Bound by Blood and Sand (20 page)

After the sun peaked and began its evening descent, Tal sat up. Elan followed slowly, disoriented, and took a long drink from his water skin. Now his chest not only ached; it
itched.

They folded the tent messily, not able to get the packs back into the neat order they'd been in before. It was good enough, though. After a quick meal of bread and dried meat, tasteless even compared to what he'd been eating at Aredann, they started walking again. Tal was the one who took the lead, urging them on even though the sun wasn't down yet, and Jae didn't argue with him about it.

The sun was directly in front of them on the horizon, lighting the desert with red and orange as if it were on fire. It was uncomfortably warm to walk, and the sky stretched above them, endless and cloudless, an expanse of perfect blue. This far out, there were hardly even any scrub bushes poking up through the sand, just dune after dune, patterned by the wind.

If every step the previous evening had ached, then this was agony for the first hour. Finally, as the sun dropped out of sight at last, Elan found the rhythm of it. Maybe walking so much more stretched the soreness from his limbs, or maybe they went numb, but as long as he put one foot in front of the other without hesitating, he didn't stumble.

The moon was nearly as bright as the sun had been, silver instead of gold, but thankfully without the heat. It wasn't quite full yet, but it was bright enough to see by easily. The group took a single long break for something like lunch, a midnight meal instead of midday.

They ate quietly, the night silent and still around them, until Jae said, “Tell me everything you know about magic.”

Elan almost choked, shocked by both the sudden sound and being given an order like that. Not that it was anything like he imagined the Curse to be; there was nothing that would force him to answer Jae. Most likely, she hadn't even meant it like that, and just wasn't used to asking for anything at all. But it still took him a second to remember that and to beat down the feeling that she had no right to demand anything of him.

He must have needed more time to do that than he thought, because Tal said, “It's probably a good idea, Elan.”

“I know. I just…” He couldn't explain why it had taken him by surprise. He thoughtlessly reached up to scratch the sore skin around his burn, winced, and then said, “Of course. I just don't know how much you already know.”

“Not enough,” Jae said.

“Then I'll start at the beginning, but I don't know all that much, either. I wish I'd brought some of my papers….” There had been no time to retrieve them. He hoped someone would think to take them when Aredann was packed and abandoned. Erra had borrowed most of them from someone. She'd want them back, and he didn't want all that knowledge to be lost with Aredann if Jae failed to save it.

Tal and Jae were both waiting expectantly, so he tried to remember what he'd been able to glean from the few pages that hadn't been in that strange, other language. “The world and everything in it is built from the four elements—earth, wind, fire, and water—and each element has its own kind of energy. Mages can sense that energy and manipulate it, use it to craft almost anything they can imagine.”

Jae nodded.

“ ‘Craft' might not be the right word,” Elan continued, mulling it over as he spoke. “They built the estate houses by each reservoir, they built the Well, but they can also
do
things. Like cause earthquakes.”

“Or grow flowers,” Jae said.

“Right. I don't really understand much about how it works. Those books said mages have their own way of seeing things.”

“Other-vision,” Jae said.

He didn't know where the phrase had come from, but it was as good as any. “Yes. But I don't have much more information than that—and there aren't any more mages to ask,” Elan said.

“I'd love to know why that is,” Tal said.

Elan gave him a confused look, and then realized: it was a question without
asking
a question. “I don't know,” Elan confessed, hating that he couldn't even answer that. For all the research he'd done, all the ancient parchments he'd searched through, he felt as if he'd barely learned anything. Not even why no one in generations had been able to see or use magic except the Highest, and they weren't really mages. They'd just inherited the ability to command the Well.

Or so Elan had always believed. But that was a lie, too, which meant there had been no new magic in the world in generations—which made it even stranger that Jae had become a mage out of nowhere.

“There are no mages to do new magic, but old magic can still work, if it has a binding,” Elan finally continued. Then he explained, “The mages would bind the magic to a physical object, something that would last for generations. That's the only way a spell can last beyond the initial casting, or beyond the life of the mage. I do know that when the Well was created, the last step was a binding so that it would last forever.”

