[Fifth Era – Year 1257 of the Divinity War; remains of the First Star, ruins of Arkand]

  Worlds apart, Nazrin still heard my need, only her heart was wide enough to listen …

  Strange visions flitted across that haunted wasteland of sand come dawn, phantoms of shadow and dust swirling across the dunes, unidentifiable creatures skittering in and out of the bone-white sand. She walked not alone when I spotted them, her golden hair braided with thousands of ribbons of mourning—veiling her face, streaming in the wind—gold, red, orange, and silver, like an encompassing fire as it caught the dawn light, remembering souls she could not.

  The wind hissed, its voice a low hum, as if the desert itself was alive, breathing. Nazrin sang, yet the parched dunes swallowed her tune, leaving only spectral whispers on the wind.

  Nazrin’s lone companion trudged on behind, a well-knit man, holding a mystic grin, whose name ought to be as familiar as breathing. Fragmented memories strained, fire in the mist, temptation marks upon a face—Gwyff, Jestil, Viinsen, Ravewik, Moraithe … which name was his? All of them? Despite the desert, he wore winter boots, and thick woolen robes, bordered with eyelets to lace or clasp or tie however he desired. Kajin robes, that was what they were called. The robes twisted around his body, leaving his arms bare, the excess fabric gathered in the front and tied in a switchback pattern.

  Fatigue was evident in Nazrin’s face. Dust streaked across her skin like war paint, exhaustion in her posture. She had always been so firm, so resolute. But even she had limits. And this endless expanse was pushing them both to the edge.

  The hawk whose vision I shared suddenly screeched a call to its master, the hunter. I could not stop it, for I did not control the beast, merely borrowing its senses, but perhaps I could warn her.

  She spotted the hawk, and I reached out, now blind without the hawk’s eyes, strained farther, into her eyes, thoughts, and senses.

  After so long, she was finally there. I felt her warmth, the fiery wind parching her eyes, the cold sand, still shaded by the dunes, as it engulfed her feet. Every grain of sand beneath them felt like a test of endurance, every breath thick with dust and burgeoning heat. I embraced her soul, and she seemed to sense it.

  “Somehow, he feels close,” she called back to her companion, Jestil. “We must find him before a sandstorm scatters him across this endless waste.”

  Jestil’s boots crunched in the coarse sand, his eyes scanning the horizon, ever wary. “Find the singing sand,” he muttered, repeating the words I’d placed in both their hearts. “How is sand supposed to sing?”

  “Like this.” And again she sang, the words now reverberating on the air, so familiar, and yet so strange.

  Each grain another memory,

  Sand sea of broken reverie.

  Relics of oblivion

  Which we have lost our stories in.

  Her words sent my sand shifting. I fed her song back into her mind, an echo as if far ahead. Subtly leading her to the ruins where I lay.

  As she topped a dune, I sensed them, their pursuers, creeping along in their wake. I pricked her senses, a threat from behind. She turned to see them now. A dust cloud rising, and not from wind. The hawk still circled high over them, marking them for their hunters. I plucked a string of dread in her heart, a warning.

  Jestil followed her gaze, his face taking on a mystic grin. “They’re early.”

  “It’s not our friends.” There was a pensive note in Nazrin’s voice. “Not yet. This is … something else. We must hurry.”

  “What do you suspect … slavers? Or—”

  “Priests of the Severed?” Nazrin cut him off, her voice low, barely a whisper. “In either case, we should run.”

  Jestil straightened, moving quickly to the edge of the dune. He peered into the rising cloud of dust, his eyes narrowing. “Please not priests of the Severed. Not after what they did to us. Not after they took Irinai and turned her into that thing.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” she said, her voice biting. Her ribbons of mourning scintillating in the sunlight like flaming tears. “But neither can we let them keep the truth buried forever.”

  Jestil ran a hand through his hair, looking torn between running and standing his ground. “You think they won’t come after us? They've already wiped out half our village. Life means nothing to them.”

  “We can expose them.” Nazrin snapped back. “That’s what matters right now. The truth’s here, I can feel it. And do you really think we could fight them? Priests of the Severed are beyond my blood.”

