Page 8 of Twin Crowns

She landed facedown in the sand.

An unladylike groan seeped out of her.

“Stand up!” Shen shouted. “Quick!”

With as much dignity as she could muster, Rose lifted her head and spat a clump of sand from her mouth.

“Get up!” Shen’s voice reached a fever pitch as he raced down the dune.

Rose ignored him. She was not going to take orders from some thieving, kidnapping, desert bandit. She would move at the pace she wanted. She stood up as slowly and gracefully as she could, but her legswere covered in sand, and they were trembling.Badly.

As she tried to steady herself, she realized with dawning horror that her knees were not the problem. The dune itself was shaking.

Her heart leaped into her throat. “The sands are shifting!”

“That isn’t the sand! It’s a blood beetle!”

Rose screamed as the dune began to churn around her. Sharp ebony pincers pierced through the sand, flinging it everywhere, and then the rest of the creature emerged in a skittering mass of darkness. It was enormous, with a hard-leathered shell and a dozen spindly legs dwarfed beneath those terrible shining pincers.

Rose stumbled away.

Behind her, the bandit moved like a shadow—faster than anyone she had ever seen before. He flew through the air, grabbing a dagger from his boot and angling it skyward as he leaped over her and landed right in front of the insect. “I told you to get up!” he said over his shoulder. “The blood beetles can hear your heartbeat. They smell your sweat and—”

The beetle struck. Shen dodged the pincer with a backflip. Rose gasped as he landed on the creature’s head, and in one clean swipe, thrust his dagger into the fleshy part between its eyes. The beetle’s screech split the desert air in two. Rose covered her ears as it thrashed in anger, jabbing its pincers at Shen.

“Watch out!” she cried, but it was too late. A pincer sliced across his leg. He winced as blood began to gush out, but he kept his dagger steady, twisting it deeper into the beetle’s head until, finally, the wretched beast collapsed in a heap on the sand.

Rose’s head swam dangerously, and she thought for a second shemight pass out. “It’s dead,” she breathed. “You killed it.”

Shen slid off the beetle. His golden chain had slipped from his shirt in the fight. Rose noted the ring dangling on the end as he tucked it hastily back into his shirt. He stood for a long moment, breathing heavily, then he wiped the dagger on his shirt and slid it back into his boot. He looked up at Rose. “Are you all right?”

“I’m f-fine.” Though this time, she failed to keep the tremor from her voice. She had thought blood beetles were myths from storybooks, not terrifyingly real creatures that could kill her. What other abominations were hiding out here in the desert? “And you... are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said curtly.

Her gaze dropped to the gaping wound in his leg.

“It’sfine,” he insisted. “We need to get away from here. Other blood beetles may be coming, and things that like to eat blood beetles will smell this dead one.” He hardened his jaw. “And trust me, Princess, we do not want to fight anything that eats a blood beetle.”

Rose swallowed. “That thing would have killed me.”

“Easily.”

“You saved my life.”

A hoarse laugh escaped Shen. “Don’t give me too much credit. I’d be in a lot of trouble if I lost you to a blood beetle. Or anything else for that matter.” He lifted his fingers to his lips and whistled so loudly Rose flinched.

Storm came galloping down the dune.

“Listen, Princess, even if the palace was sending someone for you, no Eshlinn-born horse can ride as fast as Storm. They’ll never catch up to us. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of the desert.”

Rose looked around, straining for shapes on the horizon. “That’s impossible. Nobody goesthroughthe desert.”

The Ganyeve Desert lay like a coiled snake in the middle of the island of Eana, as deadly and dangerous as a viper’s bite. The only way to cross it—at least in one piece—was to take the dusty Kerrcal Road that curved around its edges, connecting the small desert towns that led on to the fishing villages by the coast. No sane Eanan would ever dream of cutting a pathway through the heart of the desert. It was the surest road to madness, or death. Often both.

And yet... there wasnothingand no one as far as her eyes could see. Where was the mighty clock tower of Gallanth, the sunset village to the west? Or the famed red-walled town of Dearg? She couldn’t even see the shadow of the Mishnick Mountains from here. All these places she’d never been to but had etched into her memory as she’d studied the maps of her country. Places that belonged to her. Places that she promised herself she’d one day visit. When she was Queen.

Now, there were only sun and sky and sand.

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