Queen of Stars and Shadows (Dark Fae Guardian #3)

Sarielle

Chapter Twenty-One

Sarielle

W e reach the water maybe two hours later. It stretches as far as I can see in either direction and laps up onto the shoreline in small waves. The tang of salt in the air confirms what we suspected and feared: it’s an ocean, and therefore undrinkable.

There are no signs of boats, or docks. There have been no signs of life anywhere.

I’m so incredibly thirsty.

I walk toward the waves, wanting to at least feel something cool against my skin. Something to cut the heat. I don’t know how it can be so hot here with that strange, dark sun in the sky. Probably just some devilry the demon cooked up to torture me. The realization that I’d been refusing to acknowledge can’t be ignored any longer.

We have no way out of this place. And with no food or water, we’re going to be dead within days.

Is it really going to end like this?

The demon might as well have killed us when she had the chance. I suppose she needed to make a bargain to escape, but if she was going to cheat, why not kill us the moment we stepped outside of her forest? It was likely all part of her twisted game. That’s what demons do, after all.

There’s no wind along the water and the air is still, holding the heat against us. When my toes touch the water, it’s refreshingly cool. I’d half expected it to be boiling. I walk along the edge of the waves, then crouch down to splash some on my face and neck.

“Don’t try to drink that,” Zyren calls from a few paces behind me.

“Of course not,” I groan. “I know you don’t remember me, but I’m actually somewhat sensible.”

A small smile teases the edges of his lips, and my heart twists strangely in my chest. We have a fragile truce between us, but he’d said he still doesn’t trust me. I can’t get over how heartbreaking it is that after he finally admitted he loved me, he doesn’t even remember me. I’d had just those few precious hours knowing that the man I loved also loved me in return, and then it had all been ripped away.

I turn back to the water and busy myself rinsing off. Several of my own salty tears join the ocean. When I’m as refreshed as I’m going to be, I straighten back up and turn around.

The moment I lock gazes with Zyren, I know something is terribly, horribly wrong.

He yells and lunges for me, eyes wide with panic. A moment later he collides with me, tackling me into the waves as I see out of my peripheral vision a giant shadow filling the sky behind me. Something whooshes past us, into the spot I’d been standing a moment before.

I make out flashes of the thing as we scramble backward, Zyren grabbing me under the arms and hauling me up onto the sand. It’s some kind of nightmare, a scaled beast the color of a bruise. It looks like a giant fish, its eyes huge and milky-white, a gaping mouth full of jagged teeth. Teeth which are now swinging our way, snapping hungrily.

We make it out of the waves, and Zyren pulls me to my feet. “Run!”

The nightmare lunges for us again, surprisingly nimble for such a massive creature. It’s the size of a small cottage. It shoves up past the waves, and for a moment I think it’s stuck, but then two long, spindly arms detach from the side of its body and swing forward, clawing into the sand to pull itself forward.

We don’t stop running until we reach the top of the nearest dune. The thing below us has given up and is now using its strange arms to push itself back into the water. A shiver runs over me.

“That was close,” I say, my teeth chattering from adrenaline. “Thank you.”

“The shoreline must drop off steeply for that thing to come up on us so fast without being detected.” Zyren shakes his head. “I am not fond of this place.”

“Not my favorite, either.”

We lay back in the sand, catching our breath. I’m even more thirsty now. This place is a land of misery for sure.

“I don’t know what to do next,” I admit. “I thought maybe the ocean would… I don’t know. I just didn’t want to acknowledge that we’re trapped here. It’s not as if the demon would leave a convenient way out. She doesn’t want me to escape.”

“Well, our next priority is to find water,” Zyren says. “If there is any.”

“And how exactly do we do that?”

He points. “We could follow the coastline—from a safe distance—and see if any rivers empty into it. If we followed one upstream, the water should be fresh farther inland.”

“And if there aren’t any?”

“Do you want to go back that way?” He gestures toward the dunes.

I shake my head. “No. I don’t have a better idea.”

We get up and pick a direction at random, heading right along the shoreline. Within no time, it’s unbearably hot again, and I’m so thirsty my throat starts spasming. My lips feel dry, even my eyes feel dry. And my legs feel like they’re weighted, each step a monumental effort.

We’re going to die here if we don’t find water soon.

And it’s quite possible there is no water in this place to be had.

I can find water , says the voice deep inside me.

How? I ask.

I’m a nightmare. I have better senses than you do. Sight, taste, and certainly smell.

And you can smell water here?

She makes a strange purring chirp that is a clear yes.

It occurs to me that I might be going mad, just like Zyren. I am talking to myself, after all. But no… it’s not the same. No one else may understand it, but there really is another part of me, a part I never knew was there until I came back to Valaron. To my home.

Of course, a mad person would probably rationalize it like that, too.

I brush the thought away. If I am going mad, that’s the least of my many worries. You want me to let you out all the way?

The same purr of confirmation.

But will you go back when I tell you to?

Silence is my only answer.

I sigh and shove her deeper down. I can’t risk losing myself forever. I’d come to terms with having nightmare blood, with having this dark power inside me. But I’m not going to let it take me over entirely. If we can’t have a partnership, she’ll have to stay where she is.

Zyren and I don’t speak as we trudge through the sand. We’re both too tired to attempt conversation. We’d walked hours to get to the ocean, and now we’re at, what? Two hours? Three? Certainly we’ve been in this place now the better part of a day. Which means I have only about one more day left. One more day to escape this hellscape, stop Avonia, and reclaim my throne in Selaye.

Tears of despair prick at the corners of my eyes, but they don’t spill over. I have none left to shed.

The air begins to shimmer, whether from heat waves or because I’m becoming delusional, I’m not sure. Zyren isn’t doing much better. He stumbles into me at one point, and we both fall to our knees in the sand. I realize then that I’m not sure I have the strength to get up again.

Or the strength to fight my nightmare when she claws for the surface.

Consciousness blinks in and out. I just know that I’m moving inland, away from the water. Somehow, I must convince Zyren to come with me, because I can feel his shadow at my heels. In my flashes of awareness, I realize I’m crawling on my hands and knees, and I can’t even find it in myself to care. My head throbs, and my throat feels like rusted metal.

I don’t know how much time passes.

And then I sense what my nightmare senses. Somewhere, not far off, I hear a faint sound. The air also feels cooler, just the tiniest bit. We move toward it, and finally, as I collapse on a bank of sand, I look down and see a small valley of rock cutting through the dunes. Somewhere down there is water; I can hear it trickling.

But nightmare or no, my body simply can’t go any farther.

So I lie there, on the edge of the valley, and darkness claims me.