Author's Preface
The ship’s hatch yielded with a hiss and a low metallic scrape, and the light spilling out was the color of rust.
Latifa backed away until her spine hit the bulkhead. She watched the opening fill with an unfamiliar shadow. The stranger had to duck to peer inside, and when he straightened, his head nearly brushed the rim of the outer plating. His hair—silver and cropped short—strayed from behind his ears. His skin was dark, the tone of wet slate, gleaming with a soft sheen in the amber light. His shoulders were so broad the opening seemed built for someone half his size.
And then there were his eyes. Gold. They didn't merely catch the light; they seemed to radiate their own, like lamps behind glass.
"My name," he said, pressing a palm to his chest. His rumbling voice filled the cramped cabin. "Faris. No fear. I am... safe."
Even he heard how clumsy it sounded. A shadow of annoyance crossed his face, his brow furrowed, and he tried again, slower: "I am safe. For you."
Latifa’s back found the door to the aft compartment. She didn't even make a conscious choice—her body took over. She slipped inside and slammed the inner airtight hatch, spinning the latch wheel until it locked with a dull thud that vibrated through her teeth.
She stood with her forehead pressed against the cold metal, listening to her own ragged breath.
Heatstroke. That was all. She was sitting in a sealed cabin with a ruptured cooling line; glycol fumes could do far worse to a mind. Latifa checked her wrist monitor. Carbon dioxide levels were elevated, but not enough to cause visions of giants. Besides, the device had taken a heavy blow during the crash—it could easily be lying. She likely had a concussion. People hallucinated from far less.
And people in the middle of nowhere certainly didn't speak English with an accent like a rolling landslide.
She pushed off the hatch. The aft compartment doubled as cargo hold and airlock—surrounded by shelving units and cool light, with the backup navigation module bolted to the wall beside the EVA suit lockers. She woke it with a trembling finger. The screen flickered and produced a single line of white text:
ERROR: SATELLITE CONNECTION LOST.
She read it three times. Pressed refresh. The same line reappeared.
A cold weight settled in her stomach. Latifa forced herself to freeze and exhale. No signal, no relay, no coordinates. Not even a vague idea of which quarter of the sky she was in. Fine. All right. What did she actually have? A ship with a sheared stabilizer and a ruptured engine, a crate of nutrient bars, and a water desalinator that was likely still functional. Engines could be repaired. It was a matter of parts and time, and she knew how to solve those problems.
Repair it and leave. One thing at a time.
On the wall beside the navigator, a small grey monitor displayed feed from the external cameras, split into flickering squares. Latifa looked at it simply because she couldn't stop herself.
Outside, Faris stood where she had left him, staring at the sealed door.
He had known it might go this way. Still, the sound of the latch driving home passed through him like a nail’s point. He ran a hand over his chin and noticed his fingers were trembling slightly. He had stood there trying to speak his brother’s wife’s tongue like a child reciting a lesson, and she had looked at him as if a stone wall were collapsing toward her.
Of course. He was nearly two heads taller than any woman he had ever seen. His skin was an unfamiliar graphite shade to her people, his voice made metal hum, and he was massive.
Faris stepped out onto the sand and crouched, gazing at the long dark shadow of the wrecked ship. The sun was sliding toward the mountain ridge. In an hour it would be dark, and the nights here belonged to the lasons. They were giant scaled serpents, as long as a tent pole and as thick as a man's thigh. As the cold set in, they crept out from the deep dunes, drawn by the ground’s dying heat. A hull like that would hold warmth until midnight. If she stepped outside in the dark, they would find her.
If she stayed inside, she was trapped in a dying ship with no visible water source.
He pressed his palm to the sand. It was still hot. Allah is with the patient. They had told him that since he was old enough to sit upright. It had always sounded simple. Right now, it was the hardest thing ever demanded of him.
Faris forced himself to lay it all out, calmly, as if before battle. She moved on her own feet, her fingers curled, her legs held her weight. A scrape on her head, a bruise on her shoulder—nothing that would kill her before morning. Inside, she likely had food and a door that locked from within. She was frightened, and there was no shame in that. What she certainly did not expect from him right now was a chase.
So he would not chase her.
He rose. The sky behind the ridge turned to copper. With no water at hand, he performed dry ablution with sand, cleansing his hands and face, and knelt facing the sacred mountain of Nur Sabil, right beside the scorched ship. The words of prayer came on their own, as they always did. For a few minutes, there was only the dry earth beneath his knees and the quiet murmur of his own voice, and the weight in his chest began to ease.
