Since there was no other exit, he’d brought me here to die, to cast me off with the other bodies lying along the wall.
My stomach roiled at the sight of them.
But then one of the bodies unfolded itself and brushed away the sand. Partially covered by a tattered blanket was a woman whose face was weathered beyond her years. Sand lined the wrinkles of her face, despite her probably not being more than a few years older than my mother would’ve been.
She began shuffling toward us, favoring a foot I realized was turned to one side. I skittered in the opposite direction as she approached, but she only gave me a passing glance.
“Cion,” she said, “did you bring us more water? Tania’s so thirsty. Her belly grows bigger every day with child.”
“I’m sorry, Bala,” Cion said, using the term often reserved for grandmothers, aunts, and others worthy of respect. “An unexpected complication arose, and I called the boys off. We’ll get more soon.”
Bala nodded solemnly. “At times it seems as though it is the desert’s will she not survive. The sands know nobody wants another one of Rodric’s illegitimate children running around, but I’ll do what I can for her.”
I coughed to cover up the gasp that escaped my lips.
Cion shot me a silencing look. “Don’t worry,” he said to Bala. “We’ll get you and Tania on the next caravan out.”
She wrapped her hand around Cion’s. Her small fingers barely surrounded three of his. Once she released his hand, she turned toward me with a tired smile. “Are you going on the caravan too?” Her eyes went to my stomach. I couldn’t help from crossing my arms over it. The shackle pressed awkwardly against me.
I shot a glance at Cion. His face was unreadable.
“She’s staying here,” Cion replied. “I’m showing her around.”
I had no idea what he meant by that, but the small smile widened across the woman’s face in response. Her eyes darted back and forth between Cion and me. “There’s no safer place than with Cion. I’m sure he’ll watch over you very carefully.”
I choked on sand I must have inhaled. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
The woman clasped her hands over her stomach. “In this desert, we all have to take care of each other.” She smiled at Cion and patted his cheek before moving back into the darkness of the cavern. She didn’t seem like a prisoner, though it was clear she wasn’t part of the Desert Boys’ activities either.
I turned on Cion. “What is this place?”
He threw his arms wide. “This is where we keep all that excess water we steal.” He leaned back against one of the stalagmites. “You said if we didn’t steal all that water, there’d be enough for everyone. Do they look like they have enough?”
Clearly he was lying. There was no water anywhere I could see.
Confusion must’ve played across my face because Cion mumbled, “Of course you wouldn’t understand.” He lowered his face to meet mine. “We steal the water for people like them. So they can cross the desert and escape this place. Whatever extra we have, we distribute to those who need it most in Achra.”
“If you didn’t steal all the water,” I retorted, “we could ease the restrictions.”
Cion exhaled loudly. “There’s already plenty of water for everyone. The four wells are all fed by the same underground river that runs directly under the palace, where the water levels are controlled by none other than your father.”
“That’s preposterous.” There were no water controls in the palace. I would have seen them. And even my father would never be so cruel as to keep water from his own people. “The only controller of the water levels is the desert itself.” I bit my tongue before I threw out that many people—my father included—blamed the continuing drought on the Desert Boys and the desert’s attempts to rid them from its dunes.
“Think about it,” Cion challenged. “The only reason everyone doesn’t flee this forsaken sand pit and its increasing sandstorms is because they can never store enough water for the crossing. Your father knows that. He knows no one would stay, so he controls everyone by controlling the wells.”
“He wouldn’t do that.” My father had always talked about how great Achra had been before the drought. He and I both wanted to make it that way again. If there really was enough water, he would’ve released it to the people so Achra could rise once again, so we could lead it back into prosperity.
“Wouldn’t he?” He pushed off the stalagmite and moved toward me.
I skittered backward, keeping the same distance between us. I tried not to notice how silently he moved.
“The same man who puts tigers behind both doors at his ‘just’ trials wouldn’t go so far as to control the water levels to keep everyone dependent on him?”
I shook my head.
“He wouldn’t lower them further after one of our raids to make it look like we’d taken more than we did so he could set even stricter ration laws, all in an attempt to turn the people against us?” His soft voice mixed with the falling sand.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I shot back. I’d lived in the palace my whole life and never seen anything that would control the wells.
“Back when the drought started—before you and I were even born—the original Desert Boys were locals and caravan leaders who didn’t have access to water. As a result, they knew the desert and its dangers better than anyone, and they used that knowledge to go out searching for water. All they ever found was the nearly dried-up underground river that leads directly toward the city.”
Obviously, something had to feed the wells. It didn’t all come from the small oasis within the palace walls. But his words didn’t prove anything—especially as he was saying the river was as dry as the wells.
“The entrance to the cave that houses the river has been buried over the years by the blowing sands,” he continued. “The one time I set out to find it, I nearly died on the three-day journey, but when I dug down into the cave, you know what I saw? More water than I could imagine. That river isn’t dry anymore. It’s flowing with as much force as a sandstorm.”
“If you know there’s a river,” I said, “why not just bypass the wells and take water from it?” It would be the simpler solution.
“Even if you had enough water for the trip and to sustain you while you dig, the hole fills in every time the wind blows. We’re afraid if we dig the wrong way, the channel will cave in and cut off the water.” He sounded so sure of himself, like he’d gone over it again and again in his mind. And maybe he had, but that still didn’t mean he was right about everything.
“Just because you’ve seen this river doesn’t mean my father controls it.”
“We have sources throughout Achra,” he said. “They’ve heard your father and Rodric whispering, wondering how little water the people could survive on, how long until they revealed our location.”
“Of course my father and Rodric wonder about those things. That doesn’t prove they control anything.” My father and I always used to talk about our people, the water levels, the caravans—everything I needed to know to be queen. But that was before Rodric showed up.
