Page 62 of Joy Guardian

“We’ll stop for a break soon,” Kurai assured me over the wind.

I’d had enough water and rest back at the temple, but after hours of walking, exhaustion had been creeping up again.

The clouds of sand in the wind made it as impenetrable as thick smoke. I couldn’t see farther than three steps ahead of me, fully relying on Kurai to lead me in the right direction. He held the navigation crystal in his hand, consulting it from time to time to stay on course.

Suddenly, a sand cloud straight ahead appeared to solidify, shaping into a figure. A tall man emerged from the storm, leading a horse by the reins. I stopped in my tracks, startled by his sudden appearance.

“Good day, stranger,” Kurai greeted in a strained voice, which alarmed me even more. “We mean no harm, let us pass in peace.”

Calmly, he dropped the navigation crystal into the satchel on his side, then slipped the hand inside his garment to the belt with the dagger. Remembering I had a weapon, too, I mimicked his gesture.

The stranger’s face was covered by the top layer of his worn, dusty skirt pinned to his hair and by a wide, ratty scarf wound around his neck. Only his pale-yellow eyes remained visible in a slit between the two cloths. He peered at us, not saying a word and not moving away from our path.

Squeezing my hand in his, Kurai narrowed his eyes at the stranger and took a step to the side to walk past the man.

A gust of wind tore at our clothing. The stranger’s eyes focused on me, I ducked my head, hiding my face. But two of my braids flew out from under my head covering, blown by the wind.

The man lifted a hand. It looked like a signal. But for whom?

Alarm zapped through me. Blood rushed from my limbs. My hands turned cold despite the heat. Another dark shape, largerthan the stranger, appeared behind him, moving fast. It was a man on a horse, taking a course straight at me.

Kurai yanked his dagger out. In one quick movement, he slashed through the neck of the man who stood in front of us. Blood splattered out, splashing the man’s clothes and a cluster of odd yellow flowers he had tucked into two belts crisscrossing his chest.

With my shaky fingers, I pulled out my dagger too, but the horseman was right beside me already. Leaning from the saddle, he grabbed me around my middle. My feet left the ground as he swept me away, then threw me across his saddle. I hit it hard. With the air knocked out of my lungs, I couldn’t even scream.

The horseman spurred his mount, taking me away with the speed of the wind. My arms jerked back, with Kurai’s tendrils still connected to me. He didn’t remove them, keeping this tangible connection between us.

“Kurai!” I screamed.

The wind tore his name out of my mouth and tossed it into the dark abyss filled with black sand.

More shapes appeared in front of us, tall and menacing. At least a dozen horsemen rushed to us out of the growing storm.

The awareness of my fingers still clutching the handle of the dagger filtered to me through the terror.

My abductor glanced back where Kurai was dragged behind us through sand and storm. Yet he wouldn’t retract his tendrils. He wouldn’t free himself. He wouldn’t let me go. Tossed across the saddle, I couldn’t reach all the tendrils to pull them out from myleilathasto free him, either.

The thug who stole me gestured with his arm in Kurai’s direction.

“Spear him!” he yelled to the riders who were heading toward us.

One of them raised a long spear in the air and paused, clearly unable to see anything in the wake of sand rising behind us.Getting closer and closer, he would eventually see his target. He would find Kurai. And he’d kill him.

The dagger trembled in my sweaty hand. I had one chance at it and had to choose my target wisely. But regardless of if I stabbed the horse or the horseman, even if I plunged the dagger into my own heart, nothing would keep Kurai alive now. As long as he remained connected to me, they would find and kill him.

“Sorry,” I whispered for no one to hear.

Tears pricked my eyes, closing my throat.

“Stab or slash,”I’d said to him when accepting the dagger.

And this time, I slashed.

I slashed across all six of his tendrils, severing our connection for the first time in so many days. Their severed ends flared, dissolving into smoky filaments, and disappeared in puffs of black soot over myleilathas.

Kurai’s presence left me, followed by an excruciating sorrow of loss that hollowed my chest. The storm swallowed him, hiding him from harm.

And my mind went blank, swallowed by darkness.

---