  Nazrin was only a countess with a self-assurance nearing four hundred thousand. And Jestil … she reached out to check his aura. He held the rank of duke, with a self-assurance of just under one million eight hundred thousand. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. Many of the Severed’s priests were at the rank of archduke or even prince. Vastly outmatching them both. Especially if they were priests of Barthum, the god of shadow. His power outstripped them all. None could stand against his terrible will.

  That left them only one path—onward.

  She resumed her song and I the echo, leading her toward their destiny. Their breaths grew ragged as for hours they rushed across those barren wastes, as both sun and sand grew hot. Stalks of some kind were sticking out of the sand ahead, a large swath of now-dried husks. Nazrin’s lips quirked in the faintest of smiles, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “There was a field here. Crops. Recently swallowed by the sand.”

  A silo stood broken in the distance, grain spilling out, mingling with the desert sand.

  Jestil glanced back. “They’re still following us.”

  Nazrin twisted, her gaze tracking his. “Mounted too. Even at a countess-ranked pace, they’re gaining.”

  “They must be powerful indeed. I fear you are right, we cannot match them.”

  Nazrin’s expression hardened. “We need to outsmart them. This desert has more secrets than they know.”

  “It looks like this is their home. We’ve never set foot here before, not in my memory.” Jestil gave her a grim look. “I doubt we know more of this place than they do.”

  “Then we must regain our memories before we are caught.” Her mind raced as she scanned the dunes.

  “Not just memories, we need a way to stand against them.” Jestil waved a hand at the vast expanse around them, his voice carrying a mix of frustration and fear. “We're running out of time. This is our last chance against the Severed. If their lies stand, they win.”

  Nazrin looked back at him, her face weary, but her eyes flashing with that familiar defiance. “We’ll recover the truth, and with it power they can’t take from us. Power the Amnesia Storms have stolen.”

  “It won’t be easy, not after all those they’ve killed to silence the truth. All the manuscripts and relics they’ve consumed …” Jestil shook his head, thinking of the strange offerings the Severed demanded—objects with a history. So many offered their journals and mementos willingly.

  Nazrin and Jestil continued their flight across the endless stretch of desert, the sun an unforgiving weight above them, the sand shifting beneath their boots. The air was thick with heat, a constant blaze that left their mouths dry and their bodies aching, but it wasn’t the desert that gnawed at Nazrin’s soul. No, it was something far more insidious.

  She looked at Jestil, her voice rising with frustration as if the very act of speaking might expel the bitterness that had built up inside her. “You know what burns me the most? It's not the heat. It's not the endless sand.” She kicked a loose stone out of her path, watching it roll across the dunes. “It's how everyone buys into the lies. The Severed's priests—they've got everyone wrapped around their fingers. They walk through the Amnesia Storms like they're gods themselves.”

  Jestil’s gaze shot to her, brow furrowed in disbelief. “You think they’re immune to the storms?”

  “Perhaps not immune.” Nazrin’s voice dropped low, bitter. “But they’re shielded by them. The Severed—whoever they were, whatever they were—make sure their priests are untouchable, make sure we forget everything. Every truth, every history, every mistake. They get to keep their power, while the rest of us? We're left scrambling in the dust, fighting to hold on to what little we can remember.”

  Jestil stopped, shaking his head, as if to ward off the heat that wasn’t just the sun’s but something darker, deeper. “And no one sees it? No one figures out the trick?”

  Nazrin’s laugh was short, almost hollow. “Because it’s easy. It’s easy to believe when you’re told the same thing every day. 'The Severed protect us, the Severed give us purpose.' No one remembers a time when it was different. No one wants to. Who would? Who wants to admit they've been fed lies for their whole lives?

  “And once they’d replaced history with their lies” Nazrin mused aloud, “it must have been easy for the Severed to take control of everything. After all, they were the ‘benevolent gods who gave great power to those who served them,’ to all their worshipers.”

  Jestil scoffed. “The audacity to pretend to be benevolent after all the souls they had enslaved, whittling away at their power until they were nothing.” Jestil shook his head. “And those worshipers only retain power as tools to carry out their will, nothing more.”

  Nazrin fell back to run alongside him. “The way they control power, the way they manipulate people—it’s poison. We can’t forget Irinai, though they call her by another name—what they did to her? What they did to us?”

