The days start to pass in the same routine. We ride from dusk until midnight, break for a meal ahe star drakes rest, then ride until sun-up. Darian and I trai dinner, and I go to bed exhausted and bruised.

  I love it.

  I feel myself getting stronger. My spells have been leveling up from all the practid sparring matches I’ve been doing, which so far as I tell hasn’t made any of them more powerful, but has signifitly reduced their mana cost. Currently I’ve grihings up to:

  [Endure: Level 5]

  [Repel: Level 5]

  [Devour: Level 3]

  [Coagute: Level 4]

  [Stabilize: Level 2]

  [Hemic Hardening: Level 3]

  [Heal: Level 4]

  I’ve beeing a lot of practice with Coagute and Heal, especially after each m’s sparring match.

  After more than a week of training, I gain an overall level-up as well, bringio 18: I guess it’s not just real fights that t toward that. Echo tells me I’ll get a css evolution at level 20, but won’t expin what that means beyond “The new css will grant the user access to additional stat bonuses.” I want to see if I hit it before we reach the Oasis. It’s only two days away, now.

  But when we rise the evening, there’s a haze on the horizon.

  “Sandstorm.” Xamireb frowns. “I thought I’d felt something in the air as we were heading to bed st m.”

  “You think it’s magical?” Darian asks. We all tio pack up camp as we eye the red-tinted horizon.

  “Not sure,” Xamireb admits. “As roach the Oasis, the residual Life arum in the air and ground is growing stronger. It could be the storm, or it could be the Oasis. But we should proceed with cautiardless.”

  “We’ll try to arc around it,” Darian says. “It might extend our trip by half a night, but given our drakes, we should still reach the Oasis before stance. We afford the dey.”

  “How’s a magical sandstorm different from a normal one?” I ask Quell as we finish tearing do. He’s started to help pack things up now, even if the way he stores the supplies is iably done so poorly that Darian redoes his work when he’s not looking.

  “It’s more dangerous, for one.” Quell is struggling to stuff a vas into its roll. He should have folded it first. “Wind kicks up arum-den dust into the air, and the magiteracts withiorm to produce all sorts of effects. It’s life magic, so it’s pretty much guarao affey living creatures who get caught in it, in some way or another. It might put you to sleep, or blind you, or cause you to start seeing things. All temporary, of course. Well. Usually.”

  I grab the vas from him and pull it out of the bag, then start to roll it up properly. “I thought Life arum was about healing. Why are all of these effects bad?”

  Quell shakes his head. “Life arum is just about, well, life. It could be good or bad, depending on the effect. It is equally possible the sandstorm could be beneficial to us. Maybe it would improve our eyesight or heal our wounds. But it’s a flip of the , and when one side could be life and the other death, most don’t risk it.”

  “Fair enough.” I tighten dowrap and hand the rolled vas back to Quell. He staggers as I drop it into his arms. “Do you think we’ll be able to go around it?”

  Quell lugs the bag over to Poppy and rolls it into p her back, heaving a relieved sigh. “That depends on the winds.”

  As the sus and we tinue our ride south, the sandstorm vanishes from sight, a smudge like any other cloud on the horizon. But as the night tinues, its shadow begins to grow once more, steadily blotting out the stars.

  “Magic or not, we’ll o proceed carefully,” Ear says as we stop for lunch. One of the two moons has bee a faint e glow behind the sandstorm’s cover, while the other crest hangs like a frown overhead. “We’re not going to be able to outrun it.”

  Darian grimaces. “It seems Rinviu is against us.”

  “Or Kero,” Liz says.

  “That would be a bad omen, given our destination,” Ear notes.

  “Let’s hope it’s her.” Xamireb carefully unfolds their limbs and climbs down from their star drake, taking the reins in hand. They’re still a little stiff, but doing much better than days previous. “It helps nothing to attract the ire of the gods, especially as I am beginning to suspect the Oasis is to bme after all. There’s more magi the ground around these parts. We should proceed carefully, Captain.”

  Darian scrutihe ground. Though we’ve been traveling over packed cy, it’s beginning to transition bato dunes once more. “Sandworms?”

  “I don’t believe so,” Xamireb says. “I haven’t felt any movement. Yet… I don’t know. There is something strange about that sandstorm I ’t pce.”

  “Is it the ground or sky we should be worried about?” Darian asks.

  They only shake their head. “Once I determihe cause of what I’m sensing, you will be the first to know. But if are the slower pace, I study the grouer while walking.”

  Daria the night sky for a moment, then looks off to the south, where the Life Oasis is supposed to be.

  “Fine,” she says. “I’ll give you an hour. After that we’ll ride once more.”

  “Who are those gods?” I ask Quell quietly as we dismount and begin walking. Xamireb leads the way, using his front two legs to prod the ground curiously as he walks. “Rinviu and Kero?”

