“Should we not turn back, Princess?” called one of her guards.
Shirasa inhaled the sharp electricity of the oncoming storm, the feral musk of her long-legged mount Totari, the delicate scent of fresh blooms on the miniscule desert flowers. So few places had colorful patches of groundcover, but she could sense one close. Her eyes squeezed shut against the visual distractions of her accompaniment, and her fingertips brushed the twitching muscles of Totari’s gangly neck.
Totari meant “scrawny one”, although the lanky desert creature was far from skinny. Like all idraka, he was mostly knobby limbs and stretching neck, but strong with Water in his core. Totari could smell the water better than she, and they often worked together to witch new wells, him with his natural affinity and she with her magika. He turned to the north now, likely sensing the same thing she did, but the storm’s heaviness was interfering with their ability to pinpoint the source.
“Princess?”
She sighed and rolled her eyes at her companions. “Desert Mother is patient. Why aren’t you?”
“The storm is building quickly. We must get you under cover.” Her guard, a warrior named Testan, nodded toward home. His genuine concern creased his heavy black brow.
The other guard, Imhaa, agreed with an expression halfway between supplication and injunction. “Your father would not like how far we’ve scouted already, Princess.”
Shirasa couldn’t help but scoff. Her father, Shirkaa Alis ol’Manalal, fearsome chieftain of the greatest clan of Tahayi, would not mind the advancement of a border into the wild lands. In fact, she was quite sure he would encourage it, especially if there was more water. She was important to him, but water was more important. “We are close to a new spring, men. So close. I do not intend to turn back now. A reliable fresh water source in this area would provide sustenance during the height of summer near one of our driest migration routes, and you know we are already two seasons into severe drought. Our people should not suffer a third for the sole reason that we turned back in fear.” She looked from Testan to Imhaa. Both men frowned, and she frowned back. “Desert Mother punishes timidity. If you want something in Tahayi, you must go out and seek it. Remaining in one place, too fearful to move, you will die. You know this is true.”
Testan reddened beneath his black beard, and he looked away.
Imhaa, however, ground his jaw. “Your father would not like how far you’ve scouted, Princess. This area is too close to the wildlings. The ground may very well be spoiled by their presence, poisoned by their Fire magika just like their blood. Who’s to say the water is potable in such a place?”
“The witcher’s job is to find out,” Shirasa quickly answered. “The witcher precedes the warrior, Imhaa. It is those who do not fear the Desert Mother’s harshness, who voyage into the empty sands and cracked pavement with fortitude and faith that she will guide their steps . . . it is they who find glory in Tahayi, who see the subtle beauty of her moods and settle in her heart. The witchers, Imhaa, are the reason the Manalal territory is as vast as it is.”
“You don’t need to be a witcher, Princess. Others of lesser station can fulfill that duty.”
Shirasa’s retort was interrupted by the crack of lightning high above. The vast open sky roiled with purple clouds, each billowing over top of its predecessor, spilling from the heavens with the rage of the Desert Mother’s tears. Why did she weep this time of year? And why did the deluge of her emotion come all at once? Desert Mother—or I’ya’hakkat, as she was more formally known—withheld her emotions so much of the time. Her fortitude caused the summer droughts, forcing Shirasa’s people to move constantly, and the sudden release of her woes streamed off the land without soaking in.
She spurred Totari forward, her colorful skirts billowing behind. “I am not turning back, Imhaa, so you can either follow me or tell my father you lost me in the sands.”
She smiled beneath her veil as she advanced toward the building storm, for she could hear the trotting of horses behind her. Testan and Imhaa would follow, for their failure to guard her as she sought new wells would result in a harsh sentence. She was close, although she saw little beyond irregular pillars and ledges pushing upward from the northeast. Beyond the Manalali border, the landscape solidified, jutting with stony escarpments and a maze of canyons and flumes.
Totari clopped onward, although he no longer honed into a target. The air was too electric, the breeze too erratic. Any sense of Water near the surface was rapidly becoming buried beneath an overwhelming layer of chaos. Shirasa scanned the sky. Stormclouds cascaded over their heads, blanketing the world with violet edged in yellow and orange. A raindrop spackled Shirasa’s cheek just beneath her kohl eyeliner, and she blinked.
Rain or not, she had no intention of giving up this find. Her people needed a sanctuary on this route.
They crested a low dune, and she resisted cheering. Ahead was a labyrinth of deep ravines, some fine lines or mere ditches and others massive cracks. She pointed.
“Somewhere here, there is water near the surface.”
“Let us find cover, Alis’hasha,” Imhaa shouted over the rising wind. He used her formal title, the Old Language term for her status as princess, in another bid for her sense of propriety. “We can explore it after the storm passes.”
Her gauzy, beaded veil hid her gleeful expression, just as it hid all other things, but Shirasa delighted in how near her goal was, if only she could convince them to go on. “We shall find cover within one of the deeper ravines. Perhaps a cave.” She guided Totari over several smaller cracks, then followed a rivulet downward. In truth, she didn’t want cover from the storm. She didn’t care how soaked her layers of embroidered skirts became or whether her damp head covering mussed her long black waves of hair. She only wanted to find the spring before it was covered in a flash of runoff, in which case she wouldn’t be able to pinpoint it until the water went back down.
