Page 103 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
A vibration passed beneath her bare feet. Asher steadied her, his palm flat to the small of her back. She could feel the burning under his skin. His bark was splitting in places along his ribs, golden sap trickling down his abdomen like molten sunlight. His body wasn’t handling this well, either.
The land did not want them joined.
It wanted proof.
Then the first crack opened.
Not in the ground. In the air.
A jagged seam tore open between them and the center of the hollow. The sky above the Watcher turned black. A vortex of shadow formed overhead, laced with firelight. Wind shrieked in a circular scream.
From the center, a shape began to rise.
It was a body made of stone and root and the outline of desire. Female and not. Blooming and broken. Its limbs split at the joints, flexing outward in motions that bent too far, toowrong. It dragged itself forward with the sound of breaking branches and grinding teeth.
Nora’s chest seized.
The form opened its mouth, and her own voice came out.
“Let the land decide what survives.”
Twisting vines burst from the base of the Watcher and whipped toward them in twin spirals. Asher stepped in front of her with a roar, his body widening, bark crawling up his chest and arms in thick protective plates. The first lash struck his shoulder. Shattered bark flew. A second snapped across his back, leaving a welt that pulsed gold.
Nora staggered back, grabbing the obsidian blade from her bag. She hadn’t even realized it was there. It pulsed in her hand, hot and eager. A tool. A weapon. A promise.
“Asher—” she began, but he was already lunging forward, swinging his arm in a wide arc that sent a spray of golden sap and earth-light out across the sand.
The vines retreated.
The shape in the center hissed.
The storm built fast. Vines shot upward from the ground in thickets, clawing toward the sky. Roots cracked upward through the stone, trying to cage them in. The wind tore at their bodies. The sun vanished.
The only light left was them.
Nora’s skin burned at the collarbone. The mark blazed. The obsidian vibrated in her hand.
She and Asher looked at each other across the crack that had just opened between them.
And they stepped into the storm.
Together.
The crack widened between them. Sand poured downward into the rift like blood from a wound, and the surrounding light dimmed. The desert inhaled.
And then it pulled them apart.
One blink, and Nora was gone from Asher’s side. One blink more, and the sky itself fractured.
Nora fell backward into something that wasn’t air, wasn’t solid. Just pressure. She didn’t scream. There wasn’t time. There wasn’t gravity. There wasn’t sound. There was only the feeling of being turned inside out and scattered like dust.
When the fall ended, she landed on her feet—but not in her body.
The world around her was desert, but not the one she knew. It was night here, though the stars blinked wrong. The air was suffocating. The sand glowed faintly beneath her bare feet.
She looked down. Her skin shimmered.
No.
