| Chapter Seven | Deserts of Suns |

"Over here," Adara calls to the prince Leonidas and Octavian, standing beneath a small, withered and sun-dried tree. The bark twisted and a faded sky-grey color, but the leaves were a vibrant  green and provided a bit of shade despite the leaves being scarce. She squints across the golden-white sands and watches the two men stumble in the sinking earth.

"My god," Octavian croaks as he slings his satchel down onto the ground, dropping to his knees and leaning against the base of the tree. The prince did a similar thing, leaning against the tree and sliding down onto his back-end. Adara plops onto the sand, wedging her feet into the warmth as she wipes the sweat from her neck.

They sit in silence for a few moments, all of them staring at different things. The sun. The sand. The horizon. Adara reaches gently into her bag, freeing a few beans and nearly-charred meats that they had found in abandoned homes. She chews on a bean,
watching the prince take his shirt off to wipe the sweat from his neck and face.

As much as she hated it, she could not help but stare at his frame. Examining the inches across his chest. Taking note of every scar, every freckle, every bruise. Scars, he had a few. Freckles, many. Bruises, too many to count. Her mind drifts back to the night in the woods, and she casts her gaze away as he pulls the shirt back on.

"If I am correct, we are close to one of the surrounding villages to Bal'Sol," Adara wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, taking a swig of water. She closes her bag, taking a bite of dried pork. Adara runs a hand over her neck, swatting away the large flies and bees.

"Bal'Sol?" Octavian asks, and the prince glances over, suddenly interested in the conversation. "Such a name surely does not exist, not in your lands," He frowns, and Adara almost laughs. The prince asked a different question: Why were they at Bal'Sol and not Xarenth.

"Bal'Sol is the sister city to Xarenth," she shrugs. "There are arrangements to be made before we go to Xarenth." It was only part-truth, but the less the two men knew, the better. Octavian nods and continues crunching on beans, but the prince however, frowned as he takes a small sip of her water.

Something did not add up to him, but he was unsure as to what.

Adara leans back into the sands, her head sinking in, and she closes her eyes as she spreads her arms and legs to take in the warmth. It had been years since she had even seen the familiar sands, but a part of her dreads what was to come. The past. The ghosts. The dead.

"When you say close, how close are we to Bal'Sol?" Octavian asks, and she rolls onto her side.

"I would say maybe another days light," she murmurs, watching the sun set into an orange color as it begins to drift towards the ground. Just as she began to close her eyes once more, the prince stood from where he sat, hoisting his bag onto his shoulder. Adara pushes herself up onto her arms, her legs still deep  in the sand.

"Prince Leonidas, where are you going?" Adara asks as he begun to walk away. She watches a scorpion scamper across the sand at her feet, crawling over them as Adara stood.

"To Bal'Sol," he says, his face dark and cold. His mismatch eyes were filled with hate and murder.  He wanted to kill the king.  Now.  If he could kill the King and Queen, he would.  Then he would kill all of their subjects.  He would feel nothing, and that scared him. 

  "It is nearing night, there is no way we would reach it," Adara frowns, Octavian stands beside her.  He thought it best to camp, as they had for a few nights before in the desert.  The nights were cold and harsh, and although they lived in the snowy mountains of Ceehillm, the desert made them all freeze.  He also knew the prince had made up his mind.

  "I am not asking for permission, woman," the prince grumbles, throwing her bag at her chest.  Adara catches it and slings it over her shoulder.  "If I say we are going, then we are going," he says, his voice monotone.  She stares at him as he walks away.  Octavian shrugs on his own bag and treks after him.

  Adara stares after him, the sun gleams on the sands, casting a golden halo over the prince's form.  She glances at the sky, the sun continuing to drop, casting shadows over the sand.  She knew there would be no way to make it to any sort of village, not before night, and the prince did too.  But he needed to make it to Bal'Sol.

  Little did he know, Bal'Sol was as dangerous for them as Xarenth.

  She sighs, standing and pulling her bag onto her back.  Each step made her stomach drop lower and lower until it felt as though a thousand hornets were buzzing inside of her.  Adara trudges slowly behind the men, her knees weak as her mind brought forth each doubt and uncertainty. 

  It was when her mind went racing did she realize that she had forgotten something.

When Adara looks up from the sand beneath her feet, she meets the worried eyes of the prince. She glances at Octavian who held his face in his hands, his jaw taught. She walks closer, sliding carefully down a sandy dune. Her eyes scan the area, finally landing on what had scared the human men.

