A sigh of relief I hadn’t realized I’d been holding slid out of me and I gave her a one-armed squeeze, then tucked her back into the saddlebag. “Good.” I paused as I closed the flap and tied it down so she wouldn’t fall out. “That wasn’t one of your memories, was it? About the sedative?”
Maks shook his head. “One of the other’s.”
In a fight to keep him with me, I’d managed to purge the souls of the other Jinn that resided in his body, but they’d left much of their knowledge with him. Thousands of years of history. In theory, all that information would help us. But Maks seemed to be unable to just access it. Something had to trigger the info before it would come to the front of his brain.
Then again, it had only been two days, so maybe that would change.
“You think Ishtar knows we’re coming?” Bryce rode up beside us, his golden eyes glowing in the light of the moon and stars.
“Yes,” I said. “I think it’s always come down to facing her and seeing whatever this is between us.”
Whatever this is—aka her bond with me as a mentor and surrogate mother. Her choice to keep Bryce immobile in a wheelchair with a spell that she could have removed at any time. Her desire for power overcoming any sense of right and wrong.
The lies.
The betrayals.
And all of it wrapped up in my head and heart with the love I had for her as a child so desperate to be loved, so afraid to be alone, seeing only a woman who’d been the mother I’d needed. Or thought I’d needed. I rubbed a hand over my face, hating the pit that opened in my stomach at the thought of facing Ish. Not because I was scared, but because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger as my father would have said. “She’s weak right now, injured by the Jinn. It’s my best shot.”
“Our best shot,” Maks said, just loud enough to be heard over the hooves of the horses on the hard-packed earth. “You aren’t doing this alone.”
I forced a smile and nodded as Bryce gave me a look that said he wasn’t backing away from this fight either. Of course, he had as much reason as I did to hate her. He despised her more; I was sure of it. She’d kept him crippled for much of his adult life, on purpose. To keep us both on a short leash.
But I couldn’t help feeling that when it came to the final moment, it would be me and Ish facing one another.
A final reckoning of all that lay between us.
A gust of wind snapped up from the south along with a rumble of thunder from above. I looked skyward, expecting to see Trick headed our way. The storm dragon was strong, and funny, and he loved Lila from what I’d seen, but he’d hurt her. I was sure of it. There was no way she’d have come back by herself and gone straight for the țuică otherwise.
But his sinewy body didn’t slide through the clouds. I’d like to give him more than a piece of my mind. I searched the sky, scanning for movement.
Nothing but rain and a few bolts of lightning. I grimaced and pulled the hood of my cloak over my head as the first sheet of rain fell in a deluge. “Lovely.”
The thing about the desert was when the sky truly opened up, the rain did not mess around. We might as well have had buckets dumped on our heads as we rode through the night. Sheet upon sheet of rain, straight down on us with no respite. Twice I checked on Lila to make sure she wasn’t drowning inside the saddlebag, but she was toasty and dry.
The only one of us who remained so.
A quick glance at Bryce made me hunch down further in my cloak. He was like a drowned rat—cat, I suppose—with his blond hair plastered to his head, rain dripping off his chin. Maks wore a cloak like me, and he’d pulled the hood up. But all the oiling in the world wasn’t keeping rain like this out. The only upside was that the barrage wasn’t terribly cold, so we wouldn’t freeze to death.
But we could drown if we weren’t careful.
We slowed, Balder stepping into a knee-deep puddle as we came to a narrow cut in the desert. In a flash of lightning, we could easily see the valley that dipped down between a series of dunes. I shook my head and pointed to the tops of the rolling hills. In no time, that valley below would be full of filthy brown rushing water that would wipe out everything in its path.
The boys didn’t argue. They were desert-born like me and knew the danger of valleys in the desert during a rainstorm like this.
Riding along the tops of the hills, sticking to the high ground, I twisted around to look behind us to see if there was anyone following. To see if we’d left our nice warm camp for nothing.
I paused at the top of one of the hills and turned Balder, waiting on a bolt of lightning to show us what—if anything—was behind us. The minutes ticked by and just before I was going to turn him around once more, the sky lit up with a rapid series of bolts that turned the night into day followed by an ear-crashing boom of thunder right on top of our heads. Balder shivered but didn’t move.
I squinted, fighting to see through the driving rain that made the world look hazy, even with the bright lightning. All of which made me second guess what I’d seen. Because it was just damn weird. The ground didn’t move like that, not even if there had been water rushing over it. Maybe if there were an earthquake, maybe if it were in the valley, I could say it was water rushing, but this wasn’t even moving like water.
No, this was moving like something else. “Bryce, Maks.” I called them back to me, shouting to be heard over the pounding rain and a sudden, sharp wind as it shoved at us, pushing us north.
They came back to my side, flanking me, and I pointed at the lower ground as the sky lit up again.
“What is that?” Bryce yelled. “Water?”
“Maks, what do you think? Anything in the archives?” I grinned at him as I hollered to be heard.
He pulled a face and then slowly shook his head. “It’s some sort of hatch, I think. A massive number of small critters hatching all at once and making a migration of some sort due to the large amounts of rain. That’s the best I’ve got.”
