Blood of the Sands (The Ballan Desert Book 1), page 1
Praise for S.C. Grayson
"Blood of the Sands is an enthralling enemies-to-lovers fantasy set in harsh desert landscape filled with fearsome creatures and unbridled magic. S.C. Grayson weaves a rich tale of a deadly competition rife with betrayal and a slow burn healing love that simmers with the perfect amount of spice. An absolutely fantastic start to this series!"
Tessonja Odette, author of the Entangled with Fae series
"A magical slow-burn fantasy romance with a unique magic system that will have you enthralled from the first moment you walk onto the sands of the desert to the last, Blood of the Sands is a captivating enemies-to-lovers read from beginning to end. I loved this story, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next!"
Elayna R. Gallea, author of A Game of Love and Betrayal
"Blood of the Sands is a Reylo fan's dream romantasy. With interesting and complex characters, high-stakes action, and a unique world, this book was an absolute delight from start to finish. Erix is my new favorite brooding, bad boy book boyfriend and Keera is a fiesty, stabby delight. I adore both of them and cannot wait to read more of this series."
Megan Van Dyke, best-selling author of Second Star to the Left
Copyright © 2024 by S.C. Grayson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact author@scgrayson.com.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Paperback ISBN: 979-8-9892825-7-9
Hardcover ISBN: 979-8-9892825-8-6
Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9892825-2-4
Cover design by Moonpress
www.moonpress.co
Hardcover case laminate design by Covaleinne
Editing by www.greymothediting.com
To anybody who has ever felt alone—
And turned to books to know that they are not.
Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by S.C. Grayson
Author’s Note
This book is a dark romantasy intended for adults. As such, it contains heavy themes and intense action typical of the genre, as well as on-page physical intimacy.
If you like your conflicts complicated, your stakes high, your characters morally gray, and your romance sizzling, this book is for you.
A full list of included themes can be found on the author’s website.
Prologue
Keera
The desert held her breath. She’d been my only companion for many years, and I knew her rhythms like I knew my own heartbeat—the swish of the burrowing owl’s wings and the brushing of wind over sands. While the desert seemed quiet to many, it was a symphony to those who knew how to listen.
Now, she fell quiet. Even rustling of the date palm leaves had ceased and the back of my neck prickled with awareness. Something deep in my belly stirred—something that had been dormant for so long I thought I had imagined it, not yet awakening but shifting.
The desert was waiting, and I stood with her on the precipice.
Something was coming.
Chapter One
THE VIPER
Sparks danced through the air as the blade of my saber clashed against my opponent’s. My blow was stronger than his, knocking his sword out of the way. He switched directions quickly, blocking my next strike before it could land.
The Lord of Clan Ratan wanted a battle with the Viper, so that is what he would get.
I pressed forward in a flurry of strikes, driving him back toward the edge of the circle of people watching us fight. His arms shook as he blocked my blows—he was growing tired.
Even as his movements became sluggish, his technique saved him from several strikes, speaking to the skills that allowed him to become Lord of Clan Ratan. I gritted my teeth at the show of his talents. He would have been useful in training the riders of the combined clans if he hadn’t gotten it in his head to challenge me to a duel of honor.
Such duels could only end one way.
Finally, the lord made a mistake, and I struck with a flick of my wrist. My opponent landed on his knees, saber dropping to the sand beside him. As the tip of my blade pressed into the space below his breastbone, not penetrating him but clearly showing my victory, he snarled up at me.
I stared back down at him in a mix of triumph and frustration. Battle had amplified the voice of the desert in my head, her power pounding through my veins. With magic coursing through me, begging for blood, it made gritting out my question difficult.
“Will Clan Ratan bow to Lord Alasdar and Clan Katal?”
“Over my dead body,” sneered Lord Einil.
It was a challenge, the lord mocking me. Duels in the Ballan Desert were to the death, and sparing your opponent was seen as a dishonor to both parties. My hesitation to end his life had not gone unnoticed, but I had no honor left to risk.
Before I could move, Lord Einil fell forward onto my sword, impaling himself on the blade. I hissed but did not pull away, staring into his face as the life drained from his eyes. My blood boiled at the waste of such a worthy warrior, one who could have been useful in saving the desert, but I leashed my anger through force of will.
The clans had to be united, and Lord Einil had left me no choice. He challenged me to a duel of honor as the condition of Clan Ratan’s allegiance, and a true warrior of the clans could not refuse such a challenge. The shouting of the desert in my mind reminded me of the urgency of my task.
