Author's Preface
The hum of the ventilation was gone, replaced by a cold, heavy silence.
Consciousness came back in piece by piece. First, a high-pitched ringing in Halima's ears that crowded out every other sound. Then the reek of burnt plastic and scorched metal, coating her tongue in a bitter film. Finally, a dull, throbbing pain spread through her shoulders where the straps had dug in.
Halima opened her eyes to total darkness. The emergency indicators were dead. She flexed her fingers, checking if her body still worked, and answered the pain with a sharp breath. The ringing slowly faded, leaving behind an unsettling quiet.
She fumbled for the harness, unfastened the clasps with cold fingers, and shoved herself off the mangled seat. Her skull throbbed, but she gritted her teeth and pushed against the hatch.
It wouldn't budge. The frame had warped on impact. Bracing her back against the inner wall, she kicked the emergency lever until the metal squealed and finally gave way.
She crawled out and collapsed onto her hands and knees.
The sand was hot, baked by a sun she'd never seen, though the night air was already cooling it down. Fine grains worked under her fingernails as she coughed soot from her lungs. Swaying, she pushed herself up to inspect the wreckage.
The capsule was a ruined heap of metal half-buried in a dune, thin smoke curling from its split seams. It would never fly again.
When Halima lifted her head, her throat went tight.
The sky was completely foreign.
Not a single constellation she recognized. No navigational points, no familiar stars - only an endless, brilliant scatter, far denser than anything seen from the station, and two pale moons drifting where no star chart said they should be. The desert stretched away in dark, silent waves. No lights. No structures. No sign of human life.
She was alone on an unregistered world.
Fear hit her hard, but Halima swallowed it down. Panicking wouldn't help.
She turned back to the capsule, tore away a buckled side panel, and retrieved her technician's emergency kit. Inside were a compact beacon, an atmospheric analyzer, and a compass. She dropped to her knees, switched on the console, and tried to ping for any local frequency.
The screen flickered, searching for a signal that wasn't there.
Then the ground began to vibrate.
It started as a low tremor deep beneath the sand, rising into the steady rhythm of heavy, running feet. Halima froze. The analyzer slipped from her fingers.
At the crest of the nearest dune, black shapes cut across the starlit sky: dozens of riders mounted on massive, six-legged beasts, holding burning torches aloft.
The varak beneath Yahya tore through the sand at a steady gallop, its six legs striking the dunes in unison. Behind him, a hundred heavy beasts blurred into a single roar that shook the desert floor. Torches hissed, trailing smoke into the night wind.
Yahya felt neither the cold nor the speed.
The pull in his chest had grown hotter with every mile, steering him sharper than any map.
"My Seyyid!" Darim, senior of his guard, called out over the pounding hooves.
"Whatever fell from the sky is unknown! We cannot approach it without caution!"
"It isn't an enemy, Darim," Yahya called back without slowing. "The thread has awakened for the first time in centuries. It is her."
The warriors tightened their grips on their spears, eyes scanning the dark. Their caution was reasonable, but Yahya knew what he felt.
"Hold back when we reach the crest," he commanded. "No weapon is drawn unless I give the word."
They answered with a single strike of steel against leather.
At the top of the highest dune, Yahya pulled hard on the reins, bringing his mount to a halt.
Below, in the hollow of a crater, lay the smoking wreckage - a twisted piece of dark metal unlike anything forged in the desert. And standing beside it was a single figure.
Slight, dressed in practical dark clothing fastened with metal clasps at the collar and wrists. Dark hair whipped around her face in the wind. Even in the dim light, every instinct he had confirmed what his eyes saw.
Yahya dismounted in one fluid motion and walked down the slope alone.
Halima watched the figure emerge from the haze of smoke.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, wrapped in a heavy dark robe embroidered with intricate silver patterns. Silver-ash hair caught the starlight, and his eyes - bright amber in the dark - were fixed on her as he approached.
She backed away until her boot sank into the dune. Behind him, dozens of riders sat motionless on their massive beasts, torches flickering against the dark.
Halima grabbed the only tool left in her kit - a heavy steel wrench - and held it out with white knuckles.
"Stay back!" Her voice cracked. "Stay back!"
Yahya stopped.
Carefully, he raised both hands, palms open to show he carried no weapons. He took one more slow step into the clear light, letting her see him.
His features were sharp, his skin dark against the pale moonlight, and his golden eyes held no threat - only a quiet, stunned gravity.
For centuries he had seen only a reflection in dark water. Now she stood before him, breathing, terrified, real. Dark wavy hair framed her face, her brown eyes wide with panic. He saw her fingers trembling around the heavy iron tool, and the raw fear in her stance made his own chest ache.
Halima felt none of his recognition. Cold dread ran down her spine as the wind cut through her jumpsuit. She tightened her grip on the steel wrench, her teeth chattering.
"Who are you?" she forced out. "What do you want?"
Yahya stood a step away. He looked at her as if expecting her to disappear into the wind. When he spoke, he uttered the name the dark water had whispered to him for five hundred years - low, almost tentative:
"Halima."
She flinched at hearing her name from a stranger on a wild planet. Before she could demand an answer, he unclasped his heavy outer cloak, still warm from his shoulders.
Moving with deliberate slowness, he stepped forward and draped the thick fabric around her, blocking out the cutting wind.
"Yahya," he said quietly, looking down at her. "My name is Yahya."