Page 131 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
CHAPTER 26
IT STARTED WITH a flicker.
A shimmer at the edge of her vision, so faint it might have been heat haze or trick of the sun. But it came again. A glint across the sand, brief and soft and oddly rhythmic. Not light bouncing, not glass or water. Something older. Slower.
She blinked once and it was gone.
But the feeling lingered.
Like the edge of a dream that refused to fully vanish.
She stepped out into the yard, mug in hand, still warm from sleep, barefoot in the powder-soft dirt. The air was warmer than it should have been for early morning, thick with the scent of blooming creosote, cracked stone, the faintest trace of sage.
The light had changed, deeper in tone, as if it had thickened overnight. Shadows lingered longer in the corners. The sky was streaked with rose and honey.
She looked down at her bare feet.
Three small flowers bloomed from her footprints.
The wind wrapped around her ankles, tugged at the hem of her shirt, curled along the mark at her throat.
Inside, Asher moved through the house. She could feel him, sense him. The weight of him on the boards. The heat of him across the threshold. He was humming low, his rhythm synced with hers in a way that still made her ache.
He stepped into the doorway just as she turned.
Their eyes met. She smiled.
He stilled and tilted his head.
Then stepped down into the yard.
She turned toward the basin without looking back.
They walked barefoot through the morning hush.
The Hollow Wash lie ahead, like the memory of a place. The Watcher lay cracked in the distance, vines creeping gently through its fault lines. Flowers swayed where blood had once soaked. The air felt heavy with resonance.
Every part of her was aware. Her skin tingled where his hand had rested hours ago. Her breath felt too large for her lungs. Her chest, her thighs, her throat were all open, all humming.
When they reached the heart of the basin, the wind died down. The light shifted. The quiet grew deeper.
Nora stepped forward first and pressed her palm to the dust.
It hummed through the ground, then through her.
Up her wrist. Through her chest. Beneath her ribs.
An answer.
The land didn’t want blood anymore. Or ritual. Or fire.
It wanted celebration.
She wasn’t walking toward transformation.
Shewasthe transformation.
And now it was time to bloom.