  “I refuse to call her by that name” Jestil's jaw tightened. He looked away, swallowing the anger that rose at the mention of his twin sister, Irinai’s name. “You think I don’t remember? The way they poisoned her mind, turned her against the truth, against us, and when they taught her that terrible power. No one should see their loved ones turned into such a thing. If only we could convince her of the truth. They’ve got their claws in everything, and if we don’t take power—real power—outside their control, it’s over.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Nazrin clenched her fists. “That’s why we’re here, Jestil. We find the singing sand, we get the truth. Reclaim our memories … and hers, and with them—power.”

  He cast a sidelong glance at her. “But what if it’s already too late? What if we don’t find it in time?”

  “We must. Here at the edge of hope, there is only one last chance to gain power that’s not tainted, dependent on them. Only one possibility to restore the truth, rediscover their enemy’s plan, and reclaim what we’ve lost.”

  Exhaustion racked their muscles as they ran on, the blistering heat pressing on their backs, but Nazrin felt something shift inside her. Something like the first breath of a storm, brewing on the horizon. Determination. She would free the truth, free them all.

  She resumed her song as I stirred within her.

  Come raise your shattered souls

  seek truths that entropy divest

  and lean upon my shoals

  Let my wits bequeath you rest

  I ease your cankered minds

  which darkness does infest

  I heal that which blinds

  heap strength on the distressed

  Echoing her song, I led them as they endured their sprint across the stubble-covered dunes. Until, from a distance, strange features peeked out amid the waves of dried stalks and sand.

  A maze of worn pillars compassing a broken throne lay half buried in sand, all treasures long since stripped away. Nearby, a scraggly tree clung in the cracks of some long-buried floor stones, refusing to succumb to the desert. Recent ruins, the remnants of a barn, and the stubble of sand-buried fields bordered the ancient ruins.

  Jestil, huffing beside her, was equally focused, his jaw clenched in quiet determination. His eyes darted between the sand and the remains of what looked like a village swallowed whole by the desert. Stalks of withered grain jutted out of the sand like the bones of a long-dead animal, and the skeletons of barns and silos were half-buried, as though nature itself was trying to erase them from memory.

  He pointed to a darkness on the horizon. “A sandstorm is building in the west. If it reaches us before our pursuers we just might lose them.”

  Nazrin’s eyes narrowed at the storm on the horizon. “No. That is the earthstorm, their weapon against the Severed invasion. I’m not sure we can survive it.”

  “All the more reason to hurry. We find the singing sand, regain our power, and make sure no one can rewrite history again.”

  Jestil exhaled sharply, frustrated but resolute. “If we don’t get caught first. And if we don’t die out here in the process.”

  Nazrin smiled a dangerous, tired smile. “Then we keep moving. You and me, Jestil. We’re going to find it. We’re going to take that power. Together.”

  Nazrin resumed her song and I joined, leading them onward. There, to an etched millstone, sideways in the sand, a circular monolith against the rolling horizon.

  As they approached, Jestil studied the designs etched into the millstone. “There are words written on it.” He stepped closer to examine the stone. Even if it hadn’t been desecrated he could not have deciphered the tongue. “It’s like someone bore a hole right through an ancient monument.”

  They didn’t know what had happened, so I fed her the memory of the tragedy, one of the few I still understood. And all the mourning in my soul for the loss of my people came with it.

  Nazrin staggered, groaning. “To use a Law Stone as a millstone … No wonder these people were cursed.”

  “What people?” Jestil asked.

  “The ones on whom we tread. Those who became sand for their sin.”

  He froze and glanced to his feet as if suddenly spooked by the white sand. Bone white. His gaze stretched out across a land covered in sand as far as the eye could see. So much devastation. “Why would they do such a thing?”

  “The Severed lied to them, and the people didn’t know any better.” Nazrin’s ribbons of mourning fluttered in the breeze, blazing in the sunlight like flames of endless grief.

  Jestil shook in rage. “This is what they do. This is why we must stop them.”

  “When memory is lost, so is much wisdom,” Nazrin whispered, her voice almost a prayer.

  “We’ve got to stop the Severed and their priests.” Jestil kicked the sand in frustration. “These people, their light once shone across the universe. Then, when they were vulnerable, the Severed priests come, gain their confidence, lie, and teach them that their selfish deeds will bring them happiness, when all it does is destroy the world around them, and ultimately themselves in the process.”