With a decisive movement, I yanked my sword free of the corpse, and it teetered on its knees for a moment before collapsing to the ground. A hush had fallen over the surrounding crowd, but nobody protested my actions. The clans of the Ballan Desert understood power above all else.
I turned toward a young woman at the edge of the crowd, Einil’s daughter, who would now serve as lord of the clan. Leadership in the clans didn’t necessarily pass from parent to child, with riders of the Ballan Desert valuing power over blood. The way every member of the clan turned deferentially to her though told me she had been groomed to have the strength to lead.
“Lord Alasdar will expect Clan Ratan to join him within a fortnight.”
“I will see it done, Viper.”
The way she spat my title spoke of more insult than respect, but I paid her tone no mind. It didn’t matter what anybody thought of the masked warrior, Lord Alasdar’s Viper. I had been tasked with restoring the desert, no matter the cost. If my penance should be the hatred of the clans, then so be it.
I wiped the blade of my sword on the sand, and the shouting of the desert in my mind quieted to a whisper. As the crimson melted into the golden dune, I looked up to the sky, the rays of the sun moving quickly toward the horizon, piercing the openings around the eyes of my mask and heating the stifling metal against my skin. I drank in the rare moment of clarity that came after a fight, grateful to be able to hear my own thoughts where so often they were drowned out by the overwhelming crush of magic.
My saber was clean enough for now, and I sheathed it across my back with a sigh. I was envious of the blade—it didn’t have to think about its existence until it was brought out to draw blood, put away with no worries until the next fight. I needed to make my way back to Lord Alasdar.
I walked through the crowd, and they parted like water to let me through, no one daring to come too close. We were already near the edge of Clan Ratan’s encampment where my horse waited for me.
Alza tossed her head as I approached, throwing her glossy black mane into my face. At least she was happy to see me, greeting me with a low whicker. I spared her a pat on the forelock before vaulting onto her back and spurring her on with a squeeze of my knees. She picked her own pace across the sands, and I didn’t bother to direct her with my heels at her sides. The desert was pleased with me today and wouldn’t let me wander long before she offered place to rest.
The dunes flew by, familiar only in their ever-changing ways, the landscape shaped by the wind to be something entirely different, even though I had passed this way earlier in the day. An oasis appeared in the distance, and I directed Alza toward it with a nudge. The sight of date palms rising out of the greenery indicated that this oasis had at one point supported a clan’s encampment, and they had cultivated the trees to protect the water source from the wind and sands, making it a lasting haven for travelers. I could camp there tonight and let Alza drink her fill before rejoining with the rest of the clan tomorrow.
As the verdant splotch of the oasis in the otherwise golden landscape drew closer, I realized I was no longer alone in my own head again. The whispers of power in my mind returned so gradually that at first, I believed it was just the wind brushing against the sand. With each step Alza took toward our resting place though, they grew in volume until their words tumbled over each other in a violent cacophony, always unintelligible. As always, their tone seemed to suggest they wanted something, and I did my best to placate them by healing the desert the only way I knew how. By now, my annoyance with the incessant chattering was tinged dark with resignation.
I clutched at strands of Alza’s mane that caught in my fingers so tightly she snorted in protest. I released her mane, but the frustration that held me only gripped tighter. Usually feeding blood to the desert bought me at least a day of peace, but this time I only had hours. Darkness whirled and eddied in my vision, and I closed my eyes, trusting Alza to lead us to our destination without guidance.
The sudden cease of motion beneath me caused me to look around, finding that Alza stood at the edge of a small pool, gulping thirstily. I jumped down beside her but did not drink. That would have to wait until I took my mask off for the night.
For now, I busied myself setting up a camp. I wouldn’t need a tent as I was alone, and a small fire would suffice to warm me. It was the dry season, so the nights didn’t get as cold, and Alza generated more than enough warmth if I needed it. As I collected fallen branches from the date palms surrounding the oasis for fuel, the back of my neck prickled. The ghost of a breath brushed over my ear. I whipped around, searching for the source of the whisper. Looking around, I found it to only be my own madness playing tricks on me. This was not the first time it had done so. Still, I couldn’t shake the notion that the desert was stirring around me, the voices echoing in my skull taking on an excited tone. Where normally they were angry, crescendoing in anticipation every time I rode into battle, their cadence was different now.
I grunted in frustration as I waved my hand over the pile of fuel, and it burst into flame with more enthusiasm than I intended. My magic tried to slip its leash, still fizzling from the earlier battle. I dug my fingers into my palms, pushing away the buzzing power at the base of my skull that threatened to overwhelm me. I was only paying it such mind since it returned much more quickly than I was used to. I had lived with the constant voice of the desert since I was a boy, and it never truly abated. I could only hope they would calm when I fulfilled my task of healing her.
