They'd stopped in the middle of nowhere, the distant mountains not even visible through the dusty haze that coated everything.
K'lrsa's sleep had been full of nightmares where her father chased her, screaming and wailing that she'd betrayed her vow to him, that she'd abandoned her people and forsaken her duty as a Rider. She'd tried to explain to him, but there was no reasoning with the wraith that pursued her. In the end she'd just fled, running and running until she finally awoke, cold and scared in the darkest part of the night.
From the looks of it, she wasn't the only one who'd had a haunted night.
Lodie slapped her arm, bringing her back to the present. "Saddle up. You might as well ride him."
K'lrsa glanced at Fallion, so beautiful and golden, even in the dull gray light of dawn. She shook her head. "No. I shouldn't. I…I don't want to hurt him."
"Too late for that." She never had told Lodie the truth, but the woman seemed to know anyway.
"I don't want to hurt him more. And…I'm going to lose him. It's too painful to ride him knowing that he's going to be taken away from me."
Not only did she love Fallion with her whole heart, but he'd been given to her by her father. She hated the thought of some stranger riding him. Or worse, not riding him, but just parading him around like some show pony.
Lodie glared at her, hands on hips. "Listen, child. I won't tell you what to do. But if it were me and I had a horse as fine as that one and only a few days left to spend with him, you wouldn't be able to get me out of his saddle, even to sleep. I'd store up every memory I could of how it feels to be free while I still was."
"I'm not free." K'lrsa glanced around the camp at the sullen men taking down tents and rousing the slaves.
Lodie snorted. "No? Child, you have no idea how free you are, even now. Just wait."
K'lrsa stroked Fallion's back and he turned to nuzzle at her ear, blowing her hair back from her face.
Her hair was dull and greasy after so many days of riding and no chance to use a comb or take a sweat bath. She knew she smelled rank, too, but she didn't really care. The way some of the men looked at her, she wished she was even more filthy and smelly, although she suspected there was no amount of dirt and grime that would deter them.
She shuddered. At least they left her alone.
She'd seen some of the men grabbing at the bandaged girl, pawing at her flesh as she passed by. Yesterday, Reginald had taken the girl up on his horse for the last little portion of the day. At first, K'lrsa had thought it was kind of him—until she'd seen the way his hands disappeared underneath the girl's clothes and the blank look on the girl's face as she stared ahead trying to ignore what he was doing to her.
They'd started taking her into the tent at night, too, chaining her next to the other slave girl and using her for their entertainment. Harley hadn't said a word when G'van dragged her to the tent the night before. He'd just looked past the tent and met K'lrsa's eyes for a long moment before turning back to his men and issuing some order or another.
It was all K'lrsa's fault. The girl would still be protected if K'lrsa hadn't taken her place.
K'lrsa spent the long days imaging what she'd do to repay the men for each little cruelty they inflicted on the slaves—each slap, each kick.
She could take any of them, given the chance. She was a trained warrior who knew a hundred and five different ways to kill a man.
Poke his eyes out.
Smash his nose into his skull.
Knife his kidneys.
But she couldn't act.
She couldn't risk failing at her true mission.
So she saved her anger for the Daliph, imagining all the ways she would kill him when they were finally face to face. He was the reason these men were trading slaves. He was the source of the corruption slowly poisoning her people.
All she had to do was look at G'van to know what the Daliphate had done to her people. He was the first in line to visit the tent each night, so drunk his words slurred, the scent of smokeweed clinging to his skin.
Her father had been right. The Black Horse Tribe no longer deserved to be part of the tribes. They had to be cut away like gangrenous flesh before their sickness spread and killed all of the tribes.
She was almost done saddling Fallion when she heard G'van's voice. "What do you think you're doing?"
He stared down at her from the back of his black stallion. The sun shining on his face made him even more beautiful than normal, but all she saw was the hideous man who'd betrayed everything his people stood for.