When he stood, Barq was already waiting, all six legs tucked, mandibles twitching. Faris pressed his forehead to the beast's neck for a moment.
"We go home for the tent," he said in his native tongue. "And we take all the dry brushwood we can carry. Then we return."
Barq clicked his mandibles. He had always appreciated clear plans.
Inside the ship, Latifa watched the grey monitor. She saw the giant climb into the saddle of an animal with far too many legs—jointed like a beetle's, with a spotted gold-and-dark hide. She saw the beast turn and run up the dune with a long, smooth trot, disappearing over the crest.
The girl let out the breath she realized she had been holding all this time. Her knees buckled, and she sat down heavily on a tool crate.
He returned in the last blue dusk with the tent slung over his saddle and bundles of thornbrush tied to either side. Barq stopped at a respectful distance from the hull, snorting at the sharp smell of burnt metal.
First, Faris built a fire. He dug a shallow pit, stacked the brushwood into a cone, and lit the dry tinder at the base. Once caught, the fire climbed fast with a crackle like the snap of a whip, and orange light flooded the ship's ruined flank. Lasons hated fire. Every child in the settlement knew it; every herder used it. Faris fed branches until the fire roared, then pitched the tent so the door flap looked straight at the hatch.
The cold arrived as it always did in the desert—without ceremony, as if someone had thrown open a cellar door. The man crouched with his hands stretched toward the flames, letting the warmth soak into his palms. A dinner of dates and stale bread went down without much flavor. He rolled up his sleeves and watched the hull.
He thought of her face.
Faris had expected to recall their encounter by the lake. Instead, the woman from the cabin kept rising before his eyes—pale as milk beneath a layer of soot, with golden hair escaping her ponytail in strands the fire would have turned to copper. Her eyes were brown, deep and warm like dark tea. He had never seen skin so fair. Beside his own, it seemed almost unreal, a creature from another realm. A delicate face from a foreign land.
Yet it was not the difference that struck him. He kept returning to how small her jaw was—and how stubbornly it had set while her hand trembled around her weapon.
Beautiful, he thought. But the word felt too small, and he forced himself to turn his thoughts away. The man laid his dagger across his knees and leaned back against the saddle. The fire crackled. Somewhere beyond the light, sand rustled—something long and heavy turned and slithered away.
Faris slept as warriors sleep: lightly, keeping one ear awake.
Latifa did not sleep.
The cabin's emergency lighting dimmed to a faint amber glow. Clenching a multitool between her teeth, she disassembled the comms module and found what she had feared: the antenna unit had been sheared clean off back in the asteroid field. Only a stub of cable and a bracket remained. Without an antenna, she could try pulling a signal through the hull's skin if she crafted a secondary receiver. It was possible. But it would take days.
And yet she worked. Her fingers grew surer. She traced leads with a flashlight tucked under her chin, cursing softly every time another connector broke in her hands.
From time to time she glanced at the grey monitor. The fire below still burned. She could see the silhouette of the man leaning against his beast's saddle, one knee drawn up. His head had dropped to his chest. Latifa told herself she was merely checking if he had left—and repeated it to herself at least six times.
Who stays up all night guarding a stranger's door?
His eyes kept haunting her. Gold... and she couldn't figure out what she had read in them. She had expected the dull interest of a wild beast or sharp hostility. Instead, they had looked at her from that massive body with a quiet, motionless calm. As if he were trying with all his strength to appear smaller—and couldn't.
It frightened her far more than if he had snarled.
Toward dawn, she could no longer tell where she was reading the schematic and where she was seeing his face. The flashlight slipped from under her chin and hit the floor with a clatter. She reached for it, but her head fell back against the seat, and she plunged into sleep before the flashlight stopped rolling.
Faris woke with a stiff neck as the sky above the rim of the world flushed a pale pink.
Frost lay thin on the tent canvas. The fire had burned down to a layer of grey ash with rare red embers watching like eyes. Bark lay nearby, all six legs tucked, breathing quietly through his mandibles and twitching a leg in his sleep. Faris rose with a crackle in his joints and looked at the ship.
Not a sound. No light in the opening. The inner hatch remained locked, just as it had been the night before.
She had not come out.
He didn't know whether to be glad or not. Freezing with a hand on the tent pole, he sank into deep thought. Halima. His brother’s wife was the only one who could understand this girl—after all, Halima herself had once come to them from the stars. She would know what words to choose. But Halima was seven months pregnant. Bringing her out here through the scorching desert was madness; the journey on horseback would drain her, and she would fall ill. Faris would never risk her health or the child's. Besides, Yahya would have his head for it.
