Rider's Resolve (The Rider's Revenge Trilogy Book 3)

by Alessandra Clarke

  Chapter 63

  They flew through the night and found a rundown barn to sleep in as the moon set. Badru wanted them to travel during the day as well, but K’lrsa refused. She wasn’t willing to expose Vedhe to any more of the Daliphana than she had to, not with the way her eyes constantly danced with flame.

  Plus, she didn’t want to face Aran on what little sleep she could find during the Trickster’s time. This was going to be hard enough as is. No need to add exhausted and confused to their list of challenges.

  Badru tried to tempt her with finding M’lara, but K’lrsa refused to consider it. Her little sister was probably lost somewhere, hopefully safe, but she couldn’t let herself hope that they’d find her in Toreem. Because if they didn’t find her there, K’lrsa would be devastated, and she needed to have all of her focus if she hoped to stand against Aran.

  As they settled down to sleep—Badru snuggled up against her back, his arm thrown around her waist—K’lrsa had to ask about the speech he’d made. “Badru…You told those men you were going to Toreem to defeat the Daliph.”

  “Mmhm.” He nuzzled her neck, but she swatted him away. This was not the time or place for that.

  “You…You talked to them like you were their leader.”

  He rolled away, sighing.

  “What?” She turned to look at him.

  “Did you listen to my words, K’lrsa? Did you actually listen to them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should know that I never claimed to be their leader.” His brilliant blue eyes pierced her like a knife.

  “But you said you were going to defeat Aran.”

  “And I am. We are.”

  “And…”

  “That’s all I said, K’lrsa. I could’ve told them I was their rightful Daliph. That they should follow my orders because when I defeated Aran I was going to be their ruler. I didn’t.” He held her gaze. “Because I won’t be. I know how you feel about the Daliphana. And I know how I feel about you.”

  He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I want to be with you, K’lrsa. I love you. More than the Daliphate, more than my life. Haven’t I already proven that to you?”

  She bit her lip. “Yes, but…I don’t know. I figured…If you had the chance.”

  “I don’t want that life back, K’lrsa. I want you.”

  “You’re really okay living in a tent, never having a home, and eating bad food for the rest of your life?”

  He laughed. “The food’s not that bad. Wild-caught hare is actually quite good. And who knows what will happen when this is over. Maybe we’ll settle down in the tribes. Or maybe…” He quirked one eyebrow at her. “Maybe we’ll travel across the desert and see if we can’t start a trading empire on behalf of the tribes. I do speak five languages, you know.”

  “You do?” It was all she could think to say, her heart was bursting with such happiness. He wanted to be with her, no matter the cost.

  “I do. Now let’s get some sleep. We have to defeat Aran before we can do anything else.”

  She stretched out alongside him, resting her head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart, smiling.

  As his breathing slowed and steadied, she closed her eyes, savoring the moment. No matter what happened when they confronted Aran, she’d found a man she loved and who loved her—something she’d thought was impossible.

  Maybe someday, when this was all over, she really could live that vision the Lady Moon had shown her. The one of the little dark-haired girl—hers and Badru’s—dancing and laughing happily as F’lia played the flute and Badru sat by her side.

  She closed her eyes and dreamed about a wonderful, bright future with Badru by her side.

  Chapter 64

  As they flew through the night, K’lrsa studied what she could of the Daliphate—the rolling hills; the fields of grains and fruit trees; the baru grazing in their pens, ready for the slaughter; the small homes and towns scattered across the countryside.

  A land of abundance built through hard work over hundreds of years.

  And she was supposed to destroy it.

  Father Sun had said it was up to her what that meant, but she knew that to truly destroy the Toreem Daliphate she’d have to destroy it all. Every last paving stone, every home, every orchard, every fence and farm.

  It made her sad. To take something so amazing and seemingly impossible to create and to raze it to the ground.

  True, it had all been built on the backs of slave labor. But she couldn’t deny the value of it. She couldn’t bring herself to contemplate erasing everything just because evil was at the heart of its construction.

  Maybe…

  Maybe destroying the Toreem Daliphate could mean destroying its culture instead. Tearing down the blackness at its core. The slavery. The way women were treated.

  Badru had tried. A bit. He’d said slaves could be freed if their owners so chose. But it hadn’t worked. She’d heard those men say that as long as anyone else kept slaves that they’d have to as well, to be able to compete and survive.

  To end slavery, it would have to be eliminated entirely. All of it. Immediately.

  And then what? Take from those at the top to give to the slaves? Split each farm into pieces so small that none could survive? Give a little patch of dirt to each worker where they could starve in freedom?

  Or let the owners keep what they had but share the wealth amongst the workers? Pay them for their efforts. But at what rate? And how? How to enforce that? How to make it fair so that what came after wasn’t equally as horrid?

  And what about those who wanted to go home, back to the families they’d left behind? How could she make that happen?

  It was overwhelming.

  And, if she was honest with herself, not a task she cared to take on.

  Easier to burn everything to the ground.

  To wipe the entire nation from the earth with fire. To purge everything and everyone. To burn away the old so something new could grow in its place, enriched by the ashes of what had come before.

