The air shimmered with the rising heat. I scanned the area with my magic, but felt only the strong protection Moon Man had mentioned. The magic didn’t feel like an illusion, but my experience was limited.

When we crossed the magical barrier, I braced myself. Even Tauno gripped my waist tighter. But the scene didn’t change. The Sandseeds stayed the same. Three men and two women came over to us as we stopped the horses while the rest resumed their evening’s work.

The women’s faces appeared to be strained with either worry or grief. There must have been Sandseed casualties. The Sandseed men grabbed the horses’ bridles. An odd thing to do, considering they had trained the horses to keep still. Kiki reared. I held her mane as she jerked away from the Sandseeds’ grasp.

Bad smell, she said.

Firelight flashed on steel. I turned in time to see a mass of well-armed Daviian Vermin erupting from the tents.

15

TAUNO’S BOWSTRING TWANGED and I yelled, “Go! Go! Go!” Kiki was free, but two Sandseeds held tight to Garnet’s bridle. A quick glance to the side revealed ten feet separated us from the fastest Vermin.

I pulled my staff from my pack as Kiki turned. She used her rear legs to keep the Vermin occupied while I brought my bow down on the temple of a Sandseed holding Garnet. A pang of regret touched my heart as the man crumpled to the ground. He had probably been forced to ambush us. But I didn’t let the feelings stop me from attacking the second man clutching Garnet.

“Go! Go! Go!” I yelled again.

Even with Moon Man’s scimitar, Tauno’s arrows and my bow, the Vermin outnumbered us. It was only a matter of time before they would overrun us. In a flurry of hooves and steel and shouts, the horses headed away from the Sandseed camp, breaking into their gust-of-wind gait.

We had ridden through most of the night to get as far away from the Vermin as possible. The horses slowed. Heads down, they panted. Their coats gleamed with sweat. Only a couple dark hours remained. Dismounting, we removed their saddles. While I walked the horses to cool them down, Moon Man and Tauno searched for wood and game.

No one said a word. The shock of the attack had yet to wear off and the vivid memory of it played over and over in my mind. The ramifications alone were too awful to consider right now.

We ate another rabbit stew in silence. I thought about our next move.

“The elders…” Moon Man’s voice seemed loud in the thick night air.

“Are still alive,” Tauno said. “For now.”

“Would they kill them?” A shudder gripped my body at the thought of all those drying skulls.

“The trap was sprung. They have no need for them,” Moon Man replied then seemed to reconsider his words. “They might keep them as slaves. The Vermin are lazy when it comes to domestic tasks.”

“And they’re just busy beavers when it comes to ritual killings and gaining power,” I said. “Lucky us.” The scene once again flashed in my mind. “Do you think some of your people escaped?”

“Perhaps. They would have left the plains, though.” Moon Man considered. “The Sandseeds no longer control the protective magic over the Avibian Plains. To stay within its borders would be too dangerous for them. Right now, the Vermin are using the protection to keep their presence a secret, but now that we have fled, I believe they will use it to find us. Perhaps to attack us with magic.”

“Then we shouldn’t linger long. Is there any way to know if they find us?”

“We can create a barrier to alert us to an attack and maybe deflect an initial foray.”

“We should saddle the horses in case we need to make a quick exit.” I stood.

“That would be prudent.” Moon Man helped me with the horses.

Kiki snorted in annoyance when I tightened her straps.

Tired, she said. Don’t need. Smell good.

For now. If the smells turn bad, we can leave faster. I fed her some peppermints and scratched behind her large ears. She sighed and her eyes drifted shut.

After the horses were ready, the three of us sat in a circle around the fire.

“Maybe we should douse the flames.” Worried that the Fire Warper would sense me through the blaze, I hadn’t used my magic near a fire.

Moon Man dumped water onto it. Puffs of gray smoke rose into the air.

“Yelena, I want you to pull threads of magic and I will do the rest,” Moon Man instructed.

Concentrating, I gathered strands of power. Moon Man plucked the strands from me and weaved them into a net around us. Tauno’s pinched and sullen expression reflected his discomfort. As the only one without magic, he didn’t have the ability to see the protection building around us.

When Moon Man finished, I disconnected from the power source, feeling drained of energy. The net pulsed with magic even though we no longer fueled it. I wondered why it still worked. In all my past efforts, the power dissipated as soon as I stopped using magic. Except for my mental connections with Kiki and Irys, every time I wanted to heal or project I had to consciously draw from the power source. Yet the Sandseeds had their protection, and there were other lingering spells.

An image of the knife in Valek’s suite came to mind. When Valek had assassinated the King of Ixia, the King cursed him, vowing his blood would stain Valek’s hands forever. Since magic doesn’t work on Valek, the curse transferred to the knife instead. The King’s blood still clung to the blade and remained as wet and bright as the day the King had been killed.

I asked Moon Man how the protective net stayed active.