  “The god of wind and the god of life,” Quell expins. “Along with Relona, god of stone, and perhaps more retly Widengra, god of war, they’re the most on gods to worship in the Duneshade Kingdom. I’ve heard it’s much the same in Moonfall. Pilgrimages to the Lifespring to pray for a blessing from Kero are on.”

  “Are the prayers ever answered?” I ask, skeptical. The gods of this world—or at least their demigods—seem sely… physical. Lorata’s champion, Zeyaelid, hadn’t looked that much different from Xamireb. Although her level had been signifitly higher than anything else I’ve entered since. But shouldn’t deities be more abstract than this? More unknowable? Champions have levels, and so do I. The differeween mortals and gods shouldn’t just be a bit of training.

  Then again, I suppose I’ve only seen a Champion, not a god itself, so maybe it’s too early to judge.

  “Occasionally,” Quell says. “Though I’ve not heard of a major blessing being granted in my lifetime. Some say the Lifespring itself is its owial gift.” He pauses, and even though we’re already speaking quietly, he lowers his voice even more. “I don’t personally subscribe to that theory.”

  I quirk a smile. “Is that bsphemy, Quell?”

  “No!” he objects. “Although some might say that.”

  “So what do you think the Lifespring is, if not a gift from the gods?” I ask.

  “It’s a Ruin,” he says. “Most schors outside of Duneshade agree. It matches the patterns of other Ruins.”

  “Ruins?” I ask. “There’s more pces like Lifespring?”

  “Yes and no,” Quell says, his face lighting up at the question.

  Uh oh. This feels like an ining rabbit hole.

  “There are many Ruins scattered all across Lusio,” he says. “The rgest simirity between them is that they’re each ected to an arum source. Most of them have some vestiges of the civilization that had previously resided there. Crumbled buildings, buried mosaics. The Petrified Grove is actually remarkably preserved, uhe rest. All of them leak raw ara into the surrounding enviro. For some Ruins, this is noxious—the Bck Spire, for instance, bleeds iergy into the surrounding nds, making rehabilitation impossible. But for the Oasis, it’s the opposite: life has sprung up all around it. The healing magi be harnessed freat good.” He frowns. “Which is why it remains so disputed.”

  “What happeo the previous civilization?” I ask. “If it was so desirable, where did they all go?”

  Quell lifts up his hands. “No one knows. But it’s fasating to think about, isn’t it? There’s theories about that, too. Some historians think the civilizatiohrough the Springs.”

  “Through it?” I ask, fused. A piece of grit abruptly stings my eye, and I wirying to blink out the sand. More sting my arms and face; the breeze is pig up.

  Quell nods enthusiastically. “Each Ruin draws energy from a different souragic, right? And these magic sources are different dimensions. The Between, for instanewhere you might have briefly visited. It’s a source for null magic; the infinitesimal inate. Its magic is the stuff between locations, between matter, between time. And it’s simir for the Lifespring: the dimension it’s ected to is the Lull. Sihese are pces—however abstract—the theoes that you should be able to travel to them. Indeed, you’re walking evidence of that. So some specute that the a people simply… walked through, leaving this world behind.”

  I frown, thinking about my experien the Between. It had been disorienting. A void. I hadn’t had a body, no sense of dire or time. Who would want to leave behind a world as rich as this to live somewhere so empty? I’m not sure I buy that.

  “Is that what you believe?” I ask him.

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. If you pass through the Oasis and into the Lull, I don’t know of anyone who’s mao achieve it sihe as. The door isn’t all the way closed, that’s for certain—but if there’s a way to open it fully, that’s been lost to time. Ohing that is for certain, however, is that whatever happened, happened everywhere across Lusio, all at once. Each city left abruptly abahat speaks to something magical, doesn’t it?”

  Or supernatural. I’m not sure I share Quell’s optimism that whatever happeo the people in these cities was as benign as he suggests.

  But in the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Whether abandoned or destroyed, the Lifespring remains my goal.

  “Do you think there’s a danger in me visiting the Oasis?” I ask him. I don’t have to lower my voiymore, because the wind has picked up, howling in low tones, hissing sand over the ground and against the star drakes’ hides. I tuck my head down as we walk; the versation at least provides good distra from the increasingly inhospitable elements.

  “Si’s a magic source ected to one of the gods,” I add.

  “You’re worried Kero might notice you?” Quell asks, drawing up his hood. The cloaks are desigo keep out sunlight, however, not sand, and he spits grit from his mouth as he tucks his head down, no loalking into the wind. “I don’t think that’s a likely . Unless you pn on praying to them, I doubt you’ll have a way to draw their notice.”