A large skull attached to the earth by a wooden spear. Large tusks jut out from the skull, not a piece of flesh remained on it. She drops her gaze, noticing another spear a few steps away.

"What creature is it?" The prince asks, staring at the tusks and sunken in eye-sockets. 

  "A troll," Adara says quietly, her heart beating so fast it felt as though it might launch from her chest.  "My people," she whispers.  The prince looks at her, her eyes wide as she stares at the skull.  "Never mind that," Adara says quietly, tearing her gaze from the fallen troll.  "We are to be killed should we continue any further as we are," she winces as he grasps her wrist. 

  "What is it that you mean?" The prince asks, squeezing his hand closed, ignoring her pained eyes.  "What is it you mean by, as we are?" He asks.

  "Prince Leonidas, what is the one feature that separates a human from an elf?" Adara asks, staring at his hand on her.  How she wishes she could cut his hand from his body.  How she wishes she could go back to Juula and pretend that the humans did not declare an act of war on her and her people.

  "Ears," Octavian pipes in from behind her, his hand on the skull, squeezing it enough to splinter it.  Long cracks run down the sides, the sockets fracture.  "Our ears are different."

  "I want you to do whatever it may take to get us into Bal'Sol," The prince says, his eyes do not meet her own.  He pulls a small blade from his side, the blade he stole from her -- the blade that matches the one on her waist.  For a moment, her heart stalls.  She smiles.

  She hesitates to take it.  Her mind screams at her to take it, to reunite herself with her past, but she waits.  The prince watches her eyes search his own, her eyes never land on the dagger.  He thrusts it into her hand, closing her fingers around it. 

  "Do what you must," he says, his voice firm, but his eyes told an untold story.

Adara stares at him, bending his head to the side, she lowers the sharp blade level with the tip of his ear. She takes a gentle hold of him and slices quickly across. The prince jerks, groaning in pain as blood drips down the side of his face, his hand shoots up to cover it. Curses escape through his lips.

"I know, I know, I am almost done," Adara whispers, taking his other ear tightly, bringing the blade down swiftly. He muffles his screams with his fist. Both sides of his head were streaked with scarlet red blood, his face contorted in nothing but pain. Adara takes a step away from him, staring at her hands covered in his blood, the dagger spotted with it.

  Adara turns to Octavian, his head low.  Slowly, he rises an arm, pulling his ear tight.  She grimaces as she does the same to him as she had to the prince, blood the same, their unwillingness to show pain the same.  A part of her thought it was incredibly noble, but another thought it stupid.

  She never knew what the prince was thinking.  It made her feel something she was never used to feeling.  Weak.

"What good does this do?" Octavian asks, touching his ear and staring at the blood on his fingertip. "We still do not have ears like your own," he shrugs at her.

Adara stares at him, then at the troll skull, "I will come up with a story," she says.

The prince begins walking ahead, ignoring the blood that dropped onto his shirt. "It better be a hell of a story," the prince says, squinting as the sun beats on his eyes. Adara smiles. She had the perfect story in mind. She begins walking, twirling the dagger between her fingers.

  They walk slow, the sun continues to sink, the darkness looming over them.

  "I was wondering," Octavian says, "Why would your people kill a troll?" He asks.  "They are a part of your kingdom, so why?"

  Adara's face falls.  Her dagger wavers on her finger. 

  "They do not like traitors," she says, staring at the prince ahead.  She could not blame her treasonous ways on him.  She made herself a traitor, she had done it long before he wiggled his way into her life.  Adara had no one else to blame but herself and her mistakes.  There was no repenting in her world.

"I see," he murmurs quietly.

Adara shivers when the sun drops below the horizon, casting shadows on every inch of sand. They follow the skulls, watching carefully for any signs of life. Large scorpions scuttle over the sand, larger than their arms. She smiles when she sees them, Octavian gets closer to Adara, a frown on his face: he was scared of anything larger than a dog.

It made sense to him then, as to why she asked for protection.

Octavian squints as sand flies up, smacking into their faces and exposed skin. Adara holds a hand over her nose and mouth, her ears ache as the howling of the wind fills them. Adara hands the prince and Octavian thin sheets of cloth, using them to cover their faces.

  "Inhale it and you die, so keep it on no matter what," Adara shouts above the roars of the wind.  "It should pass quickly," she murmurs.  When we was a child she remembered stories of men and women getting trapped outside at night and they would be found the next morning dead.  Full of sand, their bodies so far gone that the buzzards would not even touch their corpses.

