Page 97 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
The obsidian shuddered once, then exploded, split down the center, its two halves hitting the ground like thrown dice.
A wind screamed through the wash.
Nora tried to crawl backward. Her hands sank into the dirt like it was trying to keep her. Her blood sizzled on the ground from the cut on her arm, and the mark on her throat flared like it was being branded from the inside.
The desert surged.
Heat poured up from below her. Wet heat, slick and electric, like a pulse, like a flood. She gasped and the air ripped down her throat, dry as glass.
The change hit next.
Her veins lit up, blazing gold beneath her skin. Her thighs clenched. Her back arched. Her bones felt wrong, like her skeleton was trying to unlace itself from the inside.
She screamed.
But the wind swallowed it whole.
She began to convulse, her limbs seizing, wild and involuntary. Her fingertips dug into the ground. Her nipples ached under her shirt. Between her legs, she pulsed with unbearable pressure. Her skin glowed so hot it felt like it might split open.
Her vision fractured. Her limbs gave out. She fell.
Images broke across her mind like mirrors:
A woman like her, bent over with blood running from her mouth.
A dead bloom wrapped in red thread.
A storm that wanted something and would take it if it wasn’t offered.
Asher, standing in the dark, splitting open like a tree struck by lightning.
Nora’s cheek pressed into the dirt.
Her body was burning from the inside. Her mouth tasted like copper and flowers.
She wasn’t crying anymore.
She was glowing.
Out of control. Unheld.
And the land knew it.
The earth groaned beneath her, like something old and starved turning over in its sleep. The Watcher pulsed again, casting its shadow like a net.
She had given everything.
And the desert still wanted more.
Just before blackness took her, she opened her mouth one last time. Nothing came out.
The ritual hadn’t failed.
It had refused her.
And she was no longer sure the land would give her back.
The world didn’t go black.