  Yet Hans and I drew a Champion’s notice, somehow. Was that because we had just been dropped into Lusio? Maybe that’s why I’ve not seen or heard from Zeyaelid since. I’m not sure how forted I should be from this; I feel like the moment I let my guard down is when the catastrophe will—

  A shrill scream hrough the air.

  God dammit.

  I raise a hand to the sand whipping against my face as I race around Poppy. Liz is on the ground, Darian helpio her feet. Their star drake is o be seen.

  “What happened?” I ask. Quell rushes up beside me.

  “I—I don’t know,” Liz says, her voice shaking. She scrubs sand off her palms and knees where it had stuck from the impact. “It was so fast. There was a shadow, and then the lizard hissed, and the reins were yanked from my hands and it—it was just gone!”

  A chill crawls down my back. The star drakes are huge. They probably weigh as much as an elephant. What could snatch up something like that and be gone so fast you couldn’t eve? I squint at our surroundings, but I ’t make out anything aside from us, Ear and Xamireb’s lizard, and the surroundi. In fact, I see less now than I could a few minutes ago. What was once miles has bee reduced to a couple hundred feet. And I’d hazard a guess visibility is only going to rapidly decrease from here.

  “We o stop and wait it out,” Xamireb says, leading their drake over to the rest of us. “The storm is only going to get worse, and if we tinue on, we risk getting separated.”

  “No.” Even while she speaks, Darian gaze is sc the surroundings. “If there’s a predator out here capable of plug a star drake out from under our hen staying isn’t safe. We o take shelter, yes, but somewhere defensible. We push through until we find a roation to set up against.”

  “I don’t like this,” Xamireb says. “I don’t uand it, but there is something wrong with this storm. With respect, Captain.”

  “I uand,” she says. “But the risk of remaining in the open is too high. If it eat a star drake ie, it do the same to us.” She stops searg our surroundings and turns back to the group. “Let’s just hope that’ll keep it busy for a while. e one. We’ve little time to waste.”

  Relutly, we all start moving once more. The wind pulls at the Aegis and, after assuring it I would be removing it again soon, I add it bato my Iory to avoid getting swept away. Darian and Liz walk between our two lizards. The rising howl of the wind is the only sound that apanies us as everyone remains silent, gng over shoulders and looking every which way. Hair rises on the bay arms. I don’t like this.

  “Do you smell that?” Quell mumbles a few mier. He takes a deeper breath. “What is that?”

  I sniff as well, but I don’t notiything. “Smells like dirt. Why, what do you smell?”

  “I don’t know,” he admits. “Something… Damp, sort of.”

  I frown, trying to pick out what he smells, but it’s all dust to me.

  A shadow flickers in my peripheral.

  “There!” I shout, spinning toward it. I summon the Aegis, and there’s the metal hiss of swords being drawn.

  The Aegis happily looks around. Is it time to defeat something?

  But there’s nothing there. Only curtains of sandy wind, swirling all around us.

  “What is it?” Darian calls from ahead.

  I falter. “I thought I saw something.”

  I he Aegis, but it’s sad to report it ’t find any potential threats. Unless we wao fight that dhampyr again.

  “But I…” Maybe it was just another whirl of sand. But my gut doesn’t think so. Goosebumps prickle up and down my arm. What’s going on here?

  “Keep moving,” Darian shouts. “I think I see an outcrop ahead. We’ll pause there.”

  “Xamireb’s right,” Quell says to me as we nervously press forward. “I sense something, too.”

  Nervously, I slip the Aegis bato my Iory once more.

  Echo, Check, I think, gng around my surroundings. Maybe she see something I ’t.

  [The Gilded Desert,] she reports. [Infused with life ara from the Lifespring Oasis, the desert is often poputed by creatures mutated by Life arum that has leaked into the surrounding nd.]

  That tells me nothing I didn’t already know. Except that she doesn’t see any animals around, I guess. What about this sandstorm? I think. Is it magical?

  [Affirmative,] Echo says. [Life arum is infused with the sand that the wind has carried into the air.]

  Still nothing I don’t already know. I’ll have to wait until I get a good look at whatever is stalking us—though by then, it might be too te.

  “Ah, I think I’ve found it!” Xamireb’s voice is muted, cutting in and out as the wind carries the words away from us. “The ground here—”

  “Watch out!”

  I snap my head up, squinting through the hissing dim. I ’t see anything. The curtains of sand are getting denser, stinging like ants as they batter my skin.

  Someone cries out.

  “Ear!”

  A gust of wind crashes into me, knog me into Poppy. Quell also yelps, clutg her reins, ah duck our heads and hold our breath as sand bsts into us. It doesn’t st more than ten, fifteen seds. But when I look back up, everyone in front of us has vanished. No star drake, no Darian, no princess or soldiers.

  Quell and I are alone.