“My source told me they’d overheard Rodric say he was going to drop the water levels after one of our raids. We know those controls exist.”
I scoffed. If I didn’t know about these supposed water controls, I didn’t see why Rodric would.
Except that he and my father were as thick as thieves.
I shook the thought away. It still didn’t make sense. The lagoon didn’t have any water controls, and I couldn’t think of anywhere else in the palace that would either.
I gave Cion credit for wanting to help the people, but more than likely, this water control idea was something dreamed up by Rodric as a way to tempt the Desert Boys to try another attack on the palace—and this source was probably in on it too.
“Who told you these things?” I questioned.
“Not even Rodric could torture that out of me.”
I rolled my eyes. He was impossible to get information from. Could it be one of the guards? A cook? There were hundreds of possibilities.
“My friend will find where your father controls the wells. Then we’ll go in and change the levels in our favor.”
I sighed. I still didn’t believe those controls existed. This was Cion, the snake of the desert. He’d say—and apparently believe—anything to get more water. And there was clearly nothing I could do to convince him those controls didn’t exist. But as long as he believed in the water system, I had an advantage.
“Would you train me if I agreed to never restrict the water levels again?” I eyed him.
“Now it’s my turn to ask why I should believe you,” Cion stated.
“I could’ve killed you out there and didn’t.” I dangled the shackle as a reminder.
“Maybe you wanted to learn the way into our hideout.”
“I’m not stupid enough to come here by myself and think I could take all of you on.” Well, I had considered that plan, but he didn’t need to know. “I told you before. The only person I want to take down is Rodric, and I’d imagine the only person you hate more than me is the person capturing you, torturing you, and throwing your kind into the arena—Rodric. We have a common enemy. That’s your reason to trust me.”
“I still don’t trust you any more than I trust Rodric.”
I balled my hands into fists. Couldn’t he see that we both wanted the same thing?
“Rodric will kill you and your boys one by one.”
“And you won’t?” he retorted.
“I’ve fought against you for so long because I thought you were a plague draining the life from the people. My people. But I see now that you had your own reasons for stealing water.” Assuming he was telling the truth, he believed he was doing what he could to help others. But his raids continually forced my father to drop the water rations. Not to mention he was the leader of a group that had killed my mother. But we still had the same goal. “Train me, and we can both help the people. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Before Cion could reply, a low moan echoed through the cavern. I turned toward the sound expecting to find Bala or Tania, but instead I saw Hardesh.
I froze, my mouth going slack.
He had bandages wrapped around his face where I’d bashed his nose.
“We found him in the desert,” Cion said, following my gaze. “He’d been bitten by a yellow-spotted sand snake. We got to him just in time.”
I couldn’t force myself to move to Hardesh’s side. I doubted he’d want to see me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away either. He hunched in the corner with his arms wrapped around his drawn-in knees. There was a brokenness to his demeanor, so unlike the man I’d faced in the arena. It was as though all the bones had been removed from his body, and he’d collapsed in on himself. Even his hair looked grayer than I remembered. Could he truly have suffered so much in a matter of hours?
I’d never really thought about what happened to my suitors after I’d beaten them. I knew they were exiled, and somewhere deep down I knew the desert would kill them. Finally having to face it made it real. And I could see what made me a monster in the eyes of the Desert Boys.
“Did you save all of my opponents?”
Cion didn’t answer, and I didn’t have to look back to know he was shaking his head.
I couldn’t bear to look at Hardesh any longer. I ground my toes into the sand.
“How can you claim you’re going to help the people when you do this?” He waved his hand in Hardesh’s direction.
I stared down. “I did what I had to, to prove the desert knew I was its next leader.”
“You did what your father and Rodric would do.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“Didn’t you?”
Something in Cion’s tone forced me to look at him.
“Couldn’t you have refused to fight? Couldn’t you have stopped Rodric from killing and torturing nearly every Desert Boy he could find?”
I swallowed down the words asking why the Desert Boys had killed my mother and brother—because I was doing this for her, and arguing about the past would get us nowhere. “If you want Rodric dead, I’m your best chance. I’m here offering you a deal, a way to change things. I doubt Rodric will ever make you such an offer.”
“There is a reason wise men say you should stay in the same desert your whole life. Because you know its dangers. You know what to expect. I don’t know what to expect from you. How do I know I’m not placing someone worse than Rodric on the throne?”
I took a deep breath. I needed to give him something more—something real—if I ever wanted him to believe what I said. I told him the only thing I could. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I made a promise to my mother before she died that I’d protect her people. It’s why I came here to look for a way to fight a man I know I can’t beat.”
We stood face to face, only a foot apart. As we studied each other, I wanted him to look into my eyes and see the sincerity there.
He looked at me for a few more moments. Then he reached down and scooped up a handful of sand. He weighed it in his palm. “Have you heard of a desert’s promise?”
I shook my head.
He held my gaze. “It’s said if anyone breaks a desert’s promise, the desert will know, and it will suffocate the life out of them any way it can.”
I watched the steady trail of sand escaping back toward the ground.
I bent over and picked up my own fistful.
“I’ll train you to beat Rodric in exchange for you never restricting the wells’ water levels again,” he said. “But you first have to pass the Desert Boys’ initiation test to prove you’re capable of becoming one of us, of thinking and acting as we would.”
He held out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
I didn’t like the sound of this initiation test, but I didn’t feel I had much of a choice. Besides, if all the other boys had passed, there was no reason I couldn’t.
I shoved my fistful of sand into his. “Deal.”
The sand trickled out between our fingers as I tried not to think about the knot forming in my stomach.
He smirked and pulled his hand away, letting the remaining sand fall to the ground. “Good. Follow me.”