The King Trials 2: Beyond.

I thought I had seen it all when I beheld the Silverwood.

But it is nothing compared to the Night Desert.

An endless ocean of black sand. An expanse of rolling hills, dunes upon dunes of black, as far as the eye can see. Strangely enough, it is remarkably beautiful. Instead of glittering, golden sands. It’s an iridescent black. As if the night sky was grated over this great plain, filling it with black star dust.

The young, noontide sun beams down on the grainy seas, shimmering shingles of black.

We continue our journey, Anthia and her brother in the lead, Duce Merian and Kelan behind them, followed by the Herems and I with the Avangard squadron tight at our flanks and rear. To get through the Night Desert, let alone to get passed it. It will take us days.

We voyage through in a suffocating silence. Each breath an effort.

Despite the uncanny appeal of our environment. The Night Desert is like satan’s solarium. The heat is inconceivably unbearable. Everything bone-dry, desiccated from the heat just like my insides, my throat withering, every empty swallow scratches at the back like grinding stones. My tongue is cloven to the roof of my mouth.

It’s like there’s a dry, leathery in-sole wagging away at the back of my throat. My throat itself has the slow-strangling sensation that a python is trying to squeeze the life from me. Even my eyes feel like they’re gradually melting into the back of my head, making everything seem mirage-like.

A million sun-spears stab my skin.

Every sun-scoured scrap of fauna has barbs, hooks or thorns, all burnt to a blackened crisp to befit the dark theme. A screaming hawk flies overhead. Like us, it is being blasted and blazed by the sun. A nebula of wavy radiation surrounds us.

Hours lag by, each more gruelling than the last. Every black grain of sand scorched by the cantankerous heat, the temperature is arid and staggering. Making everything feel humid and stuffy, like I’m trapped in a minuscule box despite the infinite open space that rolls beyond continuously.

My chest heaves, bellowing for air. I cover my mouth to muffle my coughs, but that only seems to intensify them.

Nature’s laws have been overthrown in the Night Desert. It’s an orgy of wanton violence between its denizens, all of whom have been disfigured and crippled by their attempts to live here. Seared by the sun, singed by the brutal climate.

There is one main smell in the desert. It’s as virulent as the heat itself, cloying and sticky. The only dominate one is the smell of sweat and my own burning flesh.

One hand on the reins. I slant my torso to the left to dig in my saddlebag, then I fish out my warm, hoary canteen. Desperately, I turn open the lid and tip my head back to drain the water in one gulp, leaving only half. I need to save it. I need to conserve as many ounces as I can for who knows how long we will be condemned to trudge through this inferno of fire and brimstone.

I slip the canteen back into the bag and I place my hand on my chest. The leather collar of my corsage tightens round my neck. I bark a series of suppressed coughs that wrack my frame, both hoarse and drawn-out.

“Hera Aurora,” Dario utters with every morsel of loathing he can attain. “If you are going to proceed to sound like you’re dying. Please do so silently.”

My face encumbered with sweltering heat. “My apologies,” I say over my shoulder, matched with equal disdain. “I did not mean for my suffering to bother you.”

“The… only one who’s a burden is Dario,” Solaris’s expresses painfully, like each word strains him. His eyes droopy and lips cracked, dead skin peeling. “I would say it was the heat that caused his wits to burn. But unfortunately, they were not there to begin with.”

Vince echoes his accord with a heartfelt laugh.

We trail through a valley of a thousand black sand hills. On the sandy horizon, figures emerge, the bestial shapes take form into a thundering herd of beasts. Instinctively, I reach a hand behind my shoulder to grip an arrow, lifting it a few inches from the quiver.

Aries swivels around and makes hand signals to direct our entire convoy to edge towards the one side and give way to the travelling herd. I slide the arrow back inside and comply. The herd glacially stomps by, their statures tall, too many heads above even to those of us who are mounted on stallions.

The three-horned face beasts, all cream-coloured, all of which have a short, pointed tail, a bulky body, column-like legs with hoof-like claws and a spiked neck frill rimmed with bumps. They have a ringerd-like beak, many cheek teeth and powerful jaws.

Despite their intimidating prowess, they must be herbivores. No creature with that size and formidability would peacefully pass us by if they were not.

In the clear. With the herd far receding in our rear view. The heft in my chest eases. Slightly.

“I am perishing from thirst,” Brennon declares from all the way at the back. “Oh, the kidney-skewering pain of dehydration.”

All is silent. No-one makes an offer.

I turn my head to look at my shoulder. “I have some water left in my canteen.”

Brennon immediately frees a sickened sound like I offered him poison. “And drink your contaminated water thus infecting myself with whatever ails you.”

Treyton blares a groan. “A simple thank you would suffice. But if I were you, Hera. I would not waste a drop of water on the prissrat. If we are fortunate, he dies of dehydration first.”

The other Herems rumble a chorus of chuckles.

“When I emerge victorious from the death-defying acts of these tests and I prove myself worthy,” Brennon says with a flair of buoyancy. “I will ascend the throne and my first deed as High King would be to send you to the gallows, Herem Treyton.”

Treyton snorts, unruffled. “If you do become King, I would happily volunteer.”