She ignored him as she finished cinching Fallion's saddle.
G'van grabbed her injured arm, his fingers digging into her flesh as he pulled her towards him. "Don't ignore me."
She didn't even think, she just acted, twisting out of his grip and grabbing the front of his shirt to pull him out of the saddle. She yanked downward and he fell in a pile at her feet, crying out in pain.
She planted her foot on his neck, wanting to stomp down and crush his windpipe, but holding back. "Don't touch me. Ever."
Before G'van could react, Harley rode up and backhanded her, sending K'lrsa flying into the dirt.
She held a hand to her cheek as she stumbled to her feet. "What was that for?"
"What was that for? You're a slave, Princess. You are my property. And my property does not attack one of my men. Ever. For any reason."
She backed away as he rode his horse closer to her, his face distorted in anger.
"I'm sorry." She held her hands in front of her, to keep him back. "I didn't think. He grabbed me and I just…reacted."
Fallion started towards them, but K'lrsa called out to him. "Azah, Fallion. It's fine."
Harley rode so close K'lrsa could see the individual hairs in his horse's coat and smell the earthy stench of him. She flinched, waiting for him to hit her again, but he turned aside. "G'van. What were you doing over here?"
G'van glared past Harley at K'lrsa, his hands clenched into fists. "She was saddling up her horse. I came to investigate."
"She's none of your business. I told you I don't want you anywhere near her. Now go."
G'van gave her one last menacing glare before he painfully mounted his horse and rode off towards the slaves, moving so fast that men had to jump out of his way.
Harley turned his attention back to her. "Why were you saddling the horse?"
"He's healed. Lodie said I could ride him."
As she answered, Barkley rode up to join Harley, but he remained silent as Harley said, "Princesses don't ride horses."
"Desert princesses do." She stood her ground, looking up at him, but she was trembling inside, waiting for another blow.
Harley laughed. "You told me there's no such thing as a princess in the desert. And now you're telling me that there are and they ride horses?"
"You said I'm a desert princess. Well, I ride horses." She had to force herself not to take a step back as he glared down at her.
Barkley nudged his horse over to Fallion's side. "You know, Harley. She may have a point. Let her ride the Amalanee horse in the Daliphate and word will spread like wildfire. Not like anyone would believe a woman of the desert rides in one of those palanquins anyway."
Harley thought about it for a moment, looking back and forth between K'lrsa and Fallion. Finally, he looked at Lodie. "What do you think, old woman?"
Lodie shrugged. "Barkley's right. No woman of the tribes would ride in something like that."
K'lrsa could hear the unspoken words in Lodie's response—that Harley was a fool for trying to pass K'lrsa off as some desert princess—but Harley obviously didn't.
"Fine. She can ride."
K'lrsa reached for Fallion's reins.
"But, Barkley, you take the reins. We don't want to risk losing our prize when we're so close to selling her off."
Chapter 26
"How close are we to Crossroads?" K'lrsa asked Barkley as they rode side-by-side behind Harley and G'van. The two men weren't laughin
g and joking today—they hadn't spoken a word to one another since breaking camp.
"Should be there tomorrow." Barkley pointed off in the distance. "Look, the first signs of civilization."
K'lrsa stared at the object he pointed to. It squatted in the distance, square and taller than anything she'd ever seen before. It clearly wasn't part of nature with its straight lines and bright white coloring.
She squinted, trying to figure out what it was made of. "What is that?"
Barkley laughed. "A barn. It's used to protect animals or food."
"It's so big. How do they move it?"
Barkley stared at her, one eyebrow quirked in surprise. "They don't."
"But don't the people move with the seasons? How do they feed themselves if they don't migrate with the animals?"
He shook his head. "Oh, Princess. You have a lot to learn."
He spent the rest of the day explaining to her concepts like farming and raising animals for meat as he pointed out the various buildings they passed and explained their purpose. At first it was just one or two barns in the distance, then an isolated farmhouse and a barn, and then clusters of buildings grouped together where people lived side-by-side, permanently.