  She smiled, imagining the leaping flames as they consumed everything in their path, burning ever hotter, ever higher…

  White-hot. So bright you couldn’t even look at them.

  She imagined that man who’d beat his daughter, with flames licking his skin as he screamed, and smiled. A fitting end for one such as him.

  K’lrsa shook herself and shoved the horrible thoughts out of her mind.

  What was she thinking? She wasn’t like that.

  K’lrsa whipped her head around to stare at Vedhe who was flying Kriger to her left. She had the sun orb out and was holding it high, its malevolent red light shining on her face, twisting her scars into a mask of death.

  “Vedhe! Put that away. Now.”

  Vedhe glared at her, eyes red with fire.

  “I can feel it, Vedhe. It just had me imagining what it would be like to burn a man to death. Put. It. Away.”

  Reluctantly, Vedhe tucked the sun orb back into its pouch at her waist.

  It helped, but K’lrsa could still feel the orb pulsing with evil, calling out to be used, to burn the world to the ground. Flames, soaring high, everywhere the eye looked…

  “We need to land.” She nudged Fallion towards the ground.

  Badru, who was flying on her other side, hadn’t been affected. He called after her. “K’lrsa, wait. We can’t land yet. The moon is weaker each night. We need to fly for as long as we can.”

  He was right. The moon was already half her normal self and with each night she grew thinner, meaning the horses had less time they could fly. But…

  Something had to be done about the sun orb. Immediately. Even if she had to fight Vedhe to make it happen. That thing was too dangerous to be unguarded for another moment.

  “No. We land now.” She nudged Fallion to land in a large field. A herd of baru huddled together at the far end of the space, eyeing them warily but unable to flee like their instincts told them to.

>   Badru and Vedhe landed next to her, but neither one looked happy about it.

  She didn’t care. If that infernal orb was invading her thoughts, who knew what else it could do.

  She slid from Fallion’s back and made her way to Kriger’s side. Vedhe stared down at her, expression closed and distant. At least she didn’t have flames dancing in her eyes.

  “Vedhe. I need you to get down.”

  “No.” Kriger danced sideways as Vedhe glared at her.

  “Vedhe…”

  “I’m not giving it to you. It’s mine.” Her eyes flashed with fire as she reached for the pouch at her belt.

  “Don’t touch it!” K’lrsa grabbed her arm and wrestled her hand away. “Don’t you understand that every time you touch it it worms its way deeper into you? If we had a mirror I’d show you the flames that dance in your eyes when you hold it. And just now, while we were flying, that thing had me thinking how I was going to burn the Toreem Daliphate to the ground and enjoy it.”

  “You would.”

  “Vedhe!”

  Vedhe looked away, her lips pressed tight together.

  Badru came to join them. “Is there anything in your memories about shielding the objects? The staff has started calling to me, too, even through all those blankets.”

  K’lrsa nodded. She could feel it also, but not as strongly as the sun orb.

  Vedhe answered. “There’s a metal that shields them.”

  “Good. We’ll stop in a town tomorrow and have containers made.”

  “No. We don’t have time. It takes at least a week to make and isn’t something anyone will just have lying around.”

  K’lrsa studied Vedhe for a long moment. Was she telling the truth? Or did she just want to keep the sun orb close and unshielded? “Is there another way to dampen the effect of the objects?”

  Vedhe twitched her hand towards the sun orb and then away again with a grimace. “Distance.”

  “Okay. We can do that. Badru can carry the sun orb tomorrow and you can carry the staff…”

  “No! The orb is mine.” She grasped the pouch and her eyes flared red. A small patch of grass at K’lrsa’s feet started to smolder, wisps of smoke drifting into the air.

  K’lrsa stomped on it. “Control yourself.”

  Badru looked towards Midnight and Fallion. “What if we put the staff and the orb on one of the horses and then ride the other two? The horse carrying the objects can fly far enough away from us to dampen the effects. That would work, right? And Vedhe, you wouldn’t have to worry that one of us was going to steal the orb. What do you think?”

  Vedhe nodded, but she didn’t look happy. “That might work. But no one else touches the sun orb. I put it on the horse’s saddle every night and remove it every morning.”

  “Done,” K’lrsa said. At least this way she wouldn’t have to touch either of the vile things.

  “Okay,” Badru said. “Which horse should we use to carry the objects?”

  Vedhe nodded towards Midnight. “One of yours. And you two fly together.”

  She was still twitchy, so K’lrsa just nodded. “Fine. We’ll have Fallion fly with the objects and I’ll ride with Badru on Midnight.”

  “Works for me.” Badru winked at her and she smiled back.

  It was only for a little bit, but she liked the idea of getting that much more time to spend with him, especially when they didn’t know what might happen once they reached Toreem.

  Chapter 65

  With the objects farther away, K’lrsa found her mind was much more clear than it had been in days.

  But all that did was lead her to obsess about M’lara. They hadn’t seen any sign of her the whole trip. She couldn’t possibly know where she was going—unless, of course, the gods had directed her to Toreem—in which case they were going to answer to K’lrsa when this was all over for putting a young girl at risk.