Silence returns, with nothing to distract from the heat. All five senses choked, rendered useless. A colourless haze of heat blurs out the background and my vision, myopic. My mind draws in on itself like a bowstring and if I had to describe the haze; it’s a wobbly, shimmering mirror of a blistering death. The sun itself roasting us alive on a hotbed of sand.

Though everything looks the same with no topographical distinction to distinguish the difference of where we came from and where we are now. But at the end of the valley, we hike up a gentle gradient before we reach a relatively even plateau.

“I cannot do this,” Markiveus says as if it is an admission of guilt. “I demand we stop for a recess. I am exhausted, parched, and my legs ache from straddling this horse.”

“Imagine the horse,” Solaris says with a sharp peak in his tone. “He’s the one that has to carry your miserable weight through this dreary desert.”

“He is a she.”

“I hate to agree, but the horses could use a rest,” Treyton advocates. “Ourselves included, I do not think we’ll manage to get far if we are all struck unconscious by a sunstroke.”

“Silence,” Duce Merian snaps, whipping his head over his shoulder. “I will not hear a word of another, possible, delay. We are days off schedule already, you all can rest when we reach Velheim. Correct, Primus Kelan?”

Kelan stiffly turns to glimpse him before he does an extended turn to glance over the Herems, his shoulders twisting. His dark eyes finally meet with mine, and with a mere skim of my face, he makes his decision.

Mutely, he jabs a fist beside his head. All the soldiers at our rear and flanks halt to a standstill, I jerk on the reins to bring my horse to an abrupt halt.

“We can spare a few moments.”

Promptly, all the Herems dismount and I follow suit. Treyton and Solaris dramatically collapse to the ground. The guards reel in, forming a protective circle around us, posting themselves at an equidistance with their backs faced towards us.

A red-faced Duce stubbornly remains on his horse.

Kelan dismounts. His eyes transfixed on mine; he runs a hand down his horse’s nose before he marches over to me. Drawn by a magnetic pull, I walk forward to meet him halfway.

His face engraved in a stern complex, the thick column of his neck glistens from perspiration. He lifts a hand and cups it on my cheek. I refrain from closing my eyes, from savouring his touch. He visually examines me for a succinct moment without saying a word. Finally, his thumb grazes my cheekbone, a current of energy follows the trail.

He retracts his hand, robbing me of solace.

“Reinsbure.”

Reinsbure disconnects himself from the defensive ring to join Kelan’s side. “Primus,” he says with reverence resounding in his voice.

“Carry the Hera’s bow and quiver. You will be taking her horse.”

His inky eyes look back down at me and nods encouragingly. Hesitantly, I unhook my bow, then I unstrap my quiver from me, and I carefully hand it to Reinsbure. He takes it with dual bafflement.

“Primus. If I take her horse, will you make her journey on foot?” he asks with a bubbling protest in his throat.

“No. She will be riding horseback with me.”

My brows nearly reach my hairline.

With difficulty, I swallow my surprise.

Kelan nods me over and turns to casually move towards his horse. Reinsure and I share a look before I decide to conform and make my way to him. When we are by his horse, a stallion with an ebony coat, a midnight black that befits his rider.

Kelan helps me up to sit astride and then he follows, settling himself behind me, his stalwart form pressing against me. His one hand reaches for the reins, the other wraps around my stomach, his arm a belt of strength securing me to him. A fresh upsurge of intense heat sinks into my muscles, radiating throughout my body.

After a brief intermission, Reinsbure barks a move-out order and the Herems mount up and Reinsure takes my horse. Anthia shoots a look behind her to review the convoy before she and her brother resume the lead, pioneering ahead. Leading us through the basin of vast emptiness.

“Aurora.” A flutter stirs in my stomach. “What ails you?”

I hastily clear my throat. “Nothing, I’m alright.”

“Do not lie to me. Though you may not see me, I am always observing you.” His cavernous voice bellow his words to reverberate through my bones. “Your deteriorating health is a cause of concern. Symptoms I saw after Pensuem. At first, I thought it was from the anguish you suffered in the Blood Games. But it is not, your condition has only worsened since we left Umtera.”

I breathe deeply and I release, allowing myself to lean against him. I tilt my head aside to rest it on his plated shoulder. “Long before that,” I confess. “It begun in Cistern.”

He falls silent for a moment. Then another apprehensive moment drifts by. “Why did you not appraise me?”

I mentally shrug. “I thought it was nothing. It was months ago, and it begun so mildly, I barely felt it and when it did. There were long intervals between the pain. A twinge in my chest, fluctuating body temperatures. But as time passed, the intervals shortened, and the affliction worsened.”

My mind reflects on the night terror of Rimnick, and how it manifested into my reality. More than once. Unrelated. But the effects are somehow symbiotic, one that I cannot explain what is happening to me and why.

“I do not know what is happening. But every day I feel myself steadily weaken, inch by inch.”

Kelan’s grip tautens around me. “When we reach Velheim, surely a mythological civilisation such as theirs will have capable healers. I will have them examine you. And if they cannot, I will take you back to Urium myself, to go see King Urus’s shaman.”

I free a short, dry laugh. “If that shaman was not able to heal the High King’s son, our late Dophan. How do you expect them to heal whatever I have?”

“The Dophan’s condition was far more severe than yours.”

“I am certain it did not begin that way,” I retort.

A heavy breath blasts from his nostrils. Though he says nothing, his disquiet is tangible.