Sand shifted. They were getting close.

I eyed Cion, waiting to see if he’d give the signal to run or attack. He held up his hand for me to stay where I was. There was still a chance they could bypass our little valley.

“At least if he did cut access, they might finally force the princess out, and we’d stop having to search out here for her.”

The voices were going around us, growing fainter.

“You’d think they would’ve stopped sending us after the first six men died.”

Whatever the other guard said in reply was lost to the sands as they moved farther away.

“That was close,” I said after they were gone.

“Too close.” He watched the direction the men had disappeared.

“Do you think my father will really cut off well access?”

Cion shrugged. “I don’t think he’s so desperate he’ll risk turning everyone against him. Not yet, at least.”

These patrols made Hardesh’s words even more real. These soldiers were proof of how much my father and Rodric needed me back, of how both needed me to secure their place in the monarchy. My father couldn’t be seen as having two children taken by the desert. And I knew Rodric well enough to know he wanted to beat me in the arena in front of everyone. He couldn’t leave a question in anyone’s mind that the desert had chosen him.

All that would just drive them to excessive cruelty to get me back. Hadn’t my father said during his speech at the well that there’d be consequences, that things would only get worse if I wasn’t found?

“What if he does cut off access?”

“We’ll find a way to get water,” he replied. “We always have, but I’ll get in touch with my source in the palace and see if they can find out if there’s any truth to what the soldiers were saying.”

I didn’t like not having a plan, but for now, that was the best we could do.

Cion and I had just trudged up to the top of the dune when a voice cried out, “There they are.”

The two guards we had overheard stood only a dune away. They must’ve stumbled upon our footprints and followed them nearly to us. They dashed down the dune directly toward us.

I started to go for my sword, but Cion stopped me.

“Run.”

I remembered what he’d said about not killing the guards the first time we’d come across them in the desert, so I shoved my sword back down and took off after him.

We raced up one dune and down another, but so did the guards, their sword hilts clanging as they ran.

They hadn’t been living on only a few sips of water a day, and with each dune we climbed, they grew closer.

I forced my legs to move faster. My lungs burned.

Cion easily leapt up the dune ahead of me, cresting over the hill.

I stumbled as something pulled at the sandal strap around my ankle. I plunged forward into the sand.