wrap around her and yank her down. Her cheek was pressed against Korbyn’s chest. Sand pounded at her back, and the howls shook her bones. One of the horses screamed.
He needed to drive the wind away. But to do that, he had to quit protecting her and let her protect him. Into his ear she shouted, “Forget me! Stop the storm!” She broke away from him.
Eyes shut against the blinding sand, she held her knife ready and listened.
She heard a howl, and she sliced at the sand. She felt the blade hit. She struck again. And again. And again, as the wolves lunged for them.
An eternity later, she felt wind, clear wind, push from behind her, pushing the sand away. Korbyn’s wind intensified, blowing harder and faster. The howls receded.
Slowly, eventually the wind stilled.
Behind her, Korbyn collapsed.
Liyana was coated in sand. Her eyelids were caked with grit, and her eyes burned. She tried to wipe her eyes with her sleeve, but she only smeared more sand onto her face. With shaking hands she tucked the knife back into her sash, and then she collapsed beside Korbyn.
After the sandstorm, no one objected to Liyana’s magic lessons. The wolves had come too close for anyone’s comfort, and everyone knew it was sheer luck that the horses had survived. At every stop, Liyana practiced.
Occasionally Raan joined her, though she lacked the concentration to picture the lake for more than a few minutes. She wasn’t able to pull magic from it at all. Liyana, on the other hand, continued to improve. When at last she caused a desert bush to burst into bloom, all of them, including Pia, cheered. Liyana bowed before she collapsed in the sand.
An hour later she opened her eyes. “Ready for lesson two?” Korbyn asked.
Shaking the sand out of her hair, she sat up. “Your turn. I promised you dance lessons.” She got to her feet and held out her hand toward him.
He shot a look toward Fennik, Pia, and Raan, who were watching from the other side of the fire. “With an audience? How will I continue to impress with my omnipotent divinity once everyone has seen my feet fumble?”
“Think of them as musicians, not an audience,” Liyana said. “And no one is all that impressed anyway. Fennik, I’ll need a steady drumbeat.”
Unable to suppress his grin, Fennik fetched a pot and hit it with the heel of his hand.
“Keep it even. Like a heartbeat.” Liyana hauled Korbyn to his feet. “First step is to feel the music inside as if it’s your heartbeat.
His eyes were fixed on hers. “I feel it.” She wondered if he meant the drums, her heartbeat, or her.
“Good.” She looked away and was able to breathe again. “Step with the beat. Shift your weight. Little movements for now, just your heels, until you have the rhythm.” Her hand on his heart, she shifted from side to side. His hand on her heart, he swayed with her.
Stepping back, she dropped her hand. He did the same.
She swallowed, and her throat felt dry. She told herself this was no different than teaching Jidali to dance. “Raan, can you keep this beat?” Liyana clapped out a staccato rhythm. Raan mimicked it. It was syncopated with Fennik’s drum. “Pia?”
Pia sang a melody as light as air. It danced over the tent and up toward the sky. Liyana felt her feet itch. She wanted to twirl and leap. She hadn’t danced in so long!
“This will be a disaster,” Korbyn warned.
“Listen only to the drum,” she said. “That’s your center, your source, your . . . Think of it as your lake. You’re connected to it. Everything else is simply layers on top of it.”
She smiled. “Not yet you don’t. Run with me.” Grabbing his hand, she pulled him after her. Her feet hit the sand in rhythm with the drum. He fell into step beside her, and she ran with him until the beat faded under the sound of the night wind. Pivoting, she ran back toward the camp. The wind was cool in her face. It caressed her neck and tossed her hair. His footfalls matched hers.
By the fire, Liyana caught Korbyn’s free hand. She swung in a circle with him. “Feel the beat!
Korbyn turned with her, and she felt his eyes on her. She orbited around him, the moon to his sun. As the melody dipped, she twirled closer. She lifted her hands, palms forward. He lifted his, and they pressed their hands together. Palm to palm they danced.
As the song rose above the desert, Liyana felt as if the wind were dancing with them. Sand churned under their feet. She tilted her head backward as Korbyn cradled her back in his hands. He spun her in a circle, and she saw the stars spin above them. He raised her up, and their faces were only inches apart. Slowing, they swayed to the heartbeat-like drum. His eyes were like the night sky, deep and endless and full of stars.
He slowed, still swaying. So did she.
The melody ceased.
She realized that the drums had stopped as well, though she didn’t know when. She and Korbyn were swaying to their own rhythm. Liyana stopped. She couldn’t read his expression, but his eyes were fixed on hers as if nothing else in the world existed. Both of them breathed fast.
Releasing him, she broke away. His hand reached toward her and then fell back. “You’re ready for Bayla,” she said. Her voice sounded thin to her ears.
She didn’t look at any of the others as she ducked into the tent. Curling up in her sleeping roll, she pretended to be asleep when they all came in for the night.
Chapter Eighteen
“We are leaving the desert,” Pia announced.
Liyana pulled on the reins, and Gray Luck slowed. In the distance, she saw the silhouette of hills—the eastern border of the desert. Black trees with bare branches marked the peaks. On the other side of those hills was the Crescent Empire. “She’s right,” Liyana said.
“Different birds,” Pia explained.
Liyana heard them, unseen to one another, calling in low caws and piercing trills. They hid in the thorned bushes and dried grasses that pockmarked the land, and they perched on the twisted trees that grew out of boulder-filled hollows. The branches of the trees were so knotted that they looked like misshapen fingers folded into fists.
“You want us to leave the desert?” Fennik asked, scandalized.
Raan rode past Fennik. “And where exactly did you think we were going? The fair?” She sounded so pleased that Liyana expected her to break out in a whistle.
“Why would anyone in the Crescent Empire want our gods?” Fennik asked. “The empire has always left the desert alone and vice versa.”
Liyana had imagined a lone madman or a rogue clan. She’d never thought about an enemy from beyond the sands. She’d never met anyone from outside the desert. She didn’t know any of their stories.
“Horse boy does have a point,” Raan said. “Why mess with our sand? They already have fertile fields, rivers full of fish, cities of surpassing wealth . . .” The note of longing in her voice was clear.
“Besides, don’t they have their own gods?” Pia asked.
All of them looked at Korbyn.