The man looked at the rising sun, at the locked ship, and slowly let out a breath through his teeth.
There had to be another way.
The same sun was rising over the settlement when Yahya sent for Darim.
The tent was cool and smelled of cedar smoke. Rich carpets covered the floor, and soft embroidered cushions lined the walls. Yahya knelt at a low carved table, leaning over spread maps, and did not waste time on greetings.
"Are you still watching Hayat?"
Darim bowed, remaining near the entrance.
"Yes, Seyyid."
"Has she done anything I ought to know about?"
"Nothing against us." Darim laced his hands behind his back. "Four days ago, there was an incident on the caravan route. Bandits attacked her procession near the wells. There were too many attackers and far too few of her guards; they couldn't have held the line." He paused. "I was close enough to intervene. Thanks to that, none of her people perished."
"And Hayat?"
"Unscathed, Seyyid," Darim answered softly. "She remained inside her palanquin the entire time, as was proper."
Yahya nodded slowly and stared at the maps for a moment.
"She has done foolish things," he said at last. "Some cost people dearly. But I never deemed her cruel. She grew up under Gaddar's thumb, and that deforms anyone." He tapped a finger on the table. "It's not her I fear. I fear her father will force her to play against us, and she simply won't have the power to refuse."
"She will refuse." The words escaped Darim faster than he could think.
Yahya raised an eyebrow.
Darim cleared his throat:
"Forgive my bold tongue. She is proud and holds everyone at arm's length. But I believe it is merely a shield. She secretly distributes grain to poor families at the eastern well and cares for sick elders." He cut himself off, noticing how his voice had unwittingly softened. "She was simply never given a chance to be herself."
Before his mind's eye rose that day when the caravan had halted for a rest. Back then, Darim had caught a glimpse of her by chance: Hayat had peeked out from behind the parted curtain of her palanquin, startled yet curled in on herself for only a moment. He remembered her trembling fingers clutching the fabric, and that stubborn, proud gaze she cast out across the empty steppe through hidden fear. Defenseless, yet striving to preserve her dignity.
A warmth spread through Darim's chest, and his pulse gave a strange flutter. The man blamed it on the stuffiness inside the tent and his own fatigue.
Yahya watched him a moment longer than usual, but said nothing.
The tent flap lifted.
Halima stepped inside, supporting her lower back with one hand. Her pregnant belly beneath her wide dress appeared quite large for seven months. She breathed carefully, adjusting to the weight.
Yahya was on his feet in an instant. All sternness melted from his face.
Darim bowed his head:
"With your leave, Seyyid."
"Go." Yahya was already at his wife's side, catching her elbow and helping her down onto the cushions.
Darim slipped outside.
Inside the tent, Yahya gently arranged cushions behind Halima's back and knelt before her:
"What winds brought you here, my love? You ought to be resting."
"Faris spent the night in the desert," she replied with a soft smile. "By the fallen ship. Salim's men saw the fire."
"I know. I sent the scouts myself."
"I am going to speak with her, Yahya."
Yahya snapped his head up:
"Out of the question. Not up for debate."
"Yahya..."
"No. It is a long ride in the saddle, the heat is rising, and you won't last an hour out there," Yahya shook his head. "Besides, remember: when you first arrived, Faris didn't trust you and treated you with deep suspicion. Now there is another girl from the stars in that ship. Let my brother sweat a little. Let him win her trust on his own, just as I once had to win yours."
Halima looked at him for a moment, then laughed softly, pressing a hand to her side:
"You are still holding those first days against him?"
"I am merely objective," he grumbled, frowning down at the maps.
"He was only protecting you," Halima reminded him gently, squeezing his palm. "He feared for your life. And right now, out in the wastes, sits a terrified girl. Faris can be as kind as he wishes, but to her, he is a giant stranger. She needs someone who looks like her. Someone who came from the stars. She will listen to me."
Yahya was silent. His thumb slowly stroked her fingers. He loved her too much and feared for her health.
"I will travel very slowly," she whispered. "Escorted by your finest warriors, wrapped in every blanket in the camp. Let me help him."
Yahya exhaled heavily and pressed her hand to his lips:
"You will drive me into my grave one day, wife. But you are not taking a single step without me and my men."
He rose to his feet, turned toward the tent opening, and barked a command to the guards outside in his usual commanding voice:
"Prepare the mounts and a comfortable litter for the Lady.We leave immediately, before the full heat sets in.”
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