The next morning the caves were in chaos when I awoke. Boys ran frantically in all directions carrying bolts of fabric, water skins, bags of dark red kana fruit, baskets piled high with curled talon berries, and more jars of preserved jamma beans than I’d ever seen in my life.
My first thought was that Rodric had found us and we were abandoning the cave.
I grabbed my sword and ducked into the hallway. I followed the throng of boys until I heard Cion’s voice echo down the cavern. He was shouting about where to put new goods and yelling at someone else to stay in line to load the cart.
I followed the noise to the large cavern.
Hardesh, Tania, and Bala were sitting on the back of a sizable cart loaded with barrels of water, cages full of green-spotted lizards, firewood, and an assortment of other clay jars with their lids tightly shut. Two large camels waited at the head of the cart.
Bala sat with her legs dangling off the back. She smiled kindly at me.
I wanted to ask her about my mother, my sister. But I couldn’t bring myself to. So instead, I smiled in return.
Thankfully, Hardesh didn’t throw a fit when I moved toward him. His face looked better, but he sat in a daze.
“Hardesh,” I said, slowly approaching him.
“Careful,” Tania said.
I paused a few feet from the back of the cart. “I just wanted to wish you all luck,” I said. “And once I kill Rodric, I hope you’ll think about returning.”
“Thank you,” Tania supplied for the group. “I’m sure we’d all like to return someday, but many more things would have to change to make that possible.”
I nodded. “I will do my best to make the city what it once was.”
“I believe you will,” Tania said.
Her words surprised me.
“Everything’s loaded and ready,” Cion said, coming up next to me while speaking to the cart’s occupants. “We’ll send Hardesh’s daughters as soon as it’s safe.”
I caught Bala’s eyes moving between Cion and me. I took a step to the side under the pretense of kicking some sand from my sandal.
“My boys will deliver you safely,” Cion continued. He bent down and picked up a handful of sand. He blew it over them. “May the desert recognize you as one of its own and allow you safe passage.”
Bala wiggled off the cart and scooped up her own handful of sand. She emptied it into Cion’s still-outstretched hand. “And may the desert return to you the kindness you’ve shown us.”
Cion clasped the sand in his hand, touched it to his heart, and then released it before helping her back into the cart.
The caravan was about to creak away, but Hardesh suddenly looked up at me. “Wait,” he cried, the word echoing around the chamber. He stared at me, his eyes round.
He motioned me forward.
Warily, I stepped closer.
Hardesh grabbed my shoulders and yanked me toward him. “You have to understand.”
“Understand what?” I tried to pull away, but his fingers dug into my flesh, refusing to let go.
“Your father chose me as a competitor because he thought I’d killed my wife. But I loved her. Larina was the only thing worth living for.” He choked over the name, sucking in large breaths of air to steady himself. His grip on my shoulders tightened. “Your father asked me if I was strong enough to kill you if your rule was plagued by weakness.”
“It’s okay,” Tania said. “Let her go.” She rubbed her hands in small circles on his back. “Why don’t you rest?”
He shook her away. His eyes were wide and wild, with bloodshot veins streaking through them. “I didn’t kill Larina, but I told him I did because I had to fight you. I had to win for my daughters, for the only piece of Larina left in this world. Your father and I both knew I wouldn’t win, but I had to try. I had to.”
“I understand,” I said. “We do what we have to in order to survive.”
“No.” He clenched down harder on my shoulders. “I would’ve killed you to save them. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m no better than him. You have to forgive me.”
“Shh, Hardesh,” Tania soothed, getting him to release his grip on me and pulling him farther into the cart.
But he kept shouting, “You have to forgive me.”
“I forgive you, Hardesh,” I said.
He nodded his head repeatedly as though I’d exonerated him from his greatest crime. But he wasn’t a criminal. He was the victim. Another victim of my father.
I tried not to let his words show their effect on me, but I was shaking.
My father thought Rodric was of the desert, chosen by the desert, and that’s why he deserved to rule. Well, I’d show him that the desert had accepted me too. It made me want to train all the more. Because once I was done with Rodric, I was going to face my father.
I would demand justice for his crimes. I wasn’t going to abandon him to the fate of the arena. I would deal with him personally. I would be the desert’s justice, mightier than any tiger.
Tania waved as the cart started to creak away, led by several of the Desert Boys. More boys raced to open a pathway set so deep back into the rocks I hadn’t even known it was there. They shoved away two wide sheets of metal that were so cumbersome, it took three boys to push each one aside.
“Safe travels,” Cion called as the carts disappeared into the sunlight that lay beyond.
When the boys pulled the metal sheets back into place, the cave felt even darker than it had before.
