Page 129 of The Cruel Dawn
This could all be a trick, I reason desperately. Zephar could be protecting me by trying to fool this Crusader into thinking he hates me.
But my heart and head agree for once:Sweetheart, this isn’t a ruse.Accept it for what it is. Betrayal.
Is this what worried Shari? Has she been trying to tell me all this time?You in danger, girl.
Elyn and Sybel were right: Zephar isn’t who I thought he was.
Neither is Jadon.
But now I know they are my enemies. And now, I will destroy them all—
Celestial!
A woman’s voice cries out for me. She sounds like Ancress Tisen.
My pulse racing, I look over my shoulder at the desert outside Gasho.
Celestial! Please hurry!
Yes, that’s Ancress Tisen calling me, praying.
But she’s dead…
Right?
32
There’s no one here.
Just me and a sea of sand.
Ancress Tisen is nowhere to be found, nor any other woman who could’ve sounded like her. Just rocks and dirt and wind.
I’m alone.
A sandstorm brews on the horizon, rushing closer to me…closer… I lift my chin, unafraid.
The sand melts, and Zephar Itikin strides toward me. His smile is too wide and doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Dark, empty eyes without empathy, with no trace of the person they once belonged to. His eyes have seen too much, and he’s felt too little. There is no warmth in them, no spark of recognition—only the cold, hollow gaze of a man transformed into something else, intosomeone else.
His leather tunic and breeches fit like a second skin. His twin blades—forged of catherite—rest across his back, their hilts gleaming faintly in the dying light. Zephar embodies control and discipline, but a dangerous emptiness clings to him now. He keeps smiling at me.
I wait to meet my newest ex-boyfriend.
“Don’t we need to leave for the Sea of Devour?” he asks, grinning strangely.
“What are you doing here, Zephar?” I ask.
He cocks his head. “Looking for you, Beloved.”
“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?” I lift my hand to preempt his response. “Ofcourseyou think I’m stupid, and you always have. For so long, Iwasstupid. Not anymore. Today is a new day, a new dawn.”
He shakes his head in confusion. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“How did you know that I was here?” I ask. “At this random point in the desert?”
“Does it matter? I’m here now.” He sighs and rolls his eyes. “What are we bickering about this time?”
“Orewid Rolse is a Crusader,” I say, “and you’re conspiring with him to kill me,Beloved.That’swhat we’re bickering about this time.”
