“And I saved yours. We’re square.” He didn’t stop running. Instead, he vaulted onto the next roof over.

I struggled to keep pace with him as we ran across crumbling ledges and over small wooden planks.

Rodric tried to follow us on the streets below. One spear spiraled past my head, after which I heard Rodric roar he needed me alive. That should have been comforting but wasn’t.

Dimic leapt from one roof to another, easily outpacing Rodric. I put all my energy into copying his moves, landing where he landed. I was concentrating so hard I almost missed when he stopped on a roof at the edge of town.

He turned to see if I was still following. When he saw I was, he dropped off the roof and ran out into the desert sands.

Panting, I skidded to a stop at the edge.

The eroded wall of the city was the only thing that lay between the desert and me. Fallen parapet bricks littered both sides of the barrier and lay across the top. Where soldiers once patrolled, small plants tried to grow in the uneven shadows and now-open cracks.

I turned back toward the city to look over the landscape. The dried-out, cracked roofs gave way to darker ones that hadn’t been hit quite as hard by the sandstorms. A little farther out, some buildings had posts with canopies hoisted between them for shade. Rising above them all was the palace. Its walls blended into the sea of sand around it.

It was too late to go back. The only way was forward. I dropped off the roof and followed Dimic into the desert.

CHAPTER

7

Dimic cut a quick pace. Already, he was two dunes ahead of me. I’d spot him cresting a peak just as I did another. I made sure to step where his foot had plunged into the sand. I was so worried about losing him I couldn’t waste time to look where I was stepping, and I didn’t need a yellow-spotted sand snake taking me out before I could face either Cion or Rodric.

Sweat soaked through my clothes by the time I made it over the fourth sand dune. I didn’t dare take off my cloak. It protected my identity as much as my skin, though it did little to protect my stinging eyes.

I could only hope Dimic had the same trouble seeing as I was. He hadn’t looked back once, and I could only hope he was concentrating too much on his feet to locate me behind him. That way, I could follow him straight to his hideout and plan from there.

Though the kid was like the wind. He flew over the sands, whereas my feet got caught in the plunging surface more than once. But every time I fell face-first into the dust, I pulled myself up, telling myself that if a child could keep going, so could I.

With every dune I climbed, the setting sun would torment me on the way up, disappear once I reached a valley, and then stalk me again as I climbed the next ridge. Eventually, the sun descended behind a dune and didn’t reappear. The sky became a spread of dripping pinks and oranges that faded into the yellow of the sand.