  They’d probably claim that she’d wanted to go, like K’lrsa had when she set off to avenge her father.

  Didn’t they see that she was still a child?

  She didn’t know what she was getting herself into. She couldn’t make those kinds of decisions. And using the necklace could kill her.

  And what if it fell into Aran’s hands? What if he captured her sister?

  K’lrsa shuddered to think about it.

  She also worried what they’d find when they reached Toreem. Would Aran be there, waiting for them? Or would they have to somehow sneak their way into the palace to find him?

  And what power would he have to balance theirs? Would they be able to control the power they had long enough to defeat him? What good would the moon power be?

  Could Vedhe wield the sun orb even once without losing control? The more time passed, the stronger its hold on her, and the more concerned K’lrsa became.

  Twice K’lrsa had had to stomp out the beginnings of a fire while Vedhe slept with the sun orb cradled to her chest. She and Badru had started taking shifts sleeping just so someone could be awake to watch for signs of fire.

  If Vedhe couldn’t control it now, how was she going to control it when she allowed its full power to flow through her?

  They reached the plains outside of Toreem in the middle of the night, but there was nowhere to land without being seen. The city was built for defense, with a large open plain in front, a tall mountain behind, and a large wall that surrounded the city to protect it from any attackers foolish enough to approach.

  “What do we do now?” K’lrsa asked as they flew towards the palace that stretched the entire length of the city, dominating the skyline. It was at least six stories high and, although not visible at night, decorated in bright colors—greens, reds, blues, yellows, oranges, black, white—interwoven to form mesmerizing patterns on every surface. A stark contrast to the drab brown buildings that clustered the mountainside below it.

  “We find Aran and end this.” Badru’s sat stiff-backed, his jaw clenched as he stared towards the palace that had once been his.

  But where were they were supposed to land? They were invisible as long as they were flying, but they couldn’t fly forever, and the roofs of the palace and the surrounding buildings were too steeply sloped for the horses.

  Seeing Badru’s intensity, she stayed silent. Even though he’d said he was done with the Daliphana, it had to be hard to come back here and be reminded of how he’d been forced to flee when his own men turned on him.

  Badru had Midnight fly over the city and farther up the mountainside past the palace to a small courtyard nestled amongst tall trees and next to a long-abandoned stone building, its thatched roof sagging and rotted in places.

  As soon as they landed, K’lrsa found herself drawn to the building. She left the others behind, unpacking the horses.

  There was a doorway on the side facing the courtyard. Carved into the stone above it was the moon in all of her phases. It was clear from the bits of paint that still clung to the stone, that at one point the images had been painted in bright colors sometime long ago.

  She walked around the side of the building and found a second doorway with a second carving. This one had a mazelike pattern that reminded her of the Trickster. She studied the pattern for a long moment, trying to see if there was a way out of the maze, but each path she followed dead-ended or twisted back on itself.

  The third side also had a doorway and a carving, this one of a giant sun.

  She continued around to the fourth and final side of the building. Whatever had been carved above that doorway had long since been hacked to pieces, chipped away until there was nothing left but the scars of its destruction.

  M’lara slept in the shadow of the doorway, a blanket draped over her shoulders, her thumb in her mouth, whimpering softly in her sleep. A small pack of provisions sat next to her—looking better stocked than what they’d brought.

  The necklace was wrapped tight in her fist, twined around her fingers so that it couldn’t be removed without waking her.

  K’lrsa tried not
to cry as waves of relief and fear rushed through her.

  M’lara looked exhausted. There were dark circles under her eyes, her skin was dull, her hair limp. And she slept the sleep of a child—heedless to all around her.

  K’lrsa fought the wave of pure rage that threatened to overwhelm her. How dare the gods send her sister here? She had no part in what was to come. She was too young for this.

  Before the others could call out and wake M’lara, K’lrsa returned to them. ”I say we find Aran and end this now.”

  Badru frowned at her. “Don’t you want to rest a bit, maybe? Wait until morning? Or…”

  “No. We go now. Every moment we spend here is a moment we risk discovery.”

  He frowned, knowing she was keeping something from him, but he didn’t argue.

  Vedhe had, of course, already reclaimed the sun orb and was eager to begin, flames dancing in her eyes.

  Badru carefully unwrapped the staff and held it in his bare hands for the first time, trembling slightly with the power of it.

  He met her eyes and she could see his fear, but it didn’t show in his words as he said, “Okay. Follow me. Watch your step. The path is steep.”

  Chapter 66

  They made their way down a narrow, rocky path towards the rear of the palace. The whole time, K’lrsa expected to hear the shouts of soldiers and their running feet as they came to confront the intruders in their midst. But it never happened.

  They reached the palace without incident and crouched against a wall next to a small door to regroup.

  “Why aren’t there any soldiers?” K’lrsa looked around, still tensed for an ambush.

  “No one has ever attacked from this direction. The mountain on the other side is so steep it’s impassable. And there’s a garrison of soldiers at the base to shoot down anyone who tries. The only way to reach the temple is through the palace.”

  “It’s a temple to my gods.”

  He nodded. “They were once worshipped here before the unnamed gods became more powerful.”