Nightfall couldn't come soon enough and still came too soon. Nestled in the pitch shelter of a watchtower, Raya watched her short breaths curl into wisps of white fog as the city's temperature plunged, sure she'd left her real body behind in her warm, safe bedroom. No part of her could keep up with being here. Her mind raced so fast it blurred, leaving her blank.

Darkness muddied the colour of the sands, smearing the desert in slants of umber. With no wind to breathe life into them, they sat still, and that only accentuated the gaping emptiness that lay beyond the border. She stared long and hard, but there was nothing—nothing but a sharp horizon and a watching, waiting cascade of stars.

It lacked a pulse. Lying so motionless, the vast expanse reminded her of a corpse.

The thought rolled in a swathe of unwelcome memories: lifeless, inhuman eyes staring glassily from death-ridden husks, full of blame; the crackle of flames as they ate through mottled fur; skeletal beasts bleeding in the dust, broken limbs askew, decaying in a pool of silence. A shiver rattled her bones, clawing at her lungs. Corpses had a tendency to haunt her.

Scuffling motion sprang up in the corner of her eye, and a jolt of alarm went through her like lightning through a metal pole, fierce enough she nearly tripped. A scream tore up her throat. Desperately, she clamped both hands over her mouth, muffling it to a squeak, but her heart's pound was loud enough to drown it out regardless.

She felt silly immediately. Having slipped into the same shadow she hid in, Corvin blinked at her, going still. He scanned the area around them—empty as everywhere else, barren like any other night—and shot her a puzzled look.

She prised her hands away and forced them to her sides, fingers curling in a vain attempt to cage her thrashing heart. "Sorry," she breathed. "Did you see anyone up on the watchtower?"

He nodded. Within the first one or two minutes of slipping out of the house alongside him, she'd noticed the ease with which he moved amid the dark, and it hadn't been hard to figure out from there that he must possess unusually enhanced senses. Where she could only make out vague shapes outlined by the stars, swaddled in blinding shades of black and grey, he showed little sign of reduced vision at all. Where nighttime was set to ambush her at every corner, it looked natural on him. Moonlight sheened his hair and bounced white off his antlers, granting him an ethereal glow only furthered by the intensity of his gaze.

In gesture, he lifted a singular pale, slender finger. "One human."

Raya's breath snagged. She'd been counting on a relaxed security patrol; watchmen were usually sparse after twilight, deemed excessive when beast attacks barely ever fell during the night, and this was the quietest segment of the border she could think of. Her chest ached, ready to crack open.

The quirk of Corvin's smile dried up the anxious words on her tongue, however. "Calm." His whisper was firm and surprisingly effective. When his grin widened, his teeth flashed. "He is sleeping."

Raya couldn't make herself fully soak in the words. "You're sure?"

Lifting his arms, he folded them in mid-air and slumped his head into the crook of his elbow, eyes shutting as he mimed an open-mouthed snore. When he jumped out of the pose, his eyes glittered even brighter.

Lingering panic smothered the majority of her amusement, but a flicker of a smile toyed with her lips. Her thudding heart and unsteady legs begged her to tell him no, to back out now while she still could, but instead she reached for the edge of her cloak's hood. With it tugged low over her face, all but the twin, trailing strands of her inky hair were tucked out of sight, and muted blue washed over her peripheral vision, hiding everything except Corvin's eager face.

"We should still stay quiet," she murmured, feet shifting beneath her, "but—"

"I know." He rolled his shoulders in a tense shrug. He wasn't entirely relaxed either, but his steps were keen and feather-light as he trod around her, one backward glance tossed. "Follow."

Hugging her miscoloured cloak close, she did as he said.

In contrast to the city's maze of sandbrick, the sharp divisions that cut the farming squares and trimmed-out passages that formed Tehazihbith's paths, the open air was overwhelming. Nothing physical really marked the border, but she felt the very moment she passed it, gentle but firm like a cord snapping against her chest as she pushed through it. Beyond that, every step plunged her deeper into blank darkness. It was a form of falling, moving further into this empty space. The sand was soft, giving too easily beneath her sandals like its grains were waves set to carry her away into the dark.

The white highlights of Corvin's antlers were all she had to look at, but even they were hard to focus on. Shoulders shaking, she twisted to glance back at the city. Tiny lights bled from behind curtained windows and crawled up the sharp peak of a pyramid, stark against the onyx horizon, granting the place a bluish aura fierce enough to stain the sky. It blotted the brightest of stars and paled the crescent moon hung to the east. Though Tehazihbith sprawled beyond sight, spreading far enough that the shadows swallowed its edges, the vastness of the night made it appear small from outside. This singular view held her entire life. If she lifted a hand, she could cradle it on her palm.

Paranoia nudged her attention to the watchtower. Without Corvin's sharpened senses, she could only make out the outline of a man, creases of his layered robes wrapped around his legs, his arms and drooped head propped against the rail. He showed no sign of movement.

