Sera
The last few days—weeks?—had been a blur. Sera’s chest ached, her head pounded, and her mouth was dry. Working her fingers up to the mostly healed wound on her shoulder, just above her heart, she felt the edges of a newborn scar that had come from the tip of an Athrani spear. Tennech told her that she’d nearly been killed, and in the ensuing darkness of sleep and recovery, she sometimes thought that might have been the better option.
Hovering on the brink of death is not an easy feat, and Sera was finding out why. She had lost a lot of blood on the ground beneath the Tree, where the force from the blow and the initial shock had rendered her unconscious—and where she very likely would have bled to death if Tennech hadn’t dragged her away and patched her up. She had just been lying there helpless on the ground, slowly dying, while the flow of battle rushed on around her. But after being taken from the forest, and being asleep for most of it, her body was allowed to start the recovery process.
She had spent more time unconscious than awake, but that trend was slowly starting to reverse itself. Her bouts of wakefulness were becoming the norm as the darkness and the dreams returned to their rightful place: under her control. Sleep was no longer something that forced itself upon her; now it was at her beck and call. Like the movement in her left arm and shoulder, control over her consciousness was gradually returning.
She heard the sounds of quiet talking just as the pain in her shoulder forced her eyes open. As she sat up and looked around, she saw to whom the voices belonged: General Tennech, with his back to her, was talking with Captains Hullis and Dhrostain. Hullis, the tall blond Thurian, noticed she was awake and gestured toward her.
Tennech turned his head, and the semblance of a smile tugged at the corners of his mustachioed mouth. Sera blinked a few times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things, but the sight made her think delirium had set in again: Tennech was not wearing his armor, and was dressed in clothes befitting an emissary or a high-ranking government official. The other two men still wore most of their armor, with the exception of their heavy breastplates. The general turned to her and walked over.
“Good, you’re awake,” he said. “We were waiting for you before we made the final leg of the journey.”
Sera glanced around; she didn’t recognize their surroundings. They seemed to be in some sort of oasis, with long stretches of desert surrounding them on all sides. There were perhaps a dozen tall trees that provided shade, and a deep pool of water that was responsible for the vibrant green in a sea of dead brown. If she had to guess, all of this meant that they were in or near the Wastes of Khulakorum. Nowhere else that she knew of matched this description, and nowhere else had a desert so large that it could take up an entire field of view.
“Of course,” Sera said as the general drew near. “Where . . . Where are we?”
“At the edge of the Wastes,” he answered, looking back over his shoulder to the men from Ghal Thurái. “By my calculation—and the captains agree—the tribal city of Khadje Kholam should be about half a day’s walk to the southeast. If you’re feeling up to it, we can leave now to arrive at sunup.”
Sera stood up and swept her hands through her long brown hair, collecting it and pulling it down to rest in front of her left shoulder. Before her, the colors of dusk were starting to make their way across the sky, and she realized that she had been sleeping for much longer than she’d intended. Maybe I haven’t fully recovered after all, she thought.
Her eyes scanned the rest of her surroundings as she tried to get her bearings. As she did, she saw two reasons why they had made it this far: the Gwarái.
The two great masses of black were sleeping in the shade, and Sera wondered how the Thurian captains had managed to get something so big to cooperate. The Gwarái wore leather reins that were fastened to their long, thick necks. Other than that, though, the four-legged monstrosities should have been free to do what they wanted—one tends not to argue with anything so large. Sera was still not fully used to being around the two towering creatures; their countless dark scales over a long reptilian body made even the largest warhorse look tiny. But they had gotten them this far, so she had no reason to complain. Any other pack animal would have had immense difficulty making a journey this far in a reasonable amount of time.
The thought triggered a memory. She started looking around frantically, scanning the trees and desert floor. Tennech must have noticed her eyes darting back and forth because he moved closer to her, asking, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Ruen,” she answered. “Where is Ruen?”
Tennech put a hand on Sera’s shoulder, and the blood froze in her veins. She barely registered the next words from the general’s mouth.
“There was no other way to get you here,” he began. “I had to have one of the Gwarái carry you.”
“Where is he?” she demanded. “Tell me where my horse is.”
The words seemed to catch the general off guard, and he moved his hand away from her shoulder. “He’s safe, Sera. Don’t worry.” He was putting his hands up in a calming motion, but it looked to Sera more like a defensive posture. “He was in no shape to make the trip, so I sold him to—”
“You what?”
“I sold him,” he said, raising his voice to match hers, “to help offset some of the costs.” He was looking her right in the eye. “We both know that horse was on his last legs. It’s a wonder we got anything for him at all.”
Sera was seething. “You had no right! He was my only possession.” Her brown-on-blue eyes were awash with rage, and she briefly, very briefly, pictured his death.
Tennech put a stop to it quickly. “Remember your place, child,” he said coldly. “You came to me with nothing. I took you in, I fed you, I clothed you. I gave you everything.” The words were as sharp as they were true.
Her anger, a crackling fire, had not been snuffed out—merely redirected. “Fine,” she said, turning back to the blanket on the ground that formed her makeshift bed. She gathered it up, loudly and forcefully sheathed her blades, and made for the two captains. Walking right by them, she said, “Let’s go,” to no one in particular.
Hullis and Dhrostain shrugged and looked to Tennech for confirmation. When the general nodded his consent, the two Thurians cautiously awakened the sleeping giants and pointed them away from the sinking sun.
Sera, despite having no idea where they were going, was fine with leading the way. She’d dodged death once already.
Let it try again, she thought bitterly.