Ella knew she would be wavering like a mirage as she chanted, activating the shadow effect.
Cloaked by her dress, she looked at the heavy dagger in her hand as Shani rode away with Jehral and Ella's riderless horse. Ella knew the sandworm didn't like heat, and she had seen that the inside of its body was softer than the tough, outer shell of its segmented body.
It might not swallow the figure in the green dress if it could see her, and so this was the only option that Ella had. As she felt the sand begin to fall away from her feet, Ella knew the jaws would soon appear under her. Silently she rehearsed the sequence that in an instant would change the powers she invoked in her dress from invisibility to the searing-white heat of a zenblade.
Ella felt her body fall; looking down, she saw the mottled pink and razor sharp rows of teeth that lined the giant sandworm's jaws. She resisted the temptation to activate the runes that would give her enchantress's dress the strength of steel.
Ella fell into the Devil of Lyra's open jaws, sliding down its throat with the sand.
~
SHANI laid Jehral down in the shade of a dune, then leapt back atop her horse. The poor creature had gone past the limits of endurance, yet she had one final task for her steed.
Shani galloped as fast as she was able back towards the Oasis of Lyra, and the place where she had last seen Ella.
There was nothing there.
It was as if the fight had never taken place. The ground had resettled and even the blood of Jehral's wounding had been covered by fresh sand.
Shani pulled up her horse and wondered what to do.
A hundred paces away a few grains of sand shifted, quickly followed by some more. A well appeared: an opening that grew in size as Shani looked on. Finally a deep, wide hole formed, and then the sandworm's head shot into the air to come smashing back down to the earth.
Smoke poured out of its nostrils.
The Devil of Lyra opened its mouth, making a hacking, coughing sound, the segments of its wormlike form shifting and moving. It spat something out onto the sand; something that could have been a human form.
Shani spoke the words without thinking, and a fireball shot out of her hands. The sandworm twisted away from the new attack, the fireball barely missing its head. Shani spurred her horse into motion.
The figure on the ground picked itself up. Ella stood in her hooded dress, a blood-drenched dagger in her hand, facing the monster as if ready to teach it another lesson.
The Devil of Lyra turned away, plunging back into the sand and vanishing into the desert, leaving Ella standing, her chest rising and falling as she gasped for breath.
24
FOUR weeks later, two women, one in red and the other in green, came out of the desert. With them was a wounded warrior who barely stayed upright in his saddle, leaning on the woman in green for support.
Ella recognised the rust-coloured earth, stormy skies, and dark forests of Petrya, while Shani was almost overcome with emotion to be back in her homeland.
"This is the time, Ella," Shani said. "I left, and now I've returned. I promised myself that when I returned to Tlaxor, the tiered city, it would be to bring about the demise of High Lord Haptut Alwar. Pray that this is that time."
"Prince Ilathor is an honourable man," Ella said. "I'll speak with him. I'm sure he'll be pleased to liberate your people and treat them well."
Ella had her own memories of Petrya. She had travelled this land with Killian, and it was here she had finally seen through his fa?ade. She had slept with the warmth of his body close to hers as they camped at night, hunted by a strange creature, and for a time they had shared a room in the trade town of Torlac.
"You're thinking about him," Shani said, indicating the pendant at Ella's neck with her eyes.
Ella looked at Jehral to see if he was listening, but the desert warrior was still, his eyes closed and his expression pained.
"It was in Petrya that I last saw him," she said.
Suddenly Ella craved the warmth of a man with a savage intensity. She imagined Killian's strong arms and his lean body, her hands running through the fiery hair that curled down to his neck.
"And this desert prince, Ilathor. You still don't know why he summoned you?"
Ella remembered another night. Another man. She remembered a night in the desert when Prince Ilathor Shanti of Tarn Teharan, now leader of the army of the desert tribes, had declared his love for her.
A love she had spurned, the very last time she and Ilathor had spoken, before Ella stole Jehral's horse and left.
~
"STOP," Shani said. "Don't move. We're being watched."
Ella reined in her horse; soon all three riders had drawn to a halt. She looked with concern at Jehral. He couldn't survive a battle.
"How do you know?"
"There are men in those trees there. It was only for the shortest instant, but I saw them. In fact, I don't think those trees are even real. I know the trees that grow in my land."