“Let’s go train.” Cion said.
As the rest of the boys were busy sorting out the new supplies the arriving caravan had brought, Cion and I slipped back through the tunnels. After getting a few sips of water, he picked up a yellow sun fruit from an open bag and cut small slits in the pointed joints sticking out from the bulbous center before tossing it to me.
“You’re going to need that,” he said.
“We’re heading to the shifting hills?” I asked as I peeled away the hard outer casing of my breakfast.
He nodded. “I think you can make the walk in the heat now.”
I swallowed my groan along with the sticky pieces of sun fruit. Now more than ever, I’d do anything I could to beat Rodric, so I followed Cion out into the blazing sun.
We encountered two different sets of guards on our way to the hills. We were able to easily slip past the first group by crawling over dunes while they were down in a valley several hills away. The second set made enough noise that we heard them before we saw them.
“If the king cuts off access to the wells, we’ll all be killed in the revolt,” one soldier said as Cion and I ducked into a dune’s shadow.
I looked questioningly at Cion. Cut off access to the wells? I wouldn’t put it past Rodric and my father. Not anymore.
“As long as we keep receiving extra water rations, I don’t care what the king does,” a second voice said. “My wife just gave birth to our second son, and I need all the water I can get.”
Sand shifted. They were getting close.
I eyed Cion, waiting to see if he’d give the signal to run or attack. He held up his hand for me to stay where I was. There was still a chance they could bypass our little valley.
“At least if he did cut access, they might finally force the princess out, and we’d stop having to search out here for her.”
The voices were going around us, growing fainter.
“You’d think they would’ve stopped sending us after the first six men died.”
Whatever the other guard said in reply was lost to the sands as they moved farther away.
“That was close,” I said after they were gone.
“Too close.” He watched the direction the men had disappeared.
“Do you think my father will really cut off well access?”
Cion shrugged. “I don’t think he’s so desperate he’ll risk turning everyone against him. Not yet, at least.”
These patrols made Hardesh’s words even more real. These soldiers were proof of how much my father and Rodric needed me back, of how both needed me to secure their place in the monarchy. My father couldn’t be seen as having two children taken by the desert. And I knew Rodric well enough to know he wanted to beat me in the arena in front of everyone. He couldn’t leave a question in anyone’s mind that the desert had chosen him.
All that would just drive them to excessive cruelty to get me back. Hadn’t my father said during his speech at the well that there’d be consequences, that things would only get worse if I wasn’t found?
“What if he does cut off access?”
“We’ll find a way to get water,” he replied. “We always have, but I’ll get in touch with my source in the palace and see if they can find out if there’s any truth to what the soldiers were saying.”
I didn’t like not having a plan, but for now, that was the best we could do.
Cion and I had just trudged up to the top of the dune when a voice cried out, “There they are.”
The two guards we had overheard stood only a dune away. They must’ve stumbled upon our footprints and followed them nearly to us. They dashed down the dune directly toward us.
I started to go for my sword, but Cion stopped me.
“Run.”
I remembered what he’d said about not killing the guards the first time we’d come across them in the desert, so I shoved my sword back down and took off after him.
We raced up one dune and down another, but so did the guards, their sword hilts clanging as they ran.
They hadn’t been living on only a few sips of water a day, and with each dune we climbed, they grew closer.
I forced my legs to move faster. My lungs burned.
Cion easily leapt up the dune ahead of me, cresting over the hill.
I stumbled as something pulled at the sandal strap around my ankle. I plunged forward into the sand.
I turned just in time to see the soldiers crest the dune and slow as they approached me. I scrambled backward.
That’s when I noticed what I’d stumbled over.
I slowed my pace.
“Just come with us nice and easy,” one of the soldiers said. He had one hand up as though I were a wild animal he could tame. The other hand held his sword.
He took slow, measured steps forward.
He inhaled sharply, his whole body going rigid.
I looked away.
He dropped his sword and stumbled backward into the other soldier, blood dripping from his foot where a spike from a spiral cactus had gone straight through.
I rose to my feet and pulled out my sword just as Cion reappeared over the hill with his sword in hand.
The second soldier seemed to realize he was outnumbered now that his partner was injured. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, helping his friend hobble away.
Cion and I stood there a long time with our chests heaving and our swords out just to make sure they didn’t reappear.
“Do you think we should head back?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’d rather them think we went this way. It’ll lead them farther from the hideout.”
I sheathed my sword and followed him, but I couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder every few dunes, praying we’d make it through a few more weeks, that my father wouldn’t cut off well access. I needed more time until I was ready to face Rodric. But I had a sinking feeling I wasn’t going to get it.