Jae said thoughtfully, “But the reservoirs are going dry.”

Elan nodded, heart heavy. His father had sounded so sure when he'd said it was because there were too many people and not enough water to go around. And that made sense—except that the Well was magic. It had never failed before, no matter the size of the population, no matter how bad the drought. Looking back now, Elan could see that when he and the other Highest had effectively signed the death warrants for hundreds of Closest, it had been because it was the only thing they could do. Just walk away from the dry reservoirs and hope for the best. Because they didn't control the Well, and it shouldn't be running dry.

Jae had the thought just as he did. “If the Well is drying up, then…that might mean that something is weakening the binding, or that the binding is gone.”

“Makes sense. But no one knows what the Well was bound to. If we did, we could figure out what's happening to it.” Since he didn't have anything else to say about bindings, Elan changed subjects slightly. “The lore also said that most mages have an affinity for a particular element, or maybe two. It seemed as if it was very rare that they could use more than that. But some mages, the most powerful, thought there were other kinds of energies, too. That people have their own kind of energy, separate from the elements.”

Jae's brow furrowed, and Tal said to her, “You can use earth, clearly. I'd love to know if there are others.”

“I think…,” Jae started, then trailed off for a few seconds. “Yes, earth, strongest. And water, too. I had to work harder to pull water out of the plants, but I think it would get easier with practice.”

Elan started to ask her about the others, but stopped himself before it came out.

His restraint was rewarded a moment later when she added, “I've
sensed
the air, but it doesn't feel right to me. And I don't think I can feel fire at all. I never have, anyway.”

“Maybe you can try it sometime,” Tal said.

“Maybe.” She went quiet, staring up at the sky, then shook her head and pushed herself up to stand. “We should start moving again.”

Tal nodded, stood, and gave Elan a hand up. Elan shook his head. Letting Tal haul him up would hurt his burn. Instead he stood slowly, carefully, and sighed. He was exhausted and achy, his chest itchy and sore from the burn, and the rest of his muscles were just tired from overuse. But the Well was still at least a few days away, and their water wouldn't last forever, so they couldn't dawdle.

As they started walking, Jae said softly, “Thank you. For telling me about the magic.”

Elan glanced at her, surprised, and nodded. “Of course.”

That was all. Walking didn't leave a lot of energy to chat, and once Elan fell back into the rhythm of it, his whole mind seemed to turn off, and only looking up at the moon in the sky made it feel like they had moved at all.

They walked until dawn, and couldn't find a boulder to shelter under this time. They pitched the tent at the bottom of a dune, ate quickly, and crawled inside just as the temperature started climbing again.

This time, despite the heat of the day, Elan fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

The third night of walking was nearly as bad. Their water was warm, barely even soothing, and Elan's water skin had developed a sour taste. They stopped to drink more often, sweating off as much as they took in.

Elan found himself trying to imagine the Well they were walking toward. It would be like Danardae's reservoir, only much larger: an enormous, glittering oasis, surrounded by bushes and trees that lived off its water. They'd be able to eat and drink their fill, to bathe, to
relax.

They just needed to find it.

“You're sure we're heading toward it?” he asked, breaking one of their long, tired silences.

“I'm sure,” Jae said, shooting him a glare.

“How far—I mean—” He cleared his throat. “I'd like to know how far it is.”

Tal made an amused noise, and Jae said, “I don't know. The barrier, though. We're close to that.”

He frowned. She hadn't elaborated on what the barrier was, and didn't seem inclined to. So they just trudged onward, the sand dyed silver by the moon.

Shortly before sunup, Jae stopped walking so sharply that Elan almost crashed into her. Before the question finished forming on Elan's tongue, Tal screamed, impossibly loudly in the expanse of desert around them. He whirled toward Jae, grabbing for her, but missed and fell to his knees, hands clutching his head.

“Tal!” she shouted. “Tell me what's happening!”

