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MY HEART WAS POUNDING louder than the cadence of horse hooves.
We barreled down the streets of Sanlow with a hoard on our heels as Aspen gave directions. Soon, the bridges were coming up fast.
“It’s not going to fit!” I shouted over my shoulder.
“We’re jumping!”
“What?!”
There was no time to do anything but forge ahead. The horses didn’t slow down when they saw the river. There was no way they could make it, not when they were attached to the carriage—
I prayed to Death not to appear and called, “Brace yourselves!”
The girls screamed as the horses jumped into the air.
We soared across the water as if we weighed nothing—
And then hit the ground running. The carriage’s wheels bounced and creaked, tipping us sideways so far I thought we would capsize—
Then all four hit stone, and we continued on. Aspen whooped in victory.
“We lost them—for a few seconds! Keep going straight through Moros!”
We plowed through the streets of Cirillo’s coven. It wasn’t unlike Bloodfrost’s sector. I had no idea how Aspen knew the lay of the land, but he called directions out as confidently as if he lived here. It made me wonder if he had an ability. Sometimes half-bloods inherited them—but that was only if they were offspring of a coven leader. But it was impossible that Aspen was related to Agana. She only had one daughter.
I heard Maer’s voice over the clatter of horse and buggy. “The exit is in Moros?!”
“There’s a gate in all four territories,” Aspen explained. “Moros is just the closest. Left!”
I jerked the reins to force the horses to careen sharply onto the next street. We raced past humans milling about to enjoy the afternoon sun who were forced to throw themselves out of our path—
Except for a short old woman at the end of the street who stood in the center of it.
“Stop!” Maer screeched.
I yanked the reins with every ounce of strength I had. They bayed in protest and pain, hooves skidding on stone as they tried to stop. The carriage started to pitch sideways—
But we shuddered to a stop just a few feet from the elder, who hobbled to the carriage door. It flung open, and Maer gasped, “Galen, what—”
I twisted around to see the famous Medic tap a finger to Maer’s forehead. She sucked in a breath, and her eyes—her eyes flashed with blue light, like a flicker of blue fire.
Then it was gone, and Galen was grabbing my wrist and pulling me forward. Before I could react, she stabbed a forefinger to my head, too.
My vision went entirely blue, as if a film had been cast over my sight, and a lightning bolt of energy surged down every fiber in my body.
Then that was gone as well. I blinked as my vision cleared.
“Enchanted,” the milky-eyed healer breathed.
Aspen shoved my shoulder from behind. “What in the world are you doing?! Why did you stop? Go!”
Instinctively, I lashed the reins, and the horses started again as confusion swept through me. “What do you mean?” I called back. “Galen was in the middle of the road. She—”
“There was no one there, Koen,” Aspen said with an edge of concern.
“Yes she was.” Maer’s voice was harsh with fear. “You didn’t see her? She touched our foreheads—”
“That’s, uh, weird—Right!”
We veered right, lifting two wheels off the ground again. Slamming back down, I noticed we’d cleared the thick of the buildings and gardens of thick oak trees lined the road. In the near distance—
“An opening!” I shouted.
A wide break in a ten-foot iron wall, it seemed wrongly unguarded. As we raced closer, the cobblestone turned to dirt. There was no sign of movement or life other than foliage.
Closer, closer...
The end of Sanlow.
Was the edge of the world beyond that wall?
Closer, closer...
I closed my eyes and braced myself as if we were about to ram straight into the barrier.
Woosh!
The horses and carriage flew through the opening and kept on running.
My eyes flew open not to the edge of the world, but something pretty bloody close. A seemingly endless barren field of flat yellow dirt with not even a single dab of color beyond the cloudless blue sky.
I twisted around. Puffs of kicked-up dirt chased us—and nothing else. The gap between here and Sanlow’s wall was growing larger with each heartbeat. But we kept going. We kept going until Sanlow was but a speck in the distance—and then completely out of sight.
“We can stop now.”
I pulled the reins, much kinder to give the poor horses a break. We slowed to a trot and then a full stop in the middle of dusty, dusty nowhere.
I hopped off the carriage as the door opened and Maer and Sloan stumbled out, both tripping and falling to their knees. Maer immediately emptied the contents of her stomach.
“Maer,” I gasped, rushing to her side where Sloan was already pulling her hair back.
She spit the last out and moaned in agony, curling in on herself. “Not...fun.”
“Are you okay?” Aspen asked from inside the carriage. I realized he must be shielding himself from the sun.
“Just...wonderful. It’s too...hot.”
Sloan gave me a grim look. “We need to find cooler shelter. The carriage is hotter than it is out here.”
I squinted against the sun’s bright, unyielding rays that baked down on our backs. It was suddenly hard to breathe, and dust caught in my throat, making me cough. But there wasn’t anything in sight, not even a lone tree. The horses were whinnying and dancing on their feet as the sand burned their hooves.
“We have to keep moving,” I announced, helping the girls up and back into the carriage. “There has to be something eventually.” I hope, I added silently with a twang of fear. What if Sanlow was the only place in the world that wasn’t desert?
I caught Aspen’s eye, hoping he had advice on what to do. But he was as clueless as the rest of us. His mouth thinned, and he shrugged a shoulder but nodded encouragement.