  “We’ve all been lied to. We’ve all fallen victim to deceit. It’s heartbreaking, but we can’t blame them.”

  “Blame them?” Jestil shook his head, holding back tears. “How do we stop this? It won’t matter what truths we uncover if no one will believe us. Even the truth isn’t enough when people don’t know what to believe.”

  “I have a plan.” Nazrin brushed a tear from his cheek. “How did the First Star begin?”

  “Well, they realized that the thing that truly makes people happy is to be loved. But love, like many resources, decreases when it is not shared. Only by sharing altruistic love can you increase the total supply of it. And that would benefit all. Selfishly trying to trick love out of others only damages the trust needed to build love. When people think of others, the total supply of happiness increases. When they think of themselves, it diminishes. It’s simple logic, really.”

  “That’s what we do. We make a new star, a true star.” She looked up at the sky as if she could see the stars beyond the bright sky. “Now all that glitters in the night are counterfeits. My greatest desire is to help people realize that simple truth—for the greatest number of people to be happy we must share our love with one another. If we make a new star they will believe us.”

  Jestil leaned in with interest. “But how will we do that?”

  “We need to gather those who believe the same, create this world anew.” Nazrin gestured to the world around them. “We need a revenescent city, a world even.”

  Jestil’s brow rose. “How will that help?”

  “I don’t know if you remember this, but anciently new bodies used to be created in a revenescent, to protect them as they developed—now it’s a womb or an egg, similar concept. If we are going to make something as delicate as a new star we will need to protect all those whom we gather to create it. We need refuge. Where better than a revenescent?”

  Jestil glanced back at the fast-approaching column of dust just over the dunes. “Okay, but we need to hurry. Where is it?”

  “Sing with me, Jestil. Let the sand’s song guide us.”

  For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the desert—until their voices joined together, ringing out in harmony. The song of the sand, the ancient song that held the truth of everything.

  As they sang, my sand now hissed and hummed the melody, vibrating out from under the Law Stone, where I had taken shelter, or what remained of me.

  Jestil gaped at my sand. “It is singing.” His mouth formed that iconic mystic grin I knew so well.

  Nazrin knelt and swirled a finger through my sand. “You still have the vial I gave you?”

  Jestil’s hand rummaged through his robes. “Right here.”

  Nazrin grabbed Jestil’s arm, pulling him forward, urgency in her voice. “Pour it onto the sand.”

  Jestil peered into the vial uncertainly. “What is it?”

  Nazrin’s voice fell low, ominous. “Mithsyrium.”

  “Truly?” Jestil gaped at the fortune at his very fingertips. “And you want me to dump it onto the sand, waste it?”

  “Only this sand.” Nazrin pointed to the blue-gray splash of my remains. “The singing sand.”

  The man, Jestil, her many-named companion, obliged, pouring the contents slowly, reluctantly over my grains. It felt exhilarating, unsettling, and yet … blurry as if all my pieces were turning liquid and bleeding together. I was truly singing now, a hum that echoed from the hills.

  “How much of your memory washed away during the last wave?” Nazrin asked.

  Jestil didn’t answer her. Not now. Not when the desert was singing.

  “His memory is written in stone.” She stood and glanced back in the direction of their pursuers, seeing only the approaching column of dust over the dunes she turned back to the sand. “He does not forget. But he has been fragmented, a puzzle of scattered memories. Ours have been all but erased. Only the scratches of the quill remain, the palimpsest after all the ink has washed away.”

  “I thought this was supposed to fix him, bind the shards back together … something. What can we do?”

  Strange words whispered to her as if from afar—out of time itself. She gave them voice. “Tell him your story.”

  “But I don’t remember. I don’t even know what I’ve lost.” Jestil’s voice came broken, forlorn. “He’s supposed to be my memory, and he’s … dust in the wind.”

  “I feel that somehow you’ll have to remember together.” She crouched to gather a handful of the sand. Her voice took on a strange note as if she were speaking out of time itself. “You remember nothing, not even Elizzin?”

  He knew that name. It sounded so … and I knew it somehow, as well. There were pieces, grains of me that thrummed at the name, but I couldn’t fit them together.