  They set a faster pace, their calves burn and sweat falls in sheets down their necks.  The sand hits their skin hard.  Their flesh turns a gentle pink, raw to the touch as the sand rips away their skin.  Every so often, when the wind would die down, Adara could hear the men's whimpers complaints of pain.

  Very quickly the sun disappears, the moons dangle above them.  Soon they could barely see the earth in front of them, the lights disappear as the wind grows stronger.

The prince took Adara's free hand, leading her along, and she hooked her arm with his own. They stumble along. Octavian loses his balance, dragging Adara onto her knees. For a moment, it seems like the the sand rose. Adara's heart stalls as she feels herself lift into the air.

"What is going on?" Octavian shouts over a loud grumble. A creatures grumble, as the ground splits open. Adara shoves both of the men off of her, sending them sprawling onto the solid sand. She stumbles backwards, hitting her back hard and knocking the wind out of herself.  She stares at the rising form.

It was large. It had large, tan scales. She swore she could see her reflection in them, a thousand faces staring back at her.  The scales twist with the creature, leading towards a large globular head, still covered in thick plates.  It had a large, almost detached jaw which rises and sets, whipping its head around in the air.  It had no eyes.

  Adara scrambles onto her hands and knees, dragging herself away from the creature as it opens it's mouth and shrieks.  The prince covers his ears at the scream and rolls onto his side, sliding away from it.  Octavian sits in fear of the giant beast. 

  "What is this thing?" The prince shouts of the continuous cries of the sand-creature.  They only make it a few feet before the beast launches upwards into the air before submerging into the sand, burrowing down quickly.  A brief silence fills the air as the creature stirs beneath one of the three.

  "A wyrm," Adara says before the beast breaks through the sand again, right beside Octavian.  His terrified screams fill the air, and Adara glances up.  If she wanted to, she could run away and never look back.  She could escape and allow the wyrm to kill them and she would never have to think about them again.  But she could not leave them. 

  She was not sure why.

Adara, compelled, runs forewords and slams her body into Octavian's. He is knocked out of the way, his face thrust into the sand, blinded. She grimaces as the impact of the wyrm rising hits her in the side, spinning her into the air before landing a few feet away from Octavian.

She writhes in pain, the pain fluctuating up and down her side, radiating through her fingertips to her toes. The wyrm releases another chorus of screams before digging back into the sand.

"Come on, we must run," The prince shouts, pulling himself to his feet.

Hands grab Adara's own, dragging her through the sand. For a moment, she thinks it is Octavian or even the prince. Then she catches a glimpse of long ivory tusks in the moonlight. Adara grits her teeth and pulls on the hands holding her, propelling her legs up over her head, wrapping her legs around the head of the troll.

Upside-down, she grabs the backs of the trolls knees, forcing it to collapse forewords, and she releases her legs and her back hits the soft sand. Adara reaches for the dagger in her waistband, but the troll launches forewords, tacking her, and grabbing one of her feet and an arm.

He lifts her into the air and she flails, bringing an arm back and catching it on the sharp tusk, but she lands a blow to the eye. It drops her again.

The troll kicks her roughly on the side, sending black dots to crowd her eyes, blinding her. It was that moment when the prince realizes he can not find Adara or Octavian. The troll grabs her waist and throws her over its shoulder, walking quickly as two wyrms break the surface. Adara screams.

"Mama," Adara says, staring between her mom and dad. Her mother smiles, taking Adara's small hand in her own. Those large pools of green stare into her own, unblinking, filling with tears.

"You must be brave, my sweet wolf," A young Exris smiles, her skin flawless, and youthful. But her eyes were old and aged. Almost lifeless.

A hand grabs Adara's wrist — a troll. Adara stares at the man, his figure was taller than her fathers. He was a bluish green, his chest covered with a large metal plate, gold tipped tusks and spiked red hair. His left eye was a misty white. He wore large spears on his back, tattoos down his arms.

"Do not let him take me," Adara cries, staring at her mother, who turns the other way, embracing her husband. The troll grabs Adara and throws her over his hunched shoulder. Adara reaches out to her mother and father. Neither look back as she screams. She could only scream.

She screams. She stares back over the trolls shoulder, watching other trolls gather with spears, throwing them at the wyrm. The troll throws her onto the ground, a hard, rocky ground. The wyrms screech in pain.  She lies on the ground for only a moment before strong arms wrap around her.