She'd never seen so much wood in one place. To think that trees could grow so tall they were used to build entire buildings. And that people lived in those buildings all the time; they never moved, never traveled with the seasons. They just lived in one single place.
Forever.
She forgot everything else as she listened to Barkley and studied the fields and buildings they passed. It seemed the traders who visited their tribe hadn't just been telling stories to entertain an impressionable young girl.
"Does this mean there really are bodies of water so large that a man can travel across them for days?" she asked at one point.
Barkley nodded. "Yes. Oceans. I've never traveled on one myself, but I've seen one in the north, on the other side of the Great Desert."
K'lrsa felt a small thrill as she imagined how big and varied the world really must be. She'd never known, never realized that people could lead lives so different from her own.
When they made camp that night, she immediately went to find the bandaged girl. The girl still hadn't spoken in all the days K'lrsa had been in camp, but K'lrsa was determined to get her to speak. She wanted to know about the northern lands. To hear about oceans and frozen water—Barkley had tried to describe for her how water actually froze and fell from the sky, but she just couldn't believe him.
Unfortunately, G'van reached the girl before K'lrsa could. She watched, helpless, as he dragged the girl towards the main tent where a few of the men were already waiting.
But she didn't have to be helpless, did she?
She ran forward, blocking G'van's way. "Let her go, G'van. You have the other girl. Leave this one alone."
"Get out of my way." He pushed her aside. "The other girl's dead."
"What? How?"
He shrugged as he kept walking, dragging the bandaged girl behind him. "Not everyone survives the desert."
K'lrsa ran back to Lodie's camp. "What happened to the slave girl? The one in the tent?"
Lodie spat to the side, the red bitter root juice dribbling down her chin. "She didn't make it."
"What do you mean?"
Lodie stared at her for a long moment, an almost sad expression on her face. "You didn't even notice, did you?"
"Notice what?"
"When we struck camp this morning, she was too weak to keep up. She tried, but after the third time she fell, she didn't get back up."
K'lrsa felt a chill down her spine. She hadn't noticed, too intent on Fallion and G'van. "No one helped her?"
Lodie shrugged. "The bandaged one tried to, but they wouldn't let her. I tried, too, but Harley said to leave her."
"So she's just back there somewhere, dying?" She clenched her fists, looking back the way they'd come, picturing the young girl lying on the ground, alone.
"Dead by now." Lodie spat again. "It's for the best. Tomorrow we'll reach Crossroads and the men can just go to a brothel or find a willing woman in a tavern. Harley was probably going to kill her off in the morning anyway."
"How can you say that? As if it's nothing?" K'lrsa shifted, moving away from Lodie as if the woman had a disease.
Lodie laughed. "Says the girl who didn't even notice what had happened."
K'lrsa didn't know how to respond, but Lodie continued anyway. "It isn't nothing. What they did to that girl is horrible and I did what I could to help her. But the world is far worse than that. What I've seen…" Lodie shook her head. "At least they let the girl die."
Lodie stared at K'lrsa, her eyes full of such sorrow and loss that it felt like she were reaching into K'lrsa's chest and squeezing her heart in a clenched fist. "Trust me, child. She's better off now."
K'lrsa reached out to touch Lodie's knee. "What happened to you, Lodie? You were a Rider once weren't you? What changed you?"
Lodie's eyes flashed with anger and she pulled away from K'lrsa's touch. "You should go home."
"What?" K'lrsa sat back, surprised.
"Leave. Now. Before it's too late."
"But I don't want to go home."
Lodie shook her head. "Go home, child, before the world breaks you. The land of the Daliphate isn't the land of the tribes. Go home before you find out just how different they are."
Before K'lrsa could say anything else, Lodie grabbed her medical bag and left.
