The stars guided them deeper.
By the second night, Qamar Village was nothing but a memory ....just a faint glow of lights far to the north, swallowed by the dunes. Malik led the way, his golden eyes sharp even in darkness. Layla followed close behind, her breath quiet in the cool night air, her sandals sinking into the fine, endless sand.
The desert stretched before them like an ocean frozen in time.
It was more alive out here than she'd ever imagined. The wind whispered in her ears, carrying fragments of strange words she almost understood. Shapes moved in the corner of her vision .... quick, shimmering things, like sparks caught on the edge of firelight. Sometimes she swore the dunes shifted as they passed, as though the sands themselves were making way for them.
She had thought she knew the desert.
She had been wrong.
"This is the Unseen Quarter," Malik said softly as they crested yet another ridge. "These sands were hidden long ago, after the Sultan's fall. Few mortals ever find their way here."
Layla shivered. "Why not?"
"Because," he said, glancing back at her with the faintest smile, "the jinn don't want them to."
That answer stayed with her as they walked on.
Later that night, when the winds calmed and the air grew colder, they stopped at a small hollow between two tall dunes. Malik crouched and pressed his palm flat to the sand.
The ground glowed faintly, then shivered. A moment later, the sand gave way to reveal a small underground chamber .... a perfect circle of stone and pale green light.
Layla stared, wide-eyed. "How did you know this was here?"
He gave her another of his small, knowing smiles. "The desert speaks to me too, Dreamer. I just… listen differently than you do."
She followed him down into the chamber. The walls shimmered with strange carvings — swirling patterns of stars and waves and something that might have been wings.
"This was once a resting place for my kind," Malik said, sitting cross-legged near the center of the room. "We'd stop here when the old paths grew long. Now… it is forgotten."
Layla sat across from him, studying his face in the dim green light.
"Why did you really ask me to come with you?" she asked softly, after a long silence.
Malik met her gaze.
"Because," he said simply, "I've walked these sands alone for far too long. And because the shards won't reveal themselves to me anymore. Not fully. But you… you seem to wake them."
Her cheeks warmed. She wasn't sure if it was his words or the way his eyes softened when he said them.
She looked down quickly. "You could've just said you needed help."
That actually made him chuckle — low and warm, like a breeze over hot coals.
"Perhaps," he admitted.
They rested there for a few hours. Layla dozed lightly, waking now and then to find Malik still awake, his gaze fixed upward at the ceiling where faint motes of light danced.
When she finally sat up, he was waiting.
"It's close," he said.
"The next shard?"
"Yes. But so are his servants."
They left the chamber and walked on through the quiet dawn.
By midday, the desert changed.
The sands here were darker, redder, and littered with jagged black stones that caught the sun and burned at the touch. The air grew heavy, harder to breathe.
"This is cursed ground," Malik murmured. "We are close to the edge of his domain now. You'll feel it."
Layla did feel it.
The desert's song grew faint, muffled, as if something dark and heavy pressed down over it. The air smelled faintly of ashes.
Then, ahead of them, a strange shape rose from the sand .... a ruin.
It was the shattered remains of a tower, its stones cracked and blackened, half-buried in the dunes. At its base glimmered something small and bright.
"The shard," Malik breathed.
They hurried forward .... but halfway there, the ground split open.
Layla screamed as jagged black tendrils of shadow shot up from the sand, coiling and striking. Malik shoved her behind him, his hands flaring with golden light.
The shadows recoiled but did not vanish.
Malik turned to her, his face tense.
"Listen to me, Layla," he said, his voice low but fierce. "This is his domain. His power is strongest here. But you ....you are still attuned. If you can reach the shard, if you can touch it, it will awaken. And then I can seal this place."
Layla stared at him, her heart pounding. "But —"
"No time," he said, meeting her eyes. "You can do this."
She swallowed hard. Then nodded.
And ran.
The shadows struck at her as she darted past them, the air crackling with dark energy. But she kept her eyes on the shard — a tiny fragment glowing faint blue in the sand.
She stumbled, caught herself, and lunged forward ..... her fingers closing around the shard just as one of the tendrils wrapped around her ankle.
The shard flared white-hot in her hand.
The tendril hissed and dissolved into smoke.
And then everything went still.
Layla fell to her knees, clutching the shard, gasping for breath.
Malik was at her side in an instant, his hands on her shoulders. "You did it," he murmured, his voice low with awe. "You woke it."
Layla looked down at the shard, still glowing faintly in her palm.
"I… didn't think I could," she whispered.
"You're stronger than you think," he said, his golden eyes warm on hers.
Their faces were close now. Closer than before.
And for just a heartbeat, Layla thought he might lean in .... that his golden gaze might drown her entirely.
But he straightened, his expression calm again.
"Come," he said, though his hand lingered at her back. "We've taken one more step. But the hardest part is still ahead."
Layla stood, the shard clutched tight in her fingers, the heat of it sinking into her skin.
And as they walked away from the ruin, she could feel it ..... something had shifted between them.
It wasn't just the shard that had awakened.
Something else had too.