  Jestil’s brow wrinkled. “Elizzin?” he uttered, as if in trance.

  “The baby?” Nazrin said.

  Jestil’s mouth gaped. “What?”

  “Here.” Nazrin held out a handful of my grains, pieces of me. “Hold. This. Sand.”

  As the first grain struck his cupped palm, a vision or a dream flooded his senses … and mine. A breathtaking girl spoke not in words, but images, illusions; and he responded in kind, light and images blossoming from the mist between them.

  Another grain struck his palm—another dream. Emerging from a slit of fire, into a palace bedchamber.

  Another dream. Corpses, dead men and women, raining from the sky.

  Another. Taking a hand and emerging into a different world.

  Again. Walking in a village upon a sun.

  Desperately leaping into a throne with someone else.

  Writing a contract.

  Holding a baby.

  A whirlwind blade.

  Living fire. Dying stars. Shattering crystals. Mist. Girl. Light. Beast. Embrace. Grief Kiss Hand Fire-Storm-Scream. Blur. The world whirled about in a storm of thoughts and memories.

  Too fast they came, hissing, in a torrent. His mind reeled until the last grain dropped, spilling over the edge of his cupped hand.

  Jestil huffed in ragged gasps. “What … what was that?”

  Nazrin’s gaze pierced deep into him. “A glimpse at all you’ve forgotten.”

  Jestil staggered, nearly dropping my sand. “Those were my memories?”

  “Hurry” Nazrin glanced back over the dunes. “You must tell your story.”

  “But I can’t remember. How do I even start?”

  She pulled out a bundle of items. Among them, he recognized a contract from the visions a moment ago.

  “This is the original,” Nazrin said, “the one you sent to Elizzin with a certain caravan guard.” So saying, she curtsied and then raised an eyebrow.

  This contract … it had been preserved somehow, not consumed by the Severed.

  She offered him the parchment. “Start here.”

  “But what does my story have to do with his?” He clutched my sand, swaying. “Why tell him?”

  “I don’t remember. You’ll have to tell us all. But I know you can clear this confusion, help him put himself together. Confusion is the enemy of truth, and truth is the key to power. Why do you think the enemy wants everyone left in disarray?”

  Jestil blinked, considering.

  “The Severed don’t know how to really listen,” she muttered, her voice almost a prayer. “Not like we do. This … this isn’t just power. It’s the truth. And that’s something the Severed can never control.”

  A hawk screeched above them. Nazrin glanced up at the hawk still circling overhead. “Best hurry. We need to go.”

  Jestil clutched my sand and stared down at the remaining pile. “Then let’s take the sand and run.”

  I sent her a vision of the five riders, so close.

  But Nazrin was already stepping forward, her hand hovering over the sand, drawn to it as if by an unseen force. She could feel the history within it—the echoes of all that had been lost, all that had been erased.

  “Not yet,” she breathed, eyes closed, listening to the song, to the truth that it held. “I need to hear it. We need to know what they’re hiding.”

  The voices in the sand grew louder, clearer, and for the first time, Nazrin understood the song. It wasn’t just a melody—it was a history, a tapestry of forgotten worlds and forgotten people, and it held the secrets of the Severed. Of Barthum, and of the power he had stolen.

  “Never mind.” Nazrin shook her head. “I don’t think we can outrun them. But we may have long enough to begin his healing … if you hurry.” Without a word, Nazrin pulled herself up, her fingers brushing one last time against the sand. The truth was waking. It was calling them forward.

  Jestil stood, motioning for her to move. The moment of reckoning was upon them. “We’re not just fighting for ourselves now. We’re fighting for Irinai,” he glanced around at the bone-white desert sand, a tear brimming in his eye, “for everyone the Severed’s buried under their lies.”

  Nazrin nodded, fire in her eyes. “Let’s give them something to fear.”

  They took a step forward, their hearts pounding. The sound of the song grew louder, but so did the distant rumble of their pursuers. It was a race against time. And the desert would be their battlefield.

  “I will hold them back. You must start the tale. Remember your strength. Tell your story.” Her gaze bore through all of his hesitation, his fear. “Now!”

  Jestil stared at the contract and opened his mouth. He couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember. But together we remembered, and the story tumbled out.