Having finished refreshing herself, Alza trotted over to inspect my progress. I lifted my small number of packs from her back so she could rest completely. While I rode with no saddle or bridle, as did all who called the Ballan Desert home, I roped supplies to Alza’s back for multiday trips, much to her dismay. As soon as I released them from her back, she rolled gleefully in the sand, rubbing dirt and grime into her shining midnight coat.
I located my sleeping mat and laid it out next to the fire, grateful for its warmth as the desert air cooled rapidly with the sun descended below the horizon line. The sweat beneath my mask chilled with it, itching along my nose and jawline where the metal sat against my skin.
Looking around to ensure my solitude, for the volume of the chattering in my head somehow suggested that I was not alone, I reached up to release the catches of the contraption. The metal fell away from my face, skin greeted by the evening breeze and the grit of sand always carried along with it. It was a jarring sensation, as I never removed the covering outside of the privacy of my own tent when in Clan Katal’s encampment. Out here in the dunes though, there was nobody to witness me but Alza and the desert, and they already knew of my sins.
Chapter Two
Keera
The wind pulled my hood back from my face, and I didn’t bother replacing it. I was too busy thanking my luck because the desert surely hadn’t brought the traveler to my oasis.
Crouched behind my rock, I could spy a lone figure silhouetted in the setting sun, moving around making camp. While it was hard to tell from a distance, the large frame suggested that it was a man, and a powerfully built one at that. A horse dipped its head to drink from the pool of water, indicating he was not an exile, just traveling separately from his clan. I tore my eyes away from the elegant slope of the animal’s neck, a lump in my throat, to consider the traveler further. I couldn’t see many details at this distance, but he appeared to only be wearing gray clothing with no colored sash to tell me which clan he hailed from. At least he didn’t wear a maroon sash, marking him as a member of Clan Padra. Something in me boiled at the thought of encountering one of my former people. Robbing them in the night wouldn’t be a great enough punishment for abandoning me.
I shoved that ugly line of thought away, despite the simmering low in my belly, in favor of considering why this man was here and how I might take advantage of his presence. After all, survival was the highest law of the desert.
It was odd to ride without the caravan of a clan, especially this far out from the Great City, but not unheard of. A rider alone was likely to get lost unless they had the favor of the desert, and it was not as if there were any map they could follow.
When I was a girl, I heard it said that those who came from beyond the mountains to visit the Great City of Kelvadan often asked for a map, hoping to trade with the clans of the Ballan Desert. This request would only ever be met with a laugh and a shake of the head. The Ballan Desert was a living thing, ever changing with the winds and her mood. Only trusting the desert with your life—or death—could bring you to your destination. Even then, journeys that took the fastest rider days could take only an afternoon for another. One time, a member of my former clan had ridden in one direction for hours, only to find himself right back where he started. The desert was as harsh as she was beautiful, and without her favor, I was forced to remain at my oasis or risk never finding my way back.
Try as they might, those who came from beyond the mountain couldn’t draw a map of the Ballan Desert. So, they were forced to do all their trading at the Great City of Kelvadan. The thought of the city that could be my only haven made me swallow around the dryness in my throat.
Even when the crushing isolation at my oasis nearly drove me mad, and I considered setting out for Kelvadan—the one place I might be able to make a home for myself—I hesitated. I had been trapped here at my oasis by the knowledge of what the desert often did to those who journeyed alone. Every time desperation gripped at my heart, and I began trudging away from my oasis in search of a reprieve from loneliness, my feet became leaden. Icy fear dripped down my spine, and I would be unable to continue, despite the overwhelming need to be free of the prison of my isolation. Sinking sands or terrifying mirages that made you wander for hours awaited those without the desert’s favor who set out on their own. The desert’s approval had abandoned me here at the same time Clan Padra left me alone among the sands to die.
I hadn’t been lucky enough to find a clan, yet alone a lone traveler, in far too long. My supplies ran thin, and without a new weapon, I wouldn’t be able to hunt for much longer.
Crouched behind that rock, I watched the man set up a sleeping mat. My thighs ached from my stillness as I waited for him to sleep, but he sat staring into the fire for hours. Still, I dared not move and draw his attention, or worse yet, look away to find that he had only been an illusion—a cruel trick of the desert in the face of my growing hunger or my unyielding desire for the voice of another human. It wouldn’t be the first time I imagined such a thing, although the last time I had been recovering from the venomous bite of a snake, delirious from the poison in my veins.
