My knuckles turned white where I held onto to Cai's shirt in front of me.
He didn't ask my if I've ridden a horse before like Altan had. And instead of letting me ride in front of him where he could place his arms on either side of me and keep me from falling, Cai simply threw me on the back of his appaloosa horse and told me to hold on.
After we walked away from the wall for a bit, Cai suddenly dug his heels in to the horses sides and the horse lurched forward and increased speed. I nearly screamed as I wrapped my arms around Cai's waist to keep myself from being left in the sand. The hood of my cloak flew back on its own and I didn't pull it back for fear of letting go of him.
If he cared at all that I was touching him so much, he didn't show it. So I continued to hold on and the scent of his clothing filled my lungs. Cai smelled like water, but not like rain water or ocean water, he smelled like the cool breeze that blows off a lake, he smelled like freedom.
Although, I'm not sure if what he offered me was really freedom or not. Apparently I have to stay beside him until he can decide how he wants me to repay our debt. How long will that take? and does he have some terrible idea planned? What if I end up stuck by him as his loser-ly sidekick for the next few years? I guess that's better than being stuck in a palace as one of many wives.... right?
We rode until the horse slowed, and when I didn't feel the need to hold onto Cai for dear life anymore I straightened and looked behind me.
I don't know what I expected to see, maybe the great city of Kiziljer and its tall sandstone walls. But there was nothing behind us. Nothing but sand dunes. In every direction, it was the same: sand dunes and a gray sky.
"Well, look at that." Cai spoke.
"What?" I blinked, and squinted ahead of us, there was nothing to see except sand.
Cai lifted one of his legs then spun on his butt so he sat sideways on his saddle. "Right there." he pointed out across the sand to my right, and I caught glimpse of what he was talking about. A group of riders raced across the sand dunes throwing sand up behind them as they went. They were a good distance away from us so they were barely visible, just small dots on the sand, with one riding further ahead of the rest. "And that one," he pointed to the rider that sped ahead of the rest, "Is your Duke."
~Altan?~
"What?" My eyes searched the rider with all my might but I could see nothing of him but the silhouette of a man riding a horse. "How can you tell?"
Cai shrugged and lifted one of his feet so he could rest an elbow on his knee. I'd never seen anyone ride a horse in such a way, but the appaloosa underneath us seemed to care less and continued walking on through the desert. "It's just intuition."
"Intuition?" I raised an eyebrow at him then looked back to where Altan apparently rode through the sand, he was becoming a dot on the horizon now.
"Well, the city I sent him to is that way," he pointed in the direction we were heading, and the way from which Altan had come. "I suspect when he saw clouds and caught word of rain in Kiziljer he knew exactly what was happening. He's not stupid, he probably didn't think rain before his wedding was some good omen, he probably knew it was the work of a Water Mage."
"So you think he knows you helped me escape?"
"No." Cai swung his leg back over the saddle and turned his back to me again. "He probably thinks Water Mages were sent to kill you. He's probably expecting to find you dead when he gets there, not missing."
I quieted at Cai's words and he kicked the horse back into a run. I wrapped my arms around him again but for some reason I didn't feel excited about my escape anymore. I could imagine Altan riding his black horse as fast as he could trying to get to Kiziljer, I could imagine how distressed he must have felt if what Cai said was true, if he was assuming that he would find me dead. And I could only imagine what he might feel when he arrives to find me missing. Would he start looking for me immediately?
The rest of the day went on that way, we would run for a while, then walk for a while. We took breaks every so often so that Cai could conjure water to give to his horse and me, then we would continue on. Cai and I ran out of things to talk about relatively early on, which left me with the only entertainment of my thoughts and the sun that slowly made it's way across the sky.
By the time the sun was finally setting we came to a wall. It was similar to the sandstone that surrounded Kiziljer, except it was barely standing in most places and houses and tents were built incoherently on either side of it. Cai rode his horse over a portion of the broken wall and led us into a sandy street. This town was not as well-kept as Kiziljer, the streets were dirtier, the houses more decrepit, and homeless people laid on the street side eyeing us on our horse as we walked by. I pulled the hood of my cloak up over my eyes and kept my face pinched to Cai's back.
"We're here." Cai said and slid from the horses saddle, he didn't help me off and I somehow ended up sliding off the horses butt. I heard a couple passersby's laughing at me and I covered my face more. "You'll need to get better at riding." Cai looked at me seemingly unamused. "In the meantime, I have someone for you to meet."