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“What did he give you?” I keep my voice low, nodding toward the pouch now tucked into Sacha’s belt.

“Desert bread and dried meat. Enough for a day or two.” He doesn’t look at me. “He also shared patrol routes. Ones we can avoid."

The first hint of dawn appears on the horizon, illuminating shadowy shapes against the lightening sky. The distant mountains are more defined now, jagged peaks and gentler hills coming into view.

“We should reach the foothills by high sun.”

I look back, trying to see the oasis, and gauge how far we’ve come. It’s just a dark smudge behind us. The brief moment of safety already feels like a dream, replaced by the reality of our journey across the desert.

“What happens when we reach them?” I turn back to face the rising sun.

“We find allies, and places the High Authority doesn’t control … if any still exist.”

The pause is small, but it rattles me. For all the strange power I’ve seen him command, and the quiet certainty he carries, there’s a thread of doubt in him. It’s the first time I’ve heard it.

Twenty-seven years is a long time. The world he knew may have changed beyond recognition.

The sandstriders move faster now, guided by Sacha, who seems eager to cover as much ground as possible before the heat builds. The desert changes again, shadows giving way to the clear light of morning.

I cling to the saddle, still trying to match the creature’s rhythm. Ahead lies a world I don’t understand, full of dangers I can’t predict. Zealots who would kill for the crime of being different. Rules I don’t know. Creatures I can’t name. Behind me lies a desert that nearly killed me once, and might still succeed if given another chance.

And beside me rides a man with power over shadows, his true nature still as unreadable as the day I found him. I’ve slept under a shelter he created from nothing. I’ve watched his eyes turn black as night. I’ve seen anger flash and vanish again. And once or twice, a kind of quiet exhaustion that doesn’t quite fit with the rest.

What awaits us in those mountains? What will I learn about this strange world, and the man who is guiding me through it?

With each mile we travel, the tower and its certainties fall further behind. With each revelation—customs preserved in defiance ofauthority, the threat that hangs over anyone connected to magic—this world becomes more real, more complex.

With each passing day, one question grows louder in my mind.

Will I ever make it back home?

Chapter Ten

SACHA

“Even silence speaks, when spoken to by the right kind of question.”

Wisdom of the Wandering Sages

“Doyou really think you’ll find people you know?” Ellie’s gaze is fixed on the distant peaks of Thornevale Ridge, their uneven outlines cutting into the sky like broken teeth.

“Maybe.” The word tastes bitter. Hope is a luxury I abandoned a long time ago. “But even if no one remains, I can get answers.” I scan our surroundings, checking every shadow, every potential point of ambush. Old habits never die. “Before my imprisonment, I had connections in these mountains. Sanctuaries where those hunted by the Authority could disappear.”

“But after twenty-seven years …”

“Indeed.” I incline my head. Time alters everything—loyalties, names, the memory of a cause. “What existed then may no longer remain. People die. Networks fail. Even a stone wears down, given enough time.”

She frowns, considering my words. “What will we do if there’s nothing left?”

“Adapt.”Power moves through my veins with each heartbeat, stronger now with every mile we’ve traveled away from the tower. Freedom tastes like copper and possibility on my tongue. “Survive. Gather information. Plan. The principles of survival don’t change, only the shape of the world does.”

I guide the sandstriders toward a jut of stone that breaks the skyline. My mount slows beneath me, scales rippling as it lowers its head to nose through the scrub along the rocks. I open the leather pouch and remove bread and dried meat, which I hand to Ellie.

Our fingers brush as she takes it from me, nothing more than a barely-there contact, but it sends an unexpected jolt of awareness through me. I’m not sure I’ll ever become used to physical human contact again, not after so long without it.

“How much farther are we going today?” Ellie takes a sip from the waterskin, then offers it to me.

For someone torn from her world mere days ago, she’s showing remarkable adaptability. The question of what makes her different is a constant in the back of my mind. What quality allowed her to answer my summons when countless others couldn’t hear it?