Page 90 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
His eyes met hers, and he spoke.
“I can’t hold it back forever. The desert devours unless you bloom.”
His voice sounded like wind through stone, ancient, strained, real.
Behind him, the desert pulsed, alive and hungry.
She tried to step forward, but the ground beneath her was crumbling. Loose sand. Burnt petals.
Another shape flickered behind him. It was a woman, but not Nora. At least not now. A memory.
She reached for him, but it was too late.
The flames swallowed her, and Asher bowed his head again, as if he already knew how it would end.
Nora gasped awake. The mark on her neck pulsed like a heartbeat not her own. Her body ached like it was splitting open.
She stared at the ceiling, breath shallow, until the morning light reached her skin.
Then she moved.
Water. The stone. The note. The obsidian blade. A bundle of dried flowers. The map. One of Orin’s journals.
She tied her hair back. Looked in the mirror.
Her eyes were still hers. But deeper now. Lit with something old.
“I’m not asking,” she said.
“I’m answering.”
And then she stepped into the heat.
And this time, the land opened for her.
CHAPTER 19
THE DESERT WASN’T quiet. It was listening. Like the land was waiting to see what she would do next.
Nora walked out before sunrise, her feet crunching over brittle sand, the edge of common sense, and whatever was left of hesitation. The map was folded in her pocket, but she didn’t need it. Her body knew the way now.
The obsidian pulsed warm, heavy in her palm. Like it had been waiting too.
She wanted to wait for him. To give him a chance to show up, explain, choose her.
But he hadn’t.
And maybe the journal was right.
Maybe it had to start with her.
And maybe she was tired of waiting. Tired of aching. Tired of being the one left behind.
So she walked.
Because the dream had shown her enough.
She was no longer asking.
