Scarlet sky. Olive grass.

Heror loved the steppes. And so he stayed here a bit longer.

He sat on a small knoll, beneath the cradle canopy of a savannah tree – letting the soft, rippling blades tickle his ankles and knees. To the west, the sun was setting – a circle of deep red light in a nest of pink and amber cirrus clouds. The wind was constant, as if it was the sun’s last drawing breath, before it submerged and disappeared forever beneath the horizon.

In the distance, Heror could see Shaadur racing the wild horses. Shaadur had only been gone for a short time, but already, he was the fastest among them. His long silver-gray forelock flapped and fluttered in the breeze, and he bucked his head with joy. Heror wondered if the horse saw any old friends.

After some time, Heror glanced over his shoulder. Back behind him, to the east, he could see the brilliant orange plateau catching the glow of the parent star. After a full day of riding, he was almost to the desert. He’d rode farther to the west, keeping a wide berth from the camp. He’d kept on his black Ardysi raincloak, to prevent recognition. But even from far away, he hadn’t seen any Midan riders. They must’ve already gone south.

At the thought, Heror’s breath hopped, and he tried to put his mind on something else. He turned all the way around, shuffling his knees in the grass. And in the far distance, he could just make out the treeline of the forest. For a moment, he smiled.

And then he remembered Adjaash. He remembered her laugh. And he bowed his head and turned back to the west.

Shaadur looked happy. Heror wondered if he’d run away. If he’d turn to the west and disappear in the light of the sun, to be with his brothers and sisters again. He wouldn’t have blamed Shaadur – running away from Heror. Shaadur must’ve known what Heror was. He had to know. The animals knew these things. He had every reason to leave him behind. And Heror had every reason to be abandoned.

Before his thoughts ran too far away from him, Heror rose to his feet. It was getting darker. He cupped his hands around his mouth and breathed in. Then he called out.

“Shaadur!”

In a few minutes, the horse came bounding back, and he gave Heror an excited greeting. Heror smiled and met the horse with a pat.

“Did you have fun?”

Now Heror opened the pack behind Shaadur’s saddle. He fed Shaadur an apple and gave him water. Then he fed himself. And then they were off again.

He wanted to use the night to travel through the desert, as far as he could. The sky was clear, and he could follow the Peak of the Obelisk north. At night, the winds were calmer, and the air was cooler, and no dust stirred. The only threat would be what lay beneath.

An hour passed as Heror and Shaadur rode, and soon, the tall olive grasses thinned and dissipated. In their place, red canyon rocks rose and fell from the flats, catching the dying light of the sunglow. Burnt sandstone arches and towers climbed from the red depths, casting endless shadows across the land as stars teemed above.

A half-hour longer, and the sand flowed beneath them.

Night fell. Constellations dominated the carapace. Clusters of yellow, blue, white, and red stretched across the darkened canvas, beneath the matrix of the galactic ring. The waxing crescent moon still caught the sun’s light, and its glow reflected off the quartz grains below. The dunes rose and fell as if waves in an ocean, sparkling in the low light like water.

As Shaadur ran at a gallop, Heror found himself glancing up. He’d seen something in the night sky earlier, and now, he saw more of them: Falling stars racing past the idle asterisms. Thin white streaks, with the tails of comets, flashing and fading in flocks of fleeting brightness, by the dozen. He never saw the stars move like this. He wondered where they were going – what was causing them to fall.

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They rode for hours more beneath the clear night sky. And eventually, at a crest, Heror tugged the reins and stopped to rest again. He dismounted his horse and looked out across the sands, clutching his arms at a cool gust of wind. From where he stood, they were in the middle of the desert. In every direction, dunes swelled and layered atop one another. He had no way of knowing how far along they were – but he hoped they were closer.

Heror opened his pack. He grabbed the nearly-full canteen of water and another apple. And then he took care of his horse again. When Shaadur was done drinking, Heror went to stow the canteen and grab his own. He rummaged through the pack, searching for the second canteen – when all of a sudden, there was a noise.

A roar of flame rumbled from the sky, and the Aelyum flashed with light. Heror’s eyes lashed to the right, and in the distance, he saw a bright blue fireball climbing down from the heavens, illuminating the air and the dunes as if day. The sight drew a gasp of awe from Heror’s lips. As soon as it flashed, however, the falling star burned up and was gone, and darkness flooded back. But the light and the noise was enough to spook Shaadur.

The horse reared and whinnied, and Heror jolted back. The young man lifted his hands to try and calm the horse, but Shaadur was already turning away. With another rear and a clop of his hooves, Shaadur whirled around and sped off – down the crest and up another.

“Shaadur!” Heror shouted. “Shaadur!!”

Shaadur disappeared. Heror cupped his hands around his mouth. He shouted louder, stifling a cough inside his dry throat.

“Shaadur!! Come back!!”

The light winds hummed.

“Shaadur!!”

There was nothing.

Angrily, Heror turned away, and he faced the north again. He paced in the sand for a moment, his boots trudging in the soft pack. And then his right hand dropped down to the Sword of Sparhh – its obsidian handle cold to the touch. He stopped. His breath quivered, and now his eyes rose. He saw only the stars.

“What are you trying to say to me??” he demanded.

Still, there was nothing. The stars fell silently far above, in a shower of light. The moon slept. The fire was gone.

Heror’s nose curled. He went through the names of the Gods in his head. The names he remembered.

“Bor… Opela… Pyn…” Heror pleaded. “What are you trying to say to me?!”

Now his head lashed back around, and he searched for Shaadur across the sands. He could see nothing in the dark. His skin tingled. His hands started to shake. He turned around once more, and he fell to his knees.

“Speak to me!” he said strongly but weakly, his voice fading.

He felt tears coming, and he shook his head, as if to turn them away. He hung his head for a moment, and then in the quiet, his eyes slowly lifted again. And they set on the desert.

A wasteland. A sea – an ocean of nothing. For as far as the eye could see, through realms and realms, nothing lived and nothing grew. The black sky swallowed the light, and the dunes echoed faintly – grains made from fossilized remnants of lost hope. This was not death; not even that. Death, at least, was an end. A release. This was an impenetrable void. An icy prison.

Heror’s blue eyes whispered in the dark. The tears crept back. He did not stop them now.

“I see…”

He gazed out at the dunes, as they caught the pooling light of the falling stars.

“I see what you’re trying to tell me…” Heror said faintly.

His eyes dropped again. His words died in the breeze.

“Being alone… all alone…” he breathed. “… This is my sentence…”

He closed his eyes. His arms went limp and numb at his sides. His knees dug into the dunecrest. He sat as if a corpse, stiff against the wind.

Eventually, Heror heard hoofsteps. And Shaadur trotted up the slope again, letting out a neigh of relief at the sight of Heror – as if Heror had been the one who ran away. The horse lowered his head and nuzzled Heror’s face, and Heror slowly stood. He drank water from his half-empty canteen, and then he mounted. And they carried on.

The cloth felt heavier in his pocket.