Page 107 of The Cruel Dawn
With my hands on my hips, I try to orient myself, using the Temple of Celestial as a starting point. But I’m still lost.
“Why is it sohot?” Elyn asks, sagging onto a boulder. “It’s still the early morning.”
“Feels like we’re sitting on the top of the daystar.” Crouched, Jadon lowers his head, his sweaty hair now a limp curtain. “Feels like all the heat decided to come and live here.”
“And youlikethis weather?” Elyn asks. She fidgets with the buckles on her breastplate, tempted to shuck her armor altogether.
I glare at them both. “Stop whining—it’s a dry heat. It’s usually not this arid or hot, but the world is dying, remember? So move the fuck on.” Yes, the weather is weird, and my already-sensitive skin is broiling. By the end of the day, I’ll look like a roasted pig.
“You sure this Malik’s house is up here?” Jadon asks, sitting down against a boulder.
“No, I’m not sure,” I admit. “This time, we came by Spryte instead of walking the trails, but that shouldn’t matter.” I turn again to the Temple of Celestial, but nothing rings true here.
“Maybe we should start where you walked from the last time,” Jadon suggests.
“The Sanctum of the Dusky Hills.” I bite my bottom lip, reluctant to start over on that path when we are already racing against time. Instead, I wander toward the cliff and peer out at the valley.
There’s the bridge to enter the city. There’s the canal that circles Gasho. There’s the Howling Wolf Inn with the floor of crushed date pits. There’s the grove of date palms.
Elyn comes to stand beside me and whispers, “There’s something you’re not telling us.”
“Two problems. First: the Sanctum is the dwelling place of the gods,” I whisper back. “No mortals may enter there—and if they try, they die.”
Elyn glances back at Jadon. “He isn’t completely immortal. Shit. Is that also true of the Yeaden’s dwelling?”
“No idea, but at least I won’t have to worry about the second problem.”
“What’s the second problem?”
“Zephar.”
Elyn gasps as she realizes the danger of my old lover meeting my new lover, who is the son of two traitors, a deadly disease, the scion of a corrupt emperor, and a demigod whose very existence threatens the realm, which, by default, threatens me.
“Zephar may just kill Jadon on sight,” Elyn says now.
“And while the thrill of two men fighting over me is kinda sexy,” I say, “we can’t allow Jadon to be harmed, at least not until…”
“We have Danar Rrivae’s amulet.” Elyn nods. “So you thought we could just pop up the mountain and find this Dindt’s settlement without—”
“Having to risk our necks? Yes. Because heisof the Dindt order, which means he’s explored other realms and he’s observed life and will know more than what we know now.”
“Can we at least find some shade?” Jadon complains from behind us.
Elyn studies my face. “Your skin… You need to…”
I sigh. “Yeah, I’m cooking.”
Behind us, Jadon lifts his tunic to wipe his sweaty face. “How do people live in this oven? There’s nothing here except sand and—”
“Nothing here?”I snap, marching over to him. “Before your fathers fucked everything up,everythingwas here.”
“Kai,” Elyn starts.
“Sweet-water rivers that made fertile land,” I say, standing over him, “which meant abundant food, which meant abundant trade. Trade brought people and people brought new ideas. Writing and craftsmanship gave them poetry and mapmaking.
“And these people knew how to worship a god. They built that fabulous temple and those breathtaking gardens, and the daystar kissed their skin with love and colored them until their bodies said, ‘Enough.’” I bend down until Jadon and I are eye to eye. “So…nothing here? These people, this land, iseverything.Everythingis here.”
Jadon holds up his hands. “Sorry. Relax.”
