Cion came to rest in a valley with a good view of the unguarded main gates to the city. The crumbling city wall ran away on either side, circling in Achra. It was easy to see the top of the arena just past it. It looked smaller than I remembered.

“We’ll wait here,” he said. He hunkered down in the sand, wedging out a space for himself using his backside.

“Did you even look for yellow-spotted sand snakes?” I asked as I plopped down beside him.

“You can hear them coming,” he said.

I gave him a sidelong glance. “I doubt even sleeping in your isolated sleeping quarters gives you enough training to hear a sand snake.”

“They hiss about every five seconds during the heat of the day and about every ten seconds at night.”

“There’s no way you can hear that,” I repeated. Maybe I wasn’t the only one capable of suffering night mirages.

“The sound is different from sand falling. It’s wetter.”

I shot him another look, but I’m not sure it really came through in the dark.

“Trust me,” he said, “when you live every day on a few sips of water, and you hear anything that sounds even remotely close to water, you’ll take notice.”

I rolled my eyes. It was followed by a shiver. It was scary how quickly body temperature plummeted in the open air.

“I forget you city dwellers can’t stand the heat or the cold,” Cion said.

“I’m fine,” I said, but my body betrayed me by shivering again.

“Here.” He wrapped his arm around me and pulled my side close to his, tucking me under his embrace. His muscles pressed against me and warmth surrounded me, like somehow his body had been absorbing all the day’s sunlight for this very purpose.

I couldn’t help but press further against him in response.

There was something comfortable and safe about being with Cion, something that made the tension drain out of my muscles that were normally so poised to respond to an attack.

“Warmer now?” Cion asked. His voice was quiet, like the wind glancing off the tops of the dunes.

For some reason, my voice didn’t seem to want to work, so I merely nodded. I couldn’t take my eyes from his.

His head inched closer to mine. He paused, licking his lips.

If I turned away again like I’d done several nights ago, I wouldn’t get another chance.

But would the desert take him from me too? That thought slid through my mind, threatening to build up the wall I’d created after my mother’s death, the wall Cion had managed to start slowly tearing down.

No. I shoved the thought away because we both belonged to the desert now. Somehow we’d managed to find each other in this maze of sand. The desert had given him to me, and there was no way it would rip him from me.

His gaze leapt from my lips to my eyes.

I waited, staring back, refusing to turn away this time, daring him to draw closer.