Author's Preface
They were still a hundred yards off when the scream reached them, thin and raw, torn straight through the wind.
Faris was already running.
He didn't remember deciding to. One second he was walking beside Barq's shoulder, the next his legs had taken over, sand kicking up behind his boots, his heart slamming so hard it hurt against his ribs. Ya Allah, let her be safe. Let her be safe. He said it without words, in the place under his breastbone where prayer lived when there wasn't time for language. The ship's dark shape grew ahead of him and he hit the sand hard at the hatch, wrenching it wider, and behind him he could hear Yahya and Halima closing fast, Halima's breath already ragged from the pace her belly wouldn't let her match.
Inside, the cabin was black. Not dim — black, every panel dead, every light dark, the emergency strips along the floor gone cold.
"What happened?!" Halima's voice cracked as she pushed past Faris into the gloom.
Latifa was on the floor against the bulkhead, knees pulled up, her whole body shaking. In the thin daylight bleeding through the cracked canopy her face was blotched red, her hands pressed flat over her mouth like she was trying to hold something in.
"The panels—" she got out, and then it broke apart into a sob. "The storm — dust, it was all over the solar panels, I didn't — I was so deep in the repairs, I forgot to clear them, I forgot, and now—" She dragged in a breath that didn't seem to go anywhere. "The batteries are dead. Completely dead. There's no power. There's nothing. I'm stuck here." Her voice climbed, cracking wide open. "I'm never going to see my family again. My whole life — everything — it's just gone."
Yahya and Faris stood frozen in the doorway. Neither of them had caught more than a scattered word of it, but they didn't need the words. The sound alone told them everything — that pitch, that particular kind of breaking. Faris's hands hung useless at his sides. He wanted to move, to do something, but brute force was meaningless here. He'd torn a jammed hatch off its hinges for her once, but physical strength couldn't fix a dead power core.
Halima dropped down in front of her, awkward with the weight of her own belly, and took both of Latifa's hands in hers. "Hey. Hey, look at me. It's going to be okay—"
"No, it's not!" Latifa wrenched a hand free and pressed it over her eyes. "Nothing is going to be okay! I'm never going home!"
And then she folded, all at once, into Halima's shoulder, weeping in the way that comes from somewhere much older than the last five minutes.
Halima held her and said nothing else, just let her hand move slow circles on Latifa's back, the way you'd calm anyone whose whole world had just gone dark around them.
It went on a long time. Long enough that Yahya quietly stepped back outside to give the cabin room to breathe, murmuring something to Faris, who didn't move, who stood at the threshold with his jaw tight and his eyes fixed on the two women on the floor like he could will the grief out of the air by sheer force of watching.
Eventually the sobbing wore itself down to hiccupping breaths, and then to stillness. Latifa pulled back, scrubbing at her swollen eyes with the heel of her hand.
"Thank you," she said, hoarse, "for staying." A shaky, humorless laugh. "But what do I even do now? I don't have a home left. Not this one. Not the other one, from the look of things."
Halima brushed a damp strand of hair back from Latifa's face. "Come with us. To the settlement."
Latifa's eyes came up, wary.
"Don't be afraid," Halima said, steady. "You'll be looked after. I'm the future chief's wife there — nobody touches you without my say, and nobody would want to. You'll have clean water, a real bed, food that isn't out of a ration pack, people around you instead of four dead walls." She squeezed her hand. "You don't have to figure the rest out tonight."
Latifa looked at the dead panels, the black screens, the cabin that had been her whole world for days and now felt like a coffin with the lid half shut. She was too tired to argue with the only offer on the table.
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay."
Outside, the light hit like a slap after the darkness of the cabin. Latifa leaned into Halima's side, legs unsteady, blinking against the glare, and then stopped dead at the sight waiting for them on the sand.
Two Varaks stood folded on their haunches, massive even at rest, gold hides catching the sun, mandibles twitching at the corners of wide, patient mouths.
"Are we — riding those?"
"They're gentle. Think of them as very large, very ugly horses." Halima's mouth twitched. "We've only got the one palanquin between us, so it'll be a tight fit, but that's how women travel out here."
Latifa didn't look reassured.
"This is Faris," Halima went on, nodding toward him. "My husband's brother. Good man, whatever he looks like standing there being enormous. He's going to help you up — even when a Varak kneels, its back is too high for us to climb on our own."
Halima demonstrated first, raising a hand toward her own Varak, which lowered itself further with a low grunt. She lifted her arms, and Yahya was there in an instant, scooping her up like she weighed nothing at all and setting her into the palanquin with a care that made the whole motion look effortless.
"Faris," Halima called, settling into the cushions. "Help Latifa."
Faris went still.
This was the first time. The very first time he would put his hands on her, and something in his chest lurched sideways at the thought before his feet had even moved. He came forward slowly, arms half-raised, and Latifa took an instinctive step back, some old fear still riding just under her skin.
His face fell. Just for a second, something raw and hurt crossed it before he could smooth it away.
"Don't be afraid," Halima murmured from the palanquin. "It's all right. He won't hurt you."
Latifa looked at Halima, then back at Faris, and made herself breathe out. She lifted her arms.
He stepped in and gathered her up.
Up close, for the first time, she actually looked at him.
She'd only ever seen him through fear before — a shape too big, a voice too loud, eyes that glowed wrong in the dark. Now, with his arms under her and her face a hand's width from his, she saw a young man's face, strong-boned, his skin a deep, ash-graphite grey as smooth as polished slate, absorbing the desert light with a soft matte sheen. And his eyes weren't wrong at all — they were gold, warm, and looking at her like she was something he still couldn't quite believe was real.
Faris looked back at her and forgot, for one full second, how to breathe.
She is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, he thought, and didn't try to talk himself out of it.
Beside the mount, Yahya reached up to gently squeeze Halima's hand. The married couple traded a quiet, knowing smile — the kind shared between people who recognize the very beginning of something obvious.
Faris set Latifa down inside the palanquin as gently as he could manage, and she settled back against the cushions, looking around despite herself — carved wooden shutters worked with looping patterns, thick pale fabric hung to keep the dust out, cushions soft enough that she sank into them.
"It's actually beautiful in here," she murmured, mostly to herself.
"All set!" Halima called. "Let's go home!"
Yahya gave a low signal, and the Varak beneath them heaved up onto its six legs, the palanquin swaying hard with the motion. Latifa gasped and grabbed for the nearest hand, which happened to be Halima's, and Halima only laced their fingers together and smiled, steady as ever.
Faris and Yahya swung up onto their Varaks, each of them glancing back once to be sure the women were settled, and then the four of them turned toward the settlement and rode out across the gold dunes, the dead ship shrinking behind them into the haze.
Comments