She hisses in pain. "You are okay," Octavian breathes into her hair, his cheeks stained with blood, sand and tears. "There he is!" Octavian gasps as a troll slings the prince beside Adara, who grunts in pain as he hits the ground. "My god, I thought you were gone."

"What are these fools saying?" A troll asks, and Adara props herself up on her elbows, staring at the man. "They run into the wyrms, then they fight us when we save them, then they speak a bunch of nothing," another grumbles.

  "We are not fools," Adara spits.  "We were simply running from the wyrms and you startled us," she murmurs.  The prince and Octavian stare at her in confusion.  They could not understand a word she said.

  "Aba no ya ba'doe," Is what they heard, and the rest was lost to them. 

  "What were you doing here in the middle of the sands?" A troll asks, squinting his beady raven eyes at her.  His accent thick and almost difficult for even Adara to understand. It had been years since she heard a troll speak.

  It takes her a moment.  She grimaces and stares down at the prince, "Our village was attacked by golden infantry." A few trolls gasp, a few grunt, a few of the elves curse. "They slaughtered the men and women and children, and they burnt it to the ground," she whispers.

"And how did you three escape?" An elf asks, his eyes narrow, his long blonde hair pulled into a high pony-tail.

"They went to steal our ears, taking my friends, and as they did my friends overpowered them and we were able to escape," Adara glances again down at the prince, who stares wide eyed. Neither man knew what evils she was speaking, and they prayed she would not reveal the truth. Both men knew they could not kill all of the men surrounding them.

"We must alert the King Dasheem and the Xarenth troops at once," a troll says as an orc woman walks forewards.  She was stunning.  Hair down to her knees, white, pulled back in intricate braids which waved with each step.  Her hand clenched tight around a cane, a human skull at the top.  Her skin was a gentle green, small tusks jut from her lower lip.

  "What is this I hear about the King Dasheem?" She asks, chocolate brown eyes squinted.  "Come now, let us speak inside," she waves a wrinkled hand forwards.  Adara clenches her fists as a troll pulls her to her feet, draping a long arm over her shoulder.  The prince and Octavian stand, leaning on each other as they walk close behind, following the old spindly woman.

  They walk slowly down a gravel path, passing several huts for homes and a smaller marketplace, abandoned in night.  A few doors opened and orcs, trolls, elves, and goblins peek their heads from behind their cozy homes and peer at the dangers.  The prince kept his head down. 

  They reach a wooden building, large blankets drape over the edges as a shady location, dazzled with hundreds of bright colors.  Though dulled in the dark, the prince and Octavian stared at its beauty.  Adara is pulled inside by the troll, her feet willing her to move though her heart did all it could to stop her.

  A saloon.  Adara is pulled to a far table and thrown into a seat, the troll seats beside her.  She watches as the prince and Octavian are seated at a different table.  The woman sits across from her.  The saloon which once was filled with several people now boomed with many.  Random people trying to figure out what was going on.

  "My name is M'agda," the orc woman smiles, missing a few teeth, the front two golden.  "The matriarch of De'Naga, this shit village." 

  Adara stares at the woman, her brain racking through scenarios ranging from the woman killing her to her killing the woman. 

  "My name is Adara," she whispers.

  "Well, Adara, it appears that you and your friends have caused an awful lot of trouble in one day," M'agda smiles, shaking her head and tapping her cane against the creaky floorboards.  "But never-mind that," she glances towards the prince who stares at Adara, glancing away when the woman meets his eyes.

  "Your lover?" M'agda asks, and Adara rises a brow.

  "You could say something like that," she blinks hesitantly, taking a sip of water that a troll set down.

  "Tomorrow I shall send a falcon to my king, inform him, and you and your friends may stay here as long as you need," she smiles, handing Adara a small wooden key.  "I am afraid you must all share a room."

  "Dwasabi," Adara takes the keys and bows her head to the woman who pats her on the shoulder.  As soon as the woman rises and exits the building, Adara rushes with the troll to the prince and Octavian, gathering them and being escorted to a small building attached to the saloon.  It was small, but it was better than lying in the sand.

  As they enter, Adara locks the door and closes it, pressing her head against the cool wood. 

  "What was all of that?" The prince asks.

  "One thing is for sure," Adara frowns.  "We can not trust M'agda or any of these men no matter how nice they may seem, no debts are to be repaid for their saving us," Adara growls, walking numbly to the bed at the far wall of the room.

  She does not bother changing into clean clothes as she climbs on, hissing as her side makes contact.  Adara lies on her back, stiff, staring at the ceiling covered in cobwebs.  "Never trust a kind orc."