Elan grabbed for Tal's arms, but Tal was moving now, scrambling back the way they'd come. He collapsed after a few feet, panting, and managed, “It's here. We can't— Jae, the Curse, you must be able to feel it.” He stared at the horizon in terror. “It won't let me— I can't go any farther. I
can't.
”

Elan held out his water skin. Tal took it, his hands shaking.

“Drink,” Jae said, though Tal already was. “And breathe. Then tell me more, if you can.”

Tal took a few gulps, then handed the skin back to Elan. His voice was still shaking as he said, “It was…One moment, I was fine, and the next, the Curse hit me. I couldn't move forward at all. It wouldn't let me. It's here. You must be able to feel it.”

Elan shook his head. He'd been disavowed, but not cursed.

“The barrier,” Jae said. She peered at the desert in front of them, frowning, her eyes going vacant again. “It's…enormous. It does feel like the Curse, but not…not quite….Something is happening. It's in the air, but it's the land, too.”

Elan had no idea what that meant, but peered in the direction she and Tal were staring. He didn't see any kind of barrier, just more sand in front of them, sky above.

Sky and…Oh.

He grabbed Jae's arm, and her eyes snapped back into focus. He pointed at what he'd seen: a dark spot in the sky, small but getting larger—closer. Coming out of nowhere, impossibly fast; deep brown, almost purple.

“A cloud,” Tal said.

Elan shook his head and reached to haul Tal up. “No, no, we have to go. We have to find shelter. It's a storm.”

“Rain…,” Jae started, but they were all realizing that wasn't it.

“No.” Elan pushed Tal to start him moving, yanking on the camel's lead, panic so thick that he could taste it, and he admitted what they all knew and feared most: “A sandstorm.”

Jae stared at the cloud in horror. It was dark against the horizon, growing larger as the wind howled in the distance. It hit them only moments later—innocent, small gusts that would grow stronger until they were large enough to knock her down. Sand was already pelting them, and the wind would bring more with it, dumping enough to bury all of them.

Jae had only ever seen one sandstorm before, and that had raged far out in the desert, only its edge reaching as far as Aredann. Even so, it had destroyed their fields. Lord Savann, Lady Shirrad's father, had been searching for the Well, and had died out in the desert.

Something tingled in the back of Jae's mind. Lord Savann searching for the Well, and a sandstorm—

“Run!” Elan screamed, pulling her out of her fear-induced daze. He grabbed her hand as Tal scrambled for the rope attached to the camel. Tal grasped her other hand, and they ran, clinging to each other, back the way they'd come. Everything else fell away as they ran, even the ache in her limbs. But it was useless; they had nowhere safe to go. There was no shelter around anywhere, nothing to protect them once the wind really hit.

Within a few minutes, it was on them. Jae clutched both of the hands in hers, stumbling as she ran, her limbs too tangled up with Tal's and Elan's, desperately trying to keep the group together. With no shelter, all they had was each other, and it would only take a heartbeat to lose even that.

The wind howled and shrieked around them, invisible hands trying to break them apart, battering their bodies. It shoved them forward and then sideways, pummeling them with so much sand that it felt more like rocks or bricks.

Jae faltered and barely caught herself, yanking at Tal's arm to get her footing back. As long as they kept moving, they couldn't get buried, but the moment they stopped—

Elan stumbled, tripped, his hand wrenching away from Jae's. She yanked Tal's arm, trying to stop him, but the camel broke away on Tal's other side. He dropped her hand to reach for the camel, and she fell, knocked off balance when Tal let go. She pushed up, trying to find her footing, but the wind smashed her back down, crushing the breath out of her lungs. Wind whipped the veil from her face, and she screamed, then coughed, inhaling sand. Eyes shut against it, she flung her arms up, trying to get the sand off her face and out of her mouth, but there was no way she could even stand up, let alone run.

Elan yelled something from nearby, but the wind was too loud for her to make it out. She turned toward him, groping in the air to try to find him, but it was useless. The wind itself was a blur of orange, as much sand as air, and she couldn't make out anything else. Not even the rising sun.

