Page 7 of Destroyer

But would her fingers move without thought? Would her dark eyes reveal a surety that she didn't always feel?

“Hungry?” said Rosylla, drawing Ru from her thoughts.

The rider had spread out a modest but surprisingly varied selection of cured meats, flatbread, and four oranges. Lyr and Sybeth came to join them by the fire, and tucked in without preamble.

Ru reached for her dinner with awkward reluctance. She had never dined with King’s Riders before. Were there rules? Expectations? But the riders seemed completely unconcerned with formalities, so Ru followed their lead.

“You really have no idea why they’ve sent for me,” said Ru, more a statement to confirm than a question. “Me, a scholar of magic and ancient pottery.”

The riders shared a glance. “We weren’t informed of it,” said Sybeth, firelight dancing on her dark skin. “We’re not paid to make conjectures.”

Ru frowned. She hadn’t expected an explanation, but the question wouldn’t leave her alone.

“You said this new dig site is a day’s ride away?” Ru asked.

“Correct,” said Sybeth. “And we need to keep moving.”

With breathtaking efficiency, the riders put out the fire, gathered up the remains of dinner, and packed it all away within a matter of moments. Ru stood watching on the sidelines, feeling like a dead weight. She was relieved when it was time to ride out. Sky was a comfort now, and expected nothing of Ru but occasional neck pats.

As they rode through the dark, stars winked down between the trees, and Ru found herself feeling strangely lonely. She was used to being away from family, but in the years since she'd come to the Cornelia Tower, her life had been crowded, full of academics and professors. Even with three riders in her company, she felt alone.

The road wound ever southward, toward the southern coast of Navenie, where Ordellun-by-the-Sea, the lost city, had once been.

After a while, Ru found herself riding alongside Rosylla. She liked the curly-haired rider with her unaffected smiles and open nature. Rosylla was very unlike the other riders: Sybeth, whose tall figure radiated confidence and power, and then ever-frowning Lyr, whose stern jaw spoke of quiet competence.

Rosylla brought a packet of sweets out of her pocket and began tossing them to Ru as they rode, the two of them giggling as the sweets bounced off Ru’s nose. It was a welcome distraction from what felt like a growing weight on Ru’s shoulders, a gradually heightening dread of the unknown and possible humiliation.

But as the night wore on, everyone became quieter as they rode, and Ru found it extremely difficult to stay awake. She caught herself nearly falling out of Sky’s saddle twice, the second time only avoiding a painful tumble by getting her foot caught up in its stirrup.

“You academics don’t get out much,” said Lyr, after Ru had finally managed to right herself in the saddle.

“It has nothing to do with that,” said Ru, annoyed. “I’m half-asleep.”

Wordless, Lyr handed her a small flask full of liquid that smelled horribly pungent.

“What is that, rotten coffee?” Ru grimaced as he brandished it under her nose.

“You’re not far off,” he replied. “Better though.”

She downed a great swig with a cough, and even though it burned her throat and made her heart feel like it was just shy of exploding within her, it kept her awake enough to avoid a fall from her horse.

* * *

Morning broke over a desolate landscape.The earth all around them was black and mostly flat as if a massive burning fist had flattened the land for miles around them. Ru turned to see the distant gold-streaked peaks of mountains, kissed gently by first sunlight. There was a blueish blur that had been trees and forest, to the north and stretching east.

The road had, at some point in the night, narrowed from a well-traveled packed dirt thoroughfare to a winding track that disappeared and reappeared at random. Ru could already feel the sea air, its humidity causing her hair to curl as a damp breeze washed over them.

Ru peered ahead into the purpling gloom, watching as it lightened to blue and then pink, their shadows reaching out like dusky fingers on the black land. As the sun rose, as they plodded forward, their destination became clear. In fact, it was impossible not to notice. Ru had never been this way, had never seen anything in person, but she had read so many texts and seen so many artistic and scientific depictions that there was no doubt in her mind.

They were approaching the Shattered City.

“Don’t see that every day,” said Lyr, indicating the same thing Ru had just seen: far ahead of them, so far it was difficult to gauge the size, a jagged chunk of rock jutted out from the earth, angling toward them like a finger, pointed forever away from the sea. It marked the edge of the crater, the site of the Destruction. Once, the city of Ordellun-by-the-Sea had stood there, shining and vivid. Now it was gone, the land barren, only the odd remains of its walls and buildings left jutting from the land as hints of a horrific explosion.

Everyone remained silent. Ru pulled a stale cinnamon bun and an apple from the depths of her saddlebag. She held out the apple for Sky and ate the cinnamon bun with slow precision. If she focused her mind on this, the consumption of her breakfast from start to finish, she could avoid the other thoughts, the worries that clamored for attention.

Ru’s pulse thrummed; her breaths rose shallow in her chest.

When the cinnamon bun was gone, she set about mentally solving a math problem. The orderly calm of math, of logic, steadied her. She thought she might be able to calculate how many steps Sky had taken since they left Dig Site 33. She counted the number of steps he took in the space of a minute, multiplied by sixty to make an hour. She had to round down slightly, as she was sure they’d been trotting for a stretch of road, and—

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