Well, shit, that was better than I thought it was going to be. “You mean like a frog hatch?”
I’d smelled frogs earlier but had dismissed the scent. Frogs were part of this section of the desert.
I squinted through the rain and could now see some of the little hopping critters individually—yup, my deduction of frogs was spot on—as they drew closer. Which meant I could see the red lines on them. I could see exactly what kind of frog hatch we were looking at.
“Fuck, they’re poison!” I spun Balder and urged him into a lope across the dunes, away from the oncoming hatch. Only . . . they weren’t just behind us now. Bryce grabbed my arm and pointed to the east. The ground moved there too.
Maks pointed to the west. And there too.
The scene unfolded in a weird sort of clarity. With something as simple as a frog, we were going to be forced to use the valley below, the one I’d already deemed deadly.
Ollianna had put us in checkmate.
We had to move our asses if we were going to have a chance of getting ahead of them.
“Come on, we don’t have a lot of time.” I urged Balder down the slope toward the flat and currently dry riverbed. It wouldn’t be long before that was no longer the case. But maybe we could outrun the horde if we used the flat ground.
Of course, if we’d had Trick and Lila with us, in their full size, we’d be safe.
Which was exactly the point of removing the two dragons from our group. Son of a motherfucking bitch.
Check-fucking-mate indeed, Ollianna. I wanted to tip my hat to her. Smart, that witch was damn smart.
Maks and Bryce followed, tight on our heels as Balder slid all the way down the steep descent. The wet ground made for an easy slide, and the water coursing down the edges of what would be the riverbank picked up speed even as we rode it down.
As soon as we hit the bottom, I put my heels to Balder’s sides, and he shot forward. Batman with Maks, and Bryce and his new horse, stayed close to me. Batman could keep up with us now, but I di
dn’t think Bryce’s horse could. I shouted over my shoulder. “Our best bet is to try and get ahead of them and pray to any gods who might listen that we can do it before the water slams into us.”
Bryce looked behind us and I pointed ahead.
“If only we were that lucky that it would come from behind,” I yelled. “We’re riding upstream. We’ll find the water far quicker than we want to at this speed.”
Which meant we just had to go as fast as we could and put the distance between us and the frogs. I leaned forward over Balder’s neck, letting him set the pace. Not his top speed, because few horses could keep up with that, but close.
I kept my eyes peeled to the edges of the dry riverbed for any sign of the poisonous little froggy fuckers that had been set on us. I had no doubt it was Ollianna making her first move on the final chessboard we were playing. Clever move too. We’d been fighting off her sand snakes for enough time that we were getting good at dealing with them. But frogs? They could have overrun us at camp if we’d gone to sleep.
If we’d all been drugged, if we’d all taken a drink, just like Lila. Maks had said we’d have been out till morning, and the horror of it hit me right between the eyes.
“Sweet terrible goddess, you really are a clever bitch, aren’t you?” I muttered to myself, impressed with the move. Which meant I had to be just as clever if we were going to find a way to stop her.
If she could eliminate us, she’d remove a threat and someone who could potentially help her father escape his prison, her father who could take Ollie and the falak down.
Not that I was about to let the Emperor loose. I wasn’t that fucking crazy.
Around each slight bend in the riverbed, I held my breath, listening for the sound of the water rushing toward us that would take us out.
Balder’s ears suddenly flicked first to the left, then to the right. I looked up the side walls of the valley.
I watched with horror as it moved and shivered with the poison frogs as they followed. “Faster!” I yelled. I held Balder back, letting Maks and Bryce ride ahead of me and then I drove their horses. Balder nipped at their rumps and I let out a low growling hiss that would normally send Balder into a flat-out race, but he seemed to understand that it wasn’t for him, not today. We couldn’t leave anyone behind. The two horses in front dug in and picked up just enough speed that we stayed ahead of the deadly hatch.
Barely, and as I looked over my shoulder, the valley floor behind us moved with the hopping poison froggers.
I turned back in the direction we were going. A bright flash of light lit up the sky and the stretch of the dry river ahead of us looked as though it were midday. Which meant it gave us an excellent, heart-stopping view of the wall of dark water rolling down the river. It was no small river, but a wave easily topping fifteen feet and approaching too fast. We had to get out of the valley.
Now.
“Fuck!” Maks yelled, peeling off to the left, and Bryce to the right.
I didn’t have time to think it through. I went to the left, following Maks. “Go, go!” I yelled. We still had to come out at the top ahead of the frogs.
We still had to avoid the wall of death headed straight for us, rumbling and roaring, the sound picking up volume as the water gained speed. The flood would easily burst the banks, and it would be full of all sort of shit and debris. One blow to the head and you’d sink below the dark waves, never to come up for breath.
“GO!” I screamed the word, both for Balder and the other two.
Balder scrambled hard, not straight up the incline but on an angle that still took us forward. There was nothing I could do now but hang on and pray he didn’t slip, that he didn’t take a misstep. That none of the horses slipped.
The rain slashed at my face, colder now and stinging as my hood swept back and we crested the top of the embankment. As far as I could see, the ground heaved and humped with frogs, the lines of red across their backs almost neon in the dark.
