The Perilous Sea (The Elemental Trilogy #2)

“We know she is the prophesied one—an elemental mage more powerful than has been seen in centuries. We also know it would be disastrous for those of us who yearn for freedom if she fell into the Bane’s hands. Let us help her. We can make sure the Bane never comes near her.”


What would you do if the Bane did come near her? Would you kill her so that he never gains her? And what would stop you from killing her from the very beginning, if your sole aim is to keep her away from him?

“Good luck finding her, then.”

She leaned closer to him, obviously not about to give up. “Your Highness—”

Shouts erupted. Titus turned around. Guards were running down the steps. His own retinue came sprinting toward him.

“Oh dear,” said the young woman. “It appears I must take leave of Your Highness.”

With one pull, her ridiculous overrobe came off entirely. A swift shake and it smoothed and flattened into—of course—a flying carpet, much bigger and finer than the one Titus possessed.2

The young woman, now clad in a close-fitting tunic and trousers the color of storm clouds, leaped onto the flying carpet, and with a mock salute at Titus, sped off toward the waiting boat in the distance.





CHAPTER 3


The Sahara Desert

THE GIRL SHOVED THE MAP into her pocket, grabbed the bag, and sprinted toward the body. But instincts she didn’t even know she possessed halted her halfway. Her loss of memory, the trauma remedies in the emergency bag, the note on the map—the worst has happened and I can safeguard you no more—everything about her situation shouted serious and, perhaps, relentless danger. The person in the sand was just as likely to be an enemy as an ally.

She pulled out her wand, applied a protective shield to herself, and advanced more cautiously. The prone body wore a black jacket and black trousers, a band of white shirt cuff peeking out from underneath a jacket sleeve—nonmage clothes for a man. Nonmage clothes for a man from a different part of the world.

He was lanky in build, his hair dark despite a coating of dust, his head turned away from her. Her stomach tightened. Was he the one? If she saw his face, if he called her name and clasped her hand in his, would everything come rushing back, like the happiness and good fortune that one always regained at the end of a heroic tale?

Despite his nonmage attire, he had a wand in hand. The back of his jacket had been ripped, exposing a somber-colored waistcoat underneath—had he tried to protect her? As she drew nearer, his fingers flexed and then tightened on the wand. A wave of relief washed over her: he was still alive and she was not entirely alone in the vastness of the Sahara.

It was with a good deal of difficulty that she restrained herself from going right up to him. Instead she stopped ten feet away. “Hullo?”

He didn’t even look in her direction.

“Hullo?”

Again, no response.

Had he lost consciousness? Was the movement of his fingers she’d spied earlier but the involuntary motions of someone suffering from a concussion? She picked up a few grains of sand and tossed them gently in his direction—a tentative knock, so to speak. Five feet from him, the sand hit an invisible barrier in the air.

He turned his head toward her and raised his wand. “Come no closer.”

He was young and good-looking. But his face failed to trigger a flood of memories. It did not even bring about any vague twinge of recollection, except to make her wonder whether she was as young as he.

“I mean you no harm,” she said.

“Then let us part as friendly strangers.”

Her heart pinched at the word “strangers.” Then her eyes widened: what she had thought to be his waistcoat, beneath his torn jacket, was actually flesh that had been—what? Burned? Infected? Whatever had happened, it looked horrifying. “You are hurt.”

“I can look after myself.”

He was still civil, but his meaning was quite unmistakable: Go. You are not welcome here.

She did not want to force her company on him, even if he were the only person in a hundred-mile radius. But that wound of his—he could die of it. “I have remedies that might help you.”

He exhaled, as if the effort required to speak exhausted him. “Then leave them behind.”

What she would have liked was for him to tell her things in exchange for the remedies—how had he come to be in the desert, who or what had injured him, and did he, by any chance, know a way for them to reach safety again. Perhaps his lack of reciprocity indicated that he wasn’t as desperately injured as he appeared to be; if she were so badly hurt, she wouldn’t be so fastidious about accepting help.

Or so she supposed. In truth she had no idea how she would have acted, since she had no memory to guide her choices.

She shook her head a little and dug into her satchel. “It would help me decide which remedies to give you if you can tell me what kind of injury you have.”