I rallied my courage and nodded back. Hopping back into the driver’s bench that burned my backside, I set the horses forward. They burst into a run of their own accord to save their hooves.
With nothing to look at and distract me from my thoughts, I let them wander. Had Maer and I hallucinated Galen Shayla on the road? What did she—or her mirage—do to make our vision blue? Did Sloan see her?
What was it that she’d said? Enchanted?
Free!
My trail of thought veered around the vibrant word in my mind. Free! it sang. Free! Freedom! Escaped! We escaped! We escaped the vampire town of Sanlow!
I twisted to see my companions. They had the same glazed look in their eyes that I felt.
Had it really been that easy?
Did we really just do the impossible?
The sun was shining overhead, and we had left the covens far, far behind.
A laugh bubbled up in my chest and burst out between my lips. It sounded quite deranged. I cleared my throat. Keep it together, Koen. Stay sane, if not for yourself, then for the others.
Behind me, Maer snorted, then giggled once, and then was lost to a fit of laughter. I twisted around to see Aspen fighting a grin and Sloan covering her mouth with a hand. But it wasn’t long before all four of us were in stitches.
Maer was the first to speak it aloud. “We did it. We escaped. We’re...free.”
Our smiles faded as the darker reality set in, and we all thought the same thing: but for how long?
It was Aspen who growled, “Hopefully forever.”
“Will we be followed?” Sloan asked, only now wiping the blood splatters from her cheek. “Do you think we’re that important for even a leader to come after us?”
“It’s debatable,” Aspen admitted. “I won’t be missed, that’s for sure, but you two”—he looked between me and Maer—“seem to be an odd commodity. The three leaders might be obsessed enough to venture out. But only time will tell—What’s that?”
I faced forward. My heart soared, and I jerked to my feet, nearly falling right off the carriage. “Buildings!”
Aspen maneuvered to the front seat with me to see the short buildings coming into view. He sucked in a breath. “The fifth coven.”
“The what?”
“Ophir, the city of gold sand,” Aspen said, mystified. “I thought it was a myth.” He glanced behind him. “Made so by Cirillo.”
I heard Maer inhale sharply through her nose. “What did he do?”
“Supposedly, the coven leader of Ophir—I never learned his name—wanted to usurp Cirillo. No one knows if that is true or not. It’s been at least fifty years. Cirillo led a raid and decimated Ophir within an hour.”
I jerked the reins, bringing the horses to a stop. I whirled on Aspen. “We’re headed toward ruins?”
“How did I not know this?” Maer demanded. “How do you know this?”
Aspen stammered to answer, but Sloan interrupted, “It doesn’t matter. It’s shelter. Keep going, Koen.”
I gritted my teeth but lashed the reins. The horses were grateful to continue. Their pelts were glistening with sweat, and they panted with exhaustion, as dehydrated as the rest of us.
Aspen muttered an apology and climbed back into the carriage. The mood had soured as fast as it had bloomed with hope.
But I couldn’t let it bring me down—wouldn’t let it bring them down. Sloan was my responsibility, and caving in to despair and fear would do no good. Neither would it help Maer, whose sickness, whatever it was, needed tended to. Without supplies, she would continue to suffer, but getting into some shade should ease it. I hoped.
The horses slowed as we approached a crumbling archway that led to a wide street with short, wide buildings on either side—not even that. They were more like structures, windowless and doorless. Everything was covered in or made of sand. It all seemed faked. There wasn’t any other object to be found.
But there was shade. Several of the structures had fabric awnings broad enough for horses. I slowed the steeds under one. I hopped off the carriage and began taking off their harnesses. As soon as they were freed, they lay down, resting their heads on the thankfully cool sand.
The others had already gotten out, and Aspen was warily padding through the structure’s threshold. I retrieved my scythe. The place may have been in ruins and clearly abandoned, but who knew if there were squatters?
“All clear,” Aspen said as he reemerged. “It’s just three rooms with nothing in them. Hard to believe vampires once lived here.”
“You all seem to take a liking to the finer things,” Maer noted wryly from where she sat against the wall. She looked ready to keel over. Her ability to wisecrack was reassuring. “Can we go in?”
I made to help her up, but Aspen was closer. “I’ve gotcha,” he offered, and to my surprise, Maer let him. Was she that exhausted that she let a half-blood vampire help her?
I glanced at Sloan, who was equally taken aback, but she recovered as Aspen helped Maer limp inside. “We need to search for water. Maybe there’s a well.”
I nodded. “I’ll search. You help Maer settle. Then we’ll rest.”
She looked ready to argue that she should help, but her healer instincts made her dip her head and go inside.
Gripping my weapon, I took the time to explore every dwelling, every alley, every crevice. But Ophir was completely cleared out. It was hard to wrap my head around. There was nothing. Not even a stray bucket or some abandoned keepsake.
But I found a well—caved in on itself, of course.
I sighed and returned to our new hideout. Aspen and Sloan were crouched in front of Maer. Her manacles lie on the floor; somehow, the half-blood had gotten them off. With how much sweat I was drenched in, I had a feeling Aspen didn’t need to use his strength to break them. Slippery skin did the trick just as well.
I opened my mouth to ask how she was feeling when Aspen asked, “So how far along are you?”
Sloan jerked to her feet as if she’d been shocked. “You’re pregnant?!”
