘Two make up one, the key to the door. Two kingdoms to hide, to be found nevermore.’ ”
Two make up one. What if— I snatched the two artifacts and placed the ring around the outside of the Medallion. I twisted the ring one way, then the other until the ring and the Medallion clicked together. “ ‘Another within the heart, and surrounding it, too, a ring of flax, of brown and blue.’ ”
Ren’s smile was the only one I could focus on, the only one that hit me. “And flaxen fibers woven together become very strong.”
Enzo cleared his throat. “But that still doesn’t help us find our way,” he said, glancing to where Redalia smirked at us and Brownlok remained hidden under the hood of his cloak. Behind them, the crewmen were sprawled out taking sips from their waterskins.
Ren leaned in, brushing against my shoulder. He didn’t move away. I needed him there, needed someone to help me carry the burden of responsibility.
Enzo moved the combined artifact over the map, trying to get the random markings on the Medallion to make sense. Turned it. Turned it again. He even tried twisting the artifacts so they’d separate again, but they wouldn’t budge.
But that should have done something. Two make up one, the key to the door. Maybe this was just the key to the door. Maybe—I swallowed. Maybe the artifacts had nothing to do with the map.
“There has to be something else,” Jenna said, glaring at Redalia and Brownlok. “Something we’re missing. I am not letting those monsters spill one more drop of blood—”
Blood. “In the first book, the first clue Yesilia helped me find, it mentioned blood. Maybe…maybe the artifact needs blood to work or to show the path—”
Ren scooped up the artifacts and cradled them in his hands. “Redalia said I reminded her of Kais. Maybe someone with Kais’s blood has to be the one to do it.”
It was as good a guess as any, and our time was r
unning out. I took his hand. “But just a little.”
He pursed his lips in an attempt at a smile and ran his smallest finger against the edge. The chip in the ring cut his skin—just a nick, but a drop of blood splashed onto the Medallion, then another.
But the cut wasn’t healing. A cut that tiny should have barely bled one drop. Ren was more drained than he let on.
“Chiara,” Enzo whispered. “Look!”
I changed my focus from Ren’s hand to the artifact. The ring shifted, turning around the Medallion. On its own. The chip Ren had cut his hand on stopped, pointing to the right.
I put one hand over my mouth. Redalia stood over us, a strange glint in her eyes.
“Very good,” she murmured to me. “Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t kill you after all.” She gestured toward the maze of rocks and dust. “Lead the way, young king.”
Brownlok stood and brushed sand off his cloak, his shoulders slumped. The crewmen grumbled, but hefted their huge packs once again. We’d figured out the clue, but that would only bring us closer to death. For us, and for everyone we loved.
* * *
The mountains that had stayed perpetually in the distance finally grew larger as we approached. Ren held the keys, and as the chip in the ring moved, he moved with it, zigzagging across the desert, keeping the notch pointing forward like some sort of magical compass.
Time skipped ahead, making up for the hours we’d been trapped in the endless noon.
Hot wind blew against us, with giant dust clouds rising from the desert like monsters reaching for the sun. Patches of puffy clouds sped across the blue sky, yet their shade never reached us. In the distance, a whirlwind of red dust twisted from the ground up into the sky. The crewmen watched it uneasily, but I kept my eyes on the artifact. On Ren.
He was weakening. Something about the desert was pulling the magic from him and Jenna.
“Mari,” I whispered. “Go hold Ren’s hand while he walks. He needs your help.”
Mari tipped her head, her tangled mess of curls falling to the side, but skipped ahead and slipped her hand into Ren’s. He grinned down at her, almost like he used to. Before I’d plunged him into this mess.
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