“How do you know where to go?” Phoebe asked. “We could be anywhere right now.”

“No, not anywhere,” I contradicted.

“Okay, fine, not anywhere. We’re definitely in Dhal’at. But we could be anywhere in Dhal’at.”

I stopped walking. The sky overhead was a blanket as black as Novain hair, but it was perforated with so many white, winking stars that it cast enough light upon us to offer a semblance of sight. It was the darkest time of the lunar cycle, so we were without the silvery rays, but I could see well enough. I bent down, licked the pad of my forefinger, and pressed it into the sand. When I straightened up again, several grains stuck to my skin, and I extended them toward Phoebe.

“What do you see?”

She grabbed my wrist and pulled it closer to her, squinting down at my finger. “Nothing,” she said.

Human eyes were far more insensitive than A’li-uud eyes, so I reached for my sheath. Extracting the dagger, I twirled it in my free hand to rest the blade flush against my palm. This left the hilt exposed and facing Phoebe, and the geodes embedded into the crafted handle shone a delicate ruby aura onto her soft cheeks.

“Now?” I pressed.

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “Little dots, I guess. Sand.”

“Look closer.” I raised my finger closer to her face, also bringing the dagger nearer to better illuminate my demonstration.

She shook her head exasperatedly and said, “I don’t know what you want me to be seeing, Zuran. I’m not a warrior or anything; I didn’t even do Girl Scouts. It just looks like sand to me.”

“It looks like sand because it is sand,” I replied, crooking a brow. She crinkled her face in return, but I was not deterred. If she was to tag along with me on this expedition, she would have to learn a thing or two in the event we were separated. “I am asking you to examine the sand. Notice its size, its shape. What do you see?”

Her frustration melting away, she seized my wrist again and twisted it at an unnatural angle to peer only inches above my fingertip. She was silent for a long moment, and I remained equally still and silent to avoid interrupting her. Finally, she said, “They’re square. And small.”

“Yes.” I pulled my hand away and bent down again, this time scooping up an entire handful of sand. I held it out to her and nodded my head, indicating I wanted her to take the pile. She cupped her hands together, and I poured it onto her palms. “Now, feel it. Roll it around, push on it, rub it on your skin. How does it feel?”

“Rough,” she grimaced, curling her fingers into the grains and massaging.

“What does that tell you?”

She looked at me with genuine confusion. “I don’t know.”

I gathered her hands in one of mine and tipped them over, spilling the sand back onto the ground. “It means it has not been broken down, eroded, like other types of sand. Its edges are jagged, and the grains are still large, relatively speaking. This indicates we are somewhere that is not heavily trafficked, and the weather is mild.”

“It doesn’t feel mild when the sun’s beating down,” she said, dusting her palms on her pants.

“In comparison to other regions of Dhal’at, the winds and storms are mild,” I explained. “Have you never walked the desert outside the Ka-lik’et walls? The sand is like silk, soft and drifting. This is because there is much activity in that region.”

“Okay,” she uttered slowly. “So, we know we’re in a remote area, but we already knew that.”

I held up a single finger. “Not just remote. Mild-weathered,” I pointed out. “That means we are in northern Dhal’at, as the winds grow stronger and the population swells the further south we go.”

She pursed her lips thoughtfully, bouncing her head from side to side with consideration, and then asked, “That means we just need to go south, right?”

“In theory, yes,” I agreed. “We begin by going south, but that alone will not necessarily mean we will reach Ka-lik’et. We will need to observe other clues along the way.”

“Wow,” she said suddenly. She jammed her hands onto her hips and shifted her weight back onto her right leg, looking at me with unexpected awe. “You’re more like me than I thought.”

I did not take offense to the analogy, but I was still curious. “How so?”

“Well, what you just did with the sand, analyzing it and using your knowledge to come to a reasonable conclusion, is exactly what we’re trying to do with the Novai,” she expounded. “You’re smarter than you want to seem, I think.”

I resumed walking again, and she fell into step beside me. “I do not seek to present myself as an imbecile,” I objected.

“Yeah, but you act as if you like it when people underestimate you.” She was looking at me; I could feel her gaze, though I did not look back.

“Underestimation is an asset,” I said. “When failure is expected, success is celebrated.”

Her eyes were drilling into my temple, urging me to meet her stare. “You don’t think success is celebrated even when it’s expected?” she inquired.

“I think the negative will always prevail over the positive, in both A’li-uud and humans,” I responded. “A good deed is easily forgotten. A bad deed is never forgotten.”

Phoebe grunted. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“You think it untrue because you wish it to be untrue,” I said, finally looking at her. She frowned. “Believe me, Mother and Father can tell you each and every time I was brought home by a guard, but the day Venan graduated from training is nothing but a distant memory for them. I am certain that is the root of his overachievement.”

“Well, that couldn’t have been easy for him,” she murmured empathetically. “When you do everything right, and nobody notices while your sibling messes up and gets a bunch of attention. That would make anyone frustrated.”

I gave her a devious half-smile. “Maybe, but frustrating him has always been one of my favorite pastimes.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she laughed, rolling her eyes.

“No? My charm has not deluded you into believing I am nothing but pure in spirit?”

She turned her laugh into a fake cough and dramatically said, “Oh, of course, it has. I am totally under your spell, Zuran.”

I took a great stride ahead of her and spun, cutting her off in her tracks. She looked up at me in surprise, and I contemplated her momentarily. In the darkness, with only the stars to shed a whit of light upon her, she was ethereal. Her skin was pale as cream, and seemed to glow while her features were masked in the shadow of night. She was almost spooky, and it was a beautiful spectacle.

“Are you?” I intoned softly. “Are you under my spell?”

Her lips parted, and I heard the effervescence of breath slip between her teeth. The air no longer felt chilly against my skin as prickling, bubbling heat flooded my core and skimmed out to every limb. It was too black to see the details of her expression, but the whites of her eyes had grown exponentially, and the darkness did nothing to mute the vivid greenery of her orbs.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice a lilt against my ear.

I reached for her, cupping her chin between my fingers. Again, there was a slip of a gasp, but I did not stop. I turned her face upward bit by bit until her neck was sensually taut. With my other hand, I grazed my fingertips from her jaw to her collar, slowly, slowly, with feather-light softness.

“What do you see?” I murmured.

Time stopped moving in that moment. The desert, the starry sky, the dunes, Dhal’at and even Albaterra as a whole disappeared, leaving only Phoebe and me to the ether. Only we existed. Only we mattered. Her lashes fluttered, and she spoke.

“You.”