K'lrsa watched her weave her way through the men's tents, tall and proud as she walked by them on her way to tend to the slaves. None even bothered to look at Lodie, but a few cast glances in K'lrsa's direction. She turned away, ignoring them.
Maybe Lodie was right. She didn't know enough about the Daliphate to succeed.
From what Barkley had said today, it was larger than anything she could imagine. He'd described cities with so many people and houses that you couldn't even count them. Cities where you could walk for an entire day and never reach the other side.
She'd thought the Daliphate was like the tribes—small clusters of families traveling together—and that all she'd need to do was find Toreem, demand an audience with the Daliph, and kill him before he had a chance to react.
But she was finally starting to understand how vastly different the Daliphate was from the tribes. Could she possibly succeed? Or was she just the impulsive, reckless girl her mother had always said she was?
Maybe she should go home now. Her mother and sister probably needed her. And F'lia.
With K'lrsa's father gone, who would speak out against the Black Horse Tribe at the annual gathering? Who would tell everyone about slaves left to die on the desert sands?
Someone had to stop them before they dragged her people into poverty and degradation. She should go back to where she could actually accomplish something.
But she wasn't the type to walk away just because something was hard.
Look at the baru she'd killed. How many days had she followed that herd? How many times had she chased them, choking on their dust as they left her far behind and fled into the desert? How many times had she shot at a baru only to see it leap away in the last instant?
But she'd succeeded in the end. She'd kept trying and she'd finally accomplished her goal.
Because she hadn't quit.
She hadn't turned aside when everyone said it was impossible.
She'd kept going.
And she knew that no matter how hard this was, she could do it.
She could.
She just had to have faith in herself.
Chapter 27
They reached Crossroads at the end of the next day. The land was still mostly flat, but it had been steadily rising for a while when they suddenly came to the top of a rise and saw the town sprawled below. The distant mountains that had always shadowed the far horizon were now distinct, rising up one by one in the distance behind the town.
K'lrsa reined Fallion
to a stop, her mouth hanging open in surprise. So many buildings. And people everywhere. She counted at least thirty separate structures, aligned on either side of two roads that met to form an x. The roads between the buildings teemed with people—more than she'd ever seen anywhere outside of the annual tribal gathering.
Trading caravans like their own were camped in a rough circle around the buildings, forming a large barricade of people and animals. The steady hum of so many people in one place reached them even at this distance.
Barkley stopped beside her and she turned to him, eyes wide. "It's so big."
He laughed. "Crossroads? It's nothing. Just a place where slaves are sold and men can spend the coin on wine and women. Hardly more than its name implies, really. You should see Boradol."
She trailed along behind him to a large barren area on the outskirts of the town. The men quickly made camp, eager to be off to drink some alcohol and eat a real meal. Harley had made it clear to K'lrsa that she wasn't to go with them. Not that she'd wanted to.
The thought of so many strangers in one place made her skin crawl. Every time she thought she understood the challenges she faced, she realized how wrong she really was.
After watching most of the men race away towards town, she sat down in front of Lodie's fire. Lodie mended a pile of the men's clothing as she waited for dinner to finish cooking.
K'lrsa's stomach growled at the smell of the earthy grains and pungent greens even though she was tired of eating the same thing night after night. There hadn't been good hunting for the last few days with all the people and farms everywhere and the caravan was almost out of supplies other than the millet grains Lodie used for every single meal.
After a long silence, Lodie said, "You can't heal the pain with hurt. I've tried."
K'lrsa shook off the annoying comment. "What do you mean?"
Lodie set aside her sewing and stirred the pot of food. "I don't know what brought you here, child. But I know someone you love had to be hurt. It's the only thing that would drive a Rider to be as stupid as this."
K'lrsa glared at the fire, clenching her jaw tight as Lodie continued, "You forget, child. I was once like you. And I can tell you that, even if you succeed, the pain of your loss won't end. It won't go away. You will always carry that hollow place around inside you no matter how many people you punish. The hurt you give won't heal the pain you've received."
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