After that, all she knew was the ache in her lungs and the crushing wind and sand, pressing her down, and worse, starting to build up over her limbs. She thrashed, trying to pull herself free, and heard Elan shout again. He sounded farther away, but she made out a word this time—“magic”—and everything fell into place, clarity driving away the panic.

Lord Savann had been caught in a sandstorm when he'd searched for the Well, and this storm had hit only minutes after Tal's fit at the barrier. Both storms had been caused by magic, the
same
magic. Jae finally managed to get up to her knees, hands still blocking her face, and took the deepest breath she could manage. Then she fell into other-vision, and instead of the orange wind around her, she saw the pulsating glow of energy being twisted into magic.

If magic had created the storm, then magic could end it. Jae tried to shut out the wind's shrieking and instead concentrate only on other-vision. The storm around them was bright, active, but not the heart of the magic. That was closer to where Tal had fallen. Jae cast her mind out, trying to find it, and spotted a blinding line across the desert. It stretched farther than she could see in either direction, curving slowly. A long line, maybe wrapping all the way around the Well. But
how
?

She threw all her energy at it, and it stung, the buzzing prickles growing sharp and angry as she grabbed for them, tried to find a way to tear the streak in half. There were no weak points to attack. Giving up on that method, she sank deeper into its magic.

She plunged into it, but it felt—
different.
Something at its core was the same, almost identical to the earthquakes she'd caused, but infused with something strange that tingled like a limb left in one position too long. The two were tied together, the solid, familiar glow of land and the prickly energy of—

Air.

Elan had said that for magic to last, it had to be bound to a physical object. Someone had stitched the two elements together to create a sandstorm, binding them both somewhere so they would protect the Well for generations. Instinctively she searched for the binding object; that was the key to the storm.

The earth's energy was familiar, but it glowed with a feeling of foreignness; maybe this was her element, but it was not her magic, or magic crafted by the Wellspring mages. But she could still examine it. When she looked at its binding, the barrier wasn't one unbroken streak; it was a series of nodes, magic stretched between them. The nodes weren't only magic; they were physical. Rocks, enormous boulders, mostly buried under centuries' worth of sand, linked to enough magical energy to pull the very air down, give it direction.
They
were the binding. Without them…

Jae coughed again and tried to pull her robe up over her face without falling out of other-vision. It was caked with sand, but she managed to pull a few clumps off. Just enough so that she could press the cloth to her mouth and nose.

When she could finally breathe again, she cast out for any spare energy she could feel, and pulled it toward her. It wasn't much—most of the energy she could sense was part of the barrier—but she could gather a little. It wasn't very strong, hardly enough for the kind of destruction she'd caused at Aredann, so she focused on only the nearest of the boulders.

When she tried to shatter it, it struck back, the magic infused in it protecting itself—but she could hit near it. She shook the ground, and a decade's worth of sand shifted, falling away, enough of it moving to make the boulder roll. The bright streak of the barrier dimmed, so she pushed harder. The streak didn't snap, but it frayed like twine. She moved to the next boulder, and instead of pushing, she pulled, drawing the land closer to her, yanking the boulder onto its side. Better still, it hit a natural slope and started rolling. She tugged and tugged while the streak frayed further, until the distance between the two giant stones was enough that the streak snapped and went dark.

The air crackled with energy as the magic lost focus, its binding broken, and the wind suddenly gushed in all directions at once. It hammered Jae until she fell flat onto her stomach, swallowing another mouthful of sand, bleeding where the wind and sand tore her skin open.

Jae ignored the pain and reached for the newly freed energy. Gathering the air's magical forces didn't come as easily as earth's. The energy prickled, jangling her until she had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from rattling. But once she was immersed in it, she could feel its natural flow, and she sent it careening back to the way it flowed naturally, only diverting a tiny bit. That, she wrapped around the three of them, circling and catching the sand until they were in the middle of a whorl, sand and wind like a wall around them, but dawn in the sky above.