To drive fear into us in the moments before we died.
Maks looked at me as he and Batman took off at a flat-out gallop. The thing was his eyes said it all. We couldn’t fight this; the battle against Ollianna had drained us and we had nothing left.
And that bitch of a witch knew it.
We had no choice except to run.
I knew he was right. Because it would only take one little frog to get through and one of us, or the horses, or both would be dead and dying.
Balder didn’t wait on me. He dove into a gallop and we were beside Maks and Batman in just a few strides, riding on their inside next to the river.
I looked up as the wall of water hit the sides of the embankment like a fist hitting flesh and tore it away from under our feet. Balder grunted and scrambled, and I gave him all the rein I could. “Come on, buddy!”
He gave a last heave and we were out, but the wave wiped out a huge section of the edge above the river. And that pushed us farther west, closer to more of the hopping little fuckers that were now croaking loudly, singing a song of death to us that could be heard over the river and the rain.
Faster, we had to go faster. I tried to see where Bryce was across the river, but there was no sign of him.
Magic, this would be a good time for magic. I looked at Maks. “You got any juice left?”
“I don’t know. I can try!” he hollered back.
Fuckity shit damn it, I didn’t know what to do. I was too new to the idea of magic to make anything happen unless I was in total crisis. Which this was, but also, it was frogs. How bad could they be, right? At least that’s what one stupid part of my brain was saying. Frogs. We ate them when there was nothing else at an oasis.
If only the river had swept all the frogs away instead of just those in the valley. They could swim, they could hop, but even they couldn’t escape the power of the deluge.
The lightbulb went on inside my head. “Maks! Can you divert some water? To clear our way?”
He didn’t speak an answer, just lifted his right hand. A blue-black mist curled out from his fingers and with a flick, sent it into the water on our right, pulling it toward us. A thin curl of liquid flowed out along the smoke and followed us along.
With Maks leading the way, he used his new water whip to snap at the frogs around us. They flew up into the air and came down . . . almost on my head.
“SHIT!” I leaned to the left, dodging grasping sticky fingers as they reached for me, a flash of red lines as I pushed Balder out of the way with my heel. “Not in the air!”
“Sorry, getting the hang of this!” Maks yelled back, the fatigue in his voice thick as he flipped the water at the frogs again and again. It drove them back, but there were so many of them.
Time slipped by, and despite Maks’s best efforts, the frogs were getting closer. There still was no sight of Bryce, and for all that I wished Lila would wake up and save us, she remained sound asleep and oblivious.
I closed my eyes, thinking that if I could just get rid of the frogs, we’d be good. That’s all we needed.
“I’m running low!” Maks hollered. “We’re going to have to . . .” he trailed off as he looked at me, understanding flowing between us. Because there was no going to have to anything. The river wouldn’t save us. It tumbled and roared along beside us, as certain as a death as the frogs were. Even if we managed to get across, there were still a billion little assholes waiting for us on the other side, and being swept downstream wouldn’t help us either, there were frogs in the river back there too.
I held four of Ishtar’s stones. Each of them would draw on my energy like nothing else, which meant I had one shot.
Blue would freeze them, but I might miss some of them.
White with black lines would allow us to jump away if I got it right, but that would leave Bryce out there on his own.
Amber was a desert stone, meant to amplify power in a Jinn.
Red . . . red was a stone meant for nothing but destruction, nothing but death.
Red f
or the win, then.
I fumbled for the pouch on my side, fingers numb from the wet and gripping slippery reins. “I’m going to try something!”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but hurry up!” Maks yelled.
My fingers closed around the red stone, the blood-red rock that the Wyvern had given me. Meant for only one thing: it was one of the three that Ishtar didn’t know about, and I was terrified to use it. But when death was coming at you, there was no time to be scared anymore.
I pulled it from my pouch and gripped it so hard, the edges of the rough-cut gem bit into my hand. Destruction was all this could do, and I needed its power to save us.
Seeing as I wanted to destroy a hatch of frogs, it was going to have to do the trick.
I breathed out a shaky breath and with it reached for my magic that that was so new to me. Connecting with my magic was like opening a door inside my head and letting it in. Or out, depending which way you think the door swung.
“Hurry!” Maks yelled, panic lacing his voice.
“Not helping!” I yelled back and the magic flared in me, circled around the stone and seemed to drive into it.
I just wanted the frogs around us gone. Dead. They needed to be dead.
How?
I gasped. That was not my thought, that was not my voice inside my head. But I answered it, knowing there was not a single damn second to waste. “Stop their hearts!”
A flare of red shot through me and my head snapped back, my fingers flexed, and I almost dropped the stone. Almost.
Heat prickled along my spine, and I could see it behind my closed eyes. Rays of red light slashing outward, a million, million, million miniscule red lines driving out and into all the frogs.
The world circled around me and I slumped in the saddle as the power fled back to the stone. It took the last of my efforts to shove it back into my pouch where I held the few stones we’d gathered.
“Did it work?” I managed to get the words out as Maks rode back to me. “Are the frogs stopped?”
Emperor’s Throne: Desert Cursed Series, Book 6 Page 3