Page 68 of Heat of the Everflame

But as we neared, it became clear this place was anything but idyllic.

It started with the skeletons. Hundreds of them half-buried in sand, picked clean by animals and bleached white by the sun. Most lay on the outskirts of the village, trailing up the sides of the surrounding dunes as if struck dead in the midst of escape. Icy fingers crawled up the back of my neck as I wondered whatcould drive someone out of this sanctuary and into the certain death of open desert.

Inside the town, the homes had been abandoned in a hurry. Pots hung over long-dead hearths, books sat open on desks, and children’s toys lay scattered and forgotten. The wardrobes were still stocked full of clothes, and though we were all happy for the chance to exchange our ripped, soiled rags for breezy linens and soft wool, it felt a bit like vultures pecking meat off an old carcass.

Weapons were strangely plentiful. Many had been left sitting out on countertops, with a few even dropped in the streets. Whatever had chased these mortals away, apparently they had not believed their blades or bows would save them.

Though most were of mortal make, we scavenged some Fortosian steel blades to restock our arsenal, as nearly all our weapons had been taken in the skirmish with the Guardians—including the Sword of Corbois. Luther swore he was glad to be rid of its burden, but I ached at the void over his shoulder where the jeweled handle had once risen. With its loss, a piece of him seemed missing, too.

Our one disappointment, and now our greatest dilemma, was a lack of food. Everything in the buildings had long since rotted to dust, and though there were a handful of ripe kumquat trees that soothed the bite of our hunger, the other plants were months from harvest. Hardier desert-dwellers might know the tricks for finding hidden nutrition, but those secrets had died out on the dunes. We were foreign intruders on a hostile land, and unlike the forest, the desert did not provide.

“We could keep going to the coast,” Alixe suggested, cupping her hands into the cool water of the spring and splashing it across her face. “We could catch some fish there, perhaps even wave down a passing boat and ask for help.”

“No,” Luther said immediately. “We’re too exposed on the coast.”

He was lounging in the shade of a nearby palm tree and watching the three of us wash away the crust of sand that coated our skin.

He looked at me. “You’re an uninvited Crown. If you’re caught here, the King of Ignios has the right to kill you on sight.”

I dipped my rag in the spring and dabbed it to the wound on Taran’s ribs. I was relieved to see that the dark veins had spread only slightly, and a thin scab was beginning to form over the cut.

“He knows I was kidnapped by the Guardians,” I said. “Perhaps he’ll hear me out and understand.”

Luther’s hand tightened around the bone hilt of the long, curved scimitar he’d found in one of the homes. “You met him. Did he seem like an understanding man to you?”

I thought back on my Rite of Coronation. My only exchange with the prickly Ignios King had been his sneer of disgust when he had discovered I was a “half-breed.”

I frowned. “Not quite.”

Taran smirked at me and folded his arms behind his head. After I’d refused to let him dive head-first and naked into the spring, he was getting far too much enjoyment out of the sponge bath I was giving him as a compromise.

“I agree with Luther,” he said. “I wouldn’t put it past them to kill us all if they spot us. They’re mean, ruthless bastards, and they hate outsiders.”

Alixe dipped a jug into the water and poured it through her cropped hair. “It wasn’t always that way,” she mused. “Ignios used to be famous for its hospitality. The Ring Road was packed with shops and inns welcoming travelers. They even had patrols to help anyone lost out in the dunes. They had the least resources of all nine realms, but they were the first to offer them up to anyone passing through.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“The Blood War,” Luther answered. “They tried to stay neutral and keep out of the fighting, but neither side would let them.”

Alixe nodded. “Oases started getting poisoned. The springs are crucial to life here, so everyone suspected it was outsiders, but the Descended and mortals each blamed it on the other. The army refused to send soldiers to help unless Ignios joined the war effort. Eventually their Crown had to give in before the entire realm became uninhabitable, and the rebels hit them hard for it. By the end of the war, there was hardly anyone from Ignios left.”

“Those who did survive never let go of their anger,” Luther added. “They stopped welcoming outsiders, and when the current Crown took his throne, he banished all the mortals.”

“He didn’t banish them,” I muttered, remembering what Henri had told me. “He killed them. He drove them into the dunes and let them roast to death under the sun.”

“Where did you hear that?” Luther asked.

“From a friend, I think,” I said, shrugging. The last thing I needed was Luther setting his sights on Henri again.

“Let me guess, one of your Guardian friends?” Taran said bitterly. His eyes narrowed, sparking with betrayal. “You know they spread lies about the Descended to trick people into joining, don’t you?”

I clenched my jaw as I dried off his wound, then reached for a new batch of linen to wrap it. “The Guardians don’t need to lie to do that, Taran. The Descended give them plenty of recruiting material on their own.”

“Taran has a point,” Luther said gently. My eyes shot to his, and he gave me a meaningful stare. “We both know they can be... less than honest.”

“And what do you suppose happened to them?”I snapped, pointing to the lines of white bones stretching up into the dunes. “What made all those mortals drop their weapons and run for their lives? What lie do the Guardians need to explainthat?” I glared between the two of them. “I watched a man burn alive for the crime of stepping over their border. I don’t care if what I heard was ‘less than honest.’ It’s no worse than what I’ve seen with my own eyes.”

The others fell silent. I sniffed irritably and reached for the dressing at Taran’s shoulder, ripping it away.

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