She managed not to flinch this time when Corvin reappeared at her side. She hadn't noticed herself stop, back turned entirely to the desert now as she stood paralysed by the sight of her home. She peeled back the edge of her hood to let in his curious stare.

Her throat was rough as she swallowed. "I—I'm not so sure about this." Her voice cracked, and she dipped her head, arms tightening around her middle. "This is far enough. We should go back."

Fingers like settling dust, he touched her shoulder, coaxing her head up. He shook his head. "Not enough."

"I don't think it's safe." Her gaze roamed the sands—the scooped slants of dunes, the stretching nothingness. "Is there anything out here at all, even?"

His eyes were a mirror of their surroundings tinged with undue warmth, night and the reddened hue of the sun where it didn't belong. "I will show you."

The beat of silence bound her in place. This was another choice, and it seemed a decision too far.

His touch faded, then skittered down her arm until his fingertips teased at hers. "Please," he whispered. For someone who spoke her language with such a foreign lilt, that word was full and round.

She didn't need to say or do anything, not really. All it took was a nod, and she could let him lead.

His hand threaded into hers did more guiding than pulling, but it was an anchor all the same, something real to hold her steady amid the illusions the shadows conjured. Nobody made a habit of going outside during the night, fearing the cold and the cover stolen by any potentially lurking beasts, so she was lost, her senses washed out like dust in a river. She wondered whether this was how Hariq felt all the time. If so, she couldn't bring herself to understand why he strove so much for independence. She was more than content to cling to Corvin's hand. Dizzy disorientation drowned any possibility of shame.

The ground grew gradually steeper, curving up towards the multiplying stars, then sank downward again. Her feet skidded ahead of her and sand spilled into the heel of her sandal. She stumbled and shrank closer to Corvin, aware of the deafening quiet and the drum of her heart. When she looked back this time, the dune they'd crossed hid Tehazihbith from view.

Loneliness scratched at her. Peering at the side of Corvin's face, she tried not to think of the frost layering her skin. The cold was even more startling than the dark. "Further?" she asked.

He squeezed her hand. "Little."

Only when they reached the base of the dune, cupped low in a desert crater, did he slow to a stop. He bumped her arm, grin shy and full of waiting delight. With her mind half-frozen, she could only look back in confusion.

"Here?" Aside from the shape of the land—soft and tenderly jagged, as if carved by a knife—their surroundings looked the same as they had from the city's outskirts.

The flick of his eyes matched his simple instruction: "Look up."

She complied without hesitation, and the sight emptied her lungs.

The land she stood upon might've been limp as a corpse, but the sky above teemed with life. So far from the boundless blue she knew well, the velveteen black was crowded with stars; they scrawled pictures in the sky, painting a thousand stories woven in and out of one another. Streaks of rich purples and indigos more concentrated than any her family had worn breathed new light into the dark. If mere shadows could dwarf her city, this endless array of colours and worlds made her feel very tiny indeed. Her name and her magic meant nothing to the uncountable stars.

It was comforting. All of a sudden, being lost didn't seem so bad, not when it was this beautiful.

She didn't notice the moment at which Corvin slid his hand from hers, nor exactly when he put his flute to his lips and started to play. The sweet, hollow notes soared upward as if they had wings, transforming the dead silence into tranquillity.

Silhouetted against the twinkling lights, a shape cut itself out of the night. It swooped over the moon and blacked out more stars, growing in size, until its edged spread into long, craggy limbs—wings, feathered and large enough to support a large, curvaceous body. Realisation shot up Raya's spine and chilled swiftly into horror. A soft gasp fleeing her lips, she stepped back, toes curled and quaking legs ready to run.

"Corvin." Her lips hardly shaped his name, pushing out the warning as little more than a breath. His left ear twitched, but whether he heard her or not, he didn't move. His flute trilled on.

The creature dragged a sweeping gust with it as it descended, whipping the sands into a flurry, wings twisting a bracing angle before they flattened into broad arcs. Four squat feet thudded into the dip, covered in shaggy fur that thinned at each leg joint and sprouted thick anew to hang from its underbelly, tangled and mottled grey. A tail like a bushy whip snapped this way and that. Its ears were long and pricked, eyes dark and dotted by a beady pupil. Its too-broad snout split to reveal crowded, yellow rows of teeth. Hot air puffed from its nostrils as it snorted, head jerking.

The hairs on the back of Raya's neck prickled, all standing on end. The beast was huge, undoubtedly the biggest she'd seen, and its movements were tense, feet shifting an uncomfortable pattern of movement. A single stomp of one of those thick, toeless feet could crush a young mage. Flashes of damage and destruction overtook the previous peace of her thoughts, awaking her instincts. With panicked hands, she clawed at her dust pouch.

The beast's overlarge eyes pounced on her and grew narrow. It sank low on its haunches, a keening growl resonating from within its jaw.

Corvin snapped to look at her, too. His flute music cut out. She saw the shock and alarm in his face, the hasty shake of his head as his shoulders bunched, but it was too late.

The beast sprang.

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