Her witching skills were far above average, a gift from her father’s line. Such sensitivity to an element was a blessing from the Desert Mother, unlike the curse of Fire in the blood like the Haralal had. The Mother gave such talents in order to connect with her children, and she gave no gifts lightly. Shirasa was meant to use her power for her people, princess or not. But even so, sensing the element of Water was not easy. Being near it was like taking a deep breath of blooming cacti in spring. The plants, scattered in disparate clumps across the flat plain, all contributed the delicate floral perfume with but a single blossom. Standing in their midst, one could feel as though they were immersed in the beauteous smells, and yet walking blindly to a single flower was near impossible. It was a game she and her brother had played as children. With a scarf tied around the eyes, one was more likely to end up with a foot full of spines which would itch for weeks, rather than a soft flower petal between the fingers.
“Princess, please be careful,” called Testan. He spurred his horse, a sleek gray gelding with black dust on its feet and a black mane, and followed her into the ravine. He peered down each conjoining crack, his expression a mixture of curiosity and worry. “The rain is nearly here. I just felt a sprinkle. Truly, Princess, we must find somewhere warm and dry for you.”
“And what about yourself, my good guardian?” Shirasa teased, although her lashes fluttered as another drop splattered on her eye. “Just a little further.”
Imhaa grumbled. “No, Shirasa.”
That stopped her up short, and she turned back in the saddle.
Although he sat lower on his horse than she did on Totari, he seemed to dominate the space between the ravine walls. He projected authority with a stiff glower. “Enough, young alis’hasha. You’ve had your fun, but the weather is turning on us. Neither your father nor Warlord Dashann would want the princess of the Manalal at risk.”
Shirasa bridled. “My fun?”
Imhaa waved at the steep walls rising to either side. “This game of witching, especially in such a dangerous region.”
“Witching is one of the most important functions I can provide to my people.” Shirasa spoke low, and the thunder groaning above seemed to suppress her words, to quiet them like a father covering her mouth. This storm was not the Mother’s, she decided. This storm was interfering with her mission, stifling her freedom, encouraging her to ride back to the Desert Mother’s shrine with Totari’s tail flicking in fear. Back to her people in failure, with no respite for the long, dry trek. Back to Dashann and his unyielding embrace.
Imhaa opposed her and ushered his horse forward, his battle-scarred hand reaching for Totari’s harness. Reaching for control.
That did it.
Shirasa whipped the reins, and Totari launched into a gallop down the ravine, his wide hooves clopping on the small cobble-speckled bottom. His loping gait, seemingly ungainly based on his top-heavy shape, was not only faster, but also sure-footed. Shirasa delved into the endless maze, intent upon the vague sense of Water shimmering ahead and all round, even as the storm broke.
Rain poured down, and the sky’s violets turned black. The clouds roiled and groaned, the rumbling occasionally shattered by crackling streaks of light. Shirasa hunched over Totari’s back and tugged her hooded robes tighter around her neck, refusing to look back. Raindrops pelted her eyes and stole the heat from her cheeks. Her veil stuck to her lips and the hollows of her cheeks. Totari’s speckled fur matted on his neck, and before she knew what was happening, Shirasa realized he was splashing through shallow pools and running rivulets along the ravine bottom.
The sensation of a unique water source was gone, smothered beneath the layer of water from the storm. Shirasa cursed to herself and finally slowed. Totari skittered to a halt with a small splash of hooves, then flared his nostrils and raised his head. They had reached a confluence of ravines, and the walls were smooth and high. Totari snorted his dislike for the area as the sound of water rustled and gurgled from somewhere.
“I agree, Totari,” she murmured, realizing her rashness. She turned back, trying to spy her guardians through the misty gray. Panic rose in her gullet. The ravine was truly a canyon, its walls worn from thousands of years of the Mother’s tears. The sandstone was as complex as the goddess, layered in the colors of joy, mourning, and anger. Every bit of Tahayi Desert held her history, every grain of dust and fragment of bone. This canyon had been built from her bosom, from the layers around her heart, and it was deep. Too deep to clamber out of.
Shirasa was about to spur Totari back in the direction from which they had come when Testan and Imhaa emerged from the gray.
“Go, Princess,” Testan cried, whipping his gelding onward.
A roar of water followed behind them, and Totari brayed.
They galloped, and at the intersection, Shirasa could spare only a moment to think. Downstream would only deepen. She could hardly bet on an accessible route out of the canyon that way, but she could assume more and more water. She yanked left, and Totari led the horsed warriors up a different ravine.
Shirasa prayed the flash flood was lesser in this ravine than the other, but a sense of dread clawed at her gut.
The roaring, which had barely faded behind them, now intermixed with riotous thunder from above. Its fury clattered off the canyon walls like a monstrous beast.
Shirasa hitched a breath, but kept going. The roar heightened, and as she and Totari keeled around a corner, she pulled up.
The ravine ahead was a wall of churning white and debris.
There was nowhere to go.
The wave crashed over them, and Shirasa felt her body lift from Totari’s saddle. The water spun her, wrapped her robes in a stranglehold around her limbs, and sought to bury her beneath the storm’s rage. She inhaled filthy water, then sputtered, and the last sensation she had was striking against cold, smooth stone.