Panting hard, she looked up and found Elan half buried, trying to pull himself free. Tal had fared a little better—he was crawling toward them. The camel was nowhere to be seen. She pointed at Elan, didn't even have the energy to speak, but Tal understood and moved toward him instead.

While Tal struggled to dig Elan out, Jae reached for the water skin on her belt, swallowed everything that was in it, and then began her own slow crawl toward Elan. She didn't have the energy to help, though. Instead she just lay on the hot sand, head swimming as she kept the protective wind whipping around them, and waited for the larger sandstorm to die down.

She must have fallen asleep, because she woke to find Tal curled against her side, Elan sprawled less than an arm's length away. The wind still circled them sluggishly, but the sky was bright overhead. The storm had passed. She released her grip on the wind, and fell back to sleep, exhaustion claiming her.

She woke again, this time, if not refreshed, then at least no longer too exhausted to keep her eyes open. The night sky was dark now, and their campsite—if it could be called that—was even darker. Looking around, Jae almost laughed as she realized why. Her winds had been effective, and while they'd been safe from the storm, sand had piled up around them, high enough to block out the sun earlier and the moon now. The three of them were at the bottom of a cone made of sand, steep slopes all around them.

Tal and Elan were both nearby, their gear strewn around. Elan had his knees folded up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them. Tal was kneeling by their gear, stacking it, lips pressed shut in a grim line.

“Good morning,” Jae murmured.

They both looked up. “I was starting to worry about you,” Tal said. “We tried to wake you, but you barely stirred.”

“Using that much magic is exhausting,” Jae said.

“What—” Elan stopped. “I'd like to know what that was.”

“A barrier,” Jae said. “I think it must have been crafted during the War—and definitely by the Highest mages, because the magic felt just like the Curse. It must have been meant to keep the Closest away from the Well.”

Elan nodded slowly. “If the Highest couldn't control the Well, then…they must have hoped that barrier would keep the Closest from controlling it, too. Maybe the Highest even hoped that it would force the Closest to give up control.”

“But they didn't,” Jae said. “They decided they'd rather die, and…I had a vision. They
did
die. Taesann somehow took all their magic and pushed it into the fountain to hide it, and he knew Aredann would kill him once he was defenseless.” She shuddered. She remembered that as if she'd
felt
it, as if Taesann's memory was her own. Now she was the only one who remembered what had really happened, that he was not the traitor the Highest claimed he was.

“So if the Highest built a barrier to keep Closest out…” Tal tapped his fingers against his water skin as he thought it through. “Then I ran into it, and that's what started the storm. And when Lord Savann was caught out in the desert…”

“He must have had a Closest in his party,” Jae agreed.

“But now the barrier is gone,” Elan said, an almost-question as his voice quirked up. He cleared his throat.

“Yes,” Jae agreed. “And thankfully, we're still alive.”

“For the moment,” Elan said.

Jae frowned. He was still slumped over, defeated, and when Jae looked at Tal, he wouldn't meet her gaze. Something else had happened while she'd been unconscious. “Please tell me what's going on.”

“Our supplies,” Tal explained. “The camel's gone—I lost it during the storm, which means we've lost the water and the tent and everything else. All we have left is what we were carrying. And that won't last long, no more than a day. So unless we're very close to the Well…”

Jae held up a finger, motioning for him to be quiet, and sank back into other-vision. Now that the barrier was gone, the desert's energy had returned to normal, the magic floating around them with no snarls. She soared, searching, until she found a bright speck on the horizon. Followed it, and—

The Well was enormous, glistening with energy and life, but it was dwarfed by something behind it. When Jae looked, she saw…mountains. They were like nothing she'd ever seen before: enormous peaks that blotted out the sky, infused with strange, dark magic. Something more powerful than she could imagine had created them, something powerful and
twisted.
They were wrong in a way she hadn't ever felt before, something not even the Curse's cruelty could compare to.