War of the Bastards (Royal Bastards) by Andrew Shvarts

Author:Andrew Shvarts [Shvarts, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2019-06-03T18:30:00+00:00

I’LL GIVE THE RED WASTES this. The name is extremely literal.

We’re talking massive, sloping dunes, the vibrant crimson of a blooming rose, endless sprawls of sand in the smoldering red of a sunset’s heart. I’d never seen anything like it, never imagined anything like it, an ocean of color brighter than any painting I’d ever seen, that sparkled like a million diamonds in the sunlight and glowed a gentle orange even in the dead of night.

It wasn’t just the color (though a lot of it was the color). It was also the scale. Once we were out in the Wastes, four days after leaving Tau Lorren, it was like everything else in the world had vanished. There was just sand, beautiful and vibrant crimson sand, stretching out in all directions as far as the eye could see. There were no rocks, no plants, no wandering animals or birds circling overhead, just this great red sea with its mountainous waves and placid surface. Every now and again we’d pass a slab of crystal, reflective as a mirror, jutting out like a spike or lying flat like a buried relic. Other than that, it was just red sand forever. It was stunning, astounding, impossibly peaceful and serene.

I had no idea how anyone could possibly live out here.

The sun bore down hot overhead, but the terzans didn’t seem to mind. They just marched forward, padding effortlessly over the dunes, leaving a trail of handprints in their wake. At night, we fed them hunks of dried meat from our packs, and they cuddled up in a big slumbering pile of snorting nostrils and floppy hands. Mine was apparently named Gribshanks, and I’ll have it noted that at no point in the journey did I ever come to like him.

Navigating was its whole own challenge, because there were exactly zero landmarks to guide us. Trell and Syan led the way, gathering side by side every few hours to do some weird magic that involved their zaryas zipping around overhead, leaving grids of glowing lines in the sky. Lyriana and Ellarion spent twenty minutes one day debating how it worked, and when they finally asked the Red Wasters, they’d shrugged and said “It just does.”

Three days into our journey, the Waste Sickness began to hit. I’d been feeling weird all day, a low rumbling nausea building up in my gut, a dull throb stabbing in the sides of my head. I’d figured it was just me, but as we settled into camp, I could see that the others were feeling it too; Zell rubbed at his temples, and my father wobbled unsteadily on his feet.

“Do you feel that?” Lyriana asked Ellarion, squinting all around like the sun was in her eyes. “In the air. It’s like…like…”

“Magic,” Ellarion answered, his brow slick with sweat, his teeth gritted. “All around us. But it’s raw, unfocused, like…”

“Like that Titan crypt,” Lyriana finished. She looked down at her hand, and a tiny burst of flame enveloped it, flared purple, and vanished.

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