Airya had read through every book she could in the mirror room the next few weeks, had even gone to the mountain to bring back and read the new books there, and had gone to other places and worlds to find any knowledge she could on black ice. But every excursion had led her to almost nothing. She thought about searching out something of Obsviden again, but she didn’t want to chance seeing him. Not when she was so vulnerable and not when she knew where her people were now. She also didn’t want him to remind her that her time was running out.

She did return to see Desmond more than a few times a week, craving someone to talk to, although he never asked again about what had happened to her people.

She hated how their opinions differed when it came to the Solocs.

The first time she returned, she had waited outside his apartment building for him to emerge. He had looked so shocked to see her and then relieved. He had actually wrapped his arm around her shoulder in a comforting manner and took her to the pet shop to feed Hethei.

Over the first few days, he had found ways to lift her mood and spirits. He taught her more about his world. She learned what sunglasses were because Desmond got her a pair so that she would stop getting stares on the street for her yellow eyes. She got to try pizza and meet his friend’s mother, who stopped by sometimes. She even got to go to a place called a library and read all the books she wanted. She spent most of her time there trying to learn about black ice. She loved being around him and found she needed it whenever she hit constant dead end after dead end without any idea on how to get her people back. Although she couldn’t let herself get as close as she would have wanted to Desmond, it was nice to have him around to keep her from falling into deep despair.

Desmond seemed to cherish their time together also. His favorite thing to do was to sit with Airya on the couches and show her the different worlds that he had in his box he called a TV. It was interesting to see different stories and adventures from different people all in one place as if she were looking into their lives. She wondered if that was how Obsviden felt or any of the gods she had read about. She and Desmond would discuss the world and people after each TV show, trying to figure out why the people had made their choices. Twice it had gotten too close to her own situation. When it had, she left.

Hethei didn't show much love for Desmond’s place, but still refused to let Airya go alone. Luckily, Desmond always had a frozen mouse waiting for him whenever they visited to help calm his nerves and make him happy.

Today was one of those days where Hethei waited outside with a frozen mouse in his belly as Airya laid on one of the couches. Desmond was on the other one. The show they were watching made Airya’s eyes drift to sleep. She felt her dreaming mind shift from the world on the show to her own world back at home. Her empty world that she still desired to fill and that needed her. Her dream was so real. She felt the grass of Ausrine sway and the leaves calling her as she fought her desire to go there, telling herself she needed a break. Static surrounded her briefly. Her mind screamed in loneliness and anger. Sand drifted over and across her mind. A place of just sand. A place of a warm sun. That’s where she needed to go. The new place of her studies that she was to explore next. Someplace that had a hidden secret, much like her home Ausrine. A place called Conzeal Stran.

There was more static, then warmth. Until the warmth started to burn and Airya hissed in pain and opened her eyes. She was confused at why Desmond’s blankets were like fire.

She sat up, grabbed her scorching arm, and looked around, exhaling a shocked exhale. She was in some sort of desert with the sun beating down on her. It was the land she had planned to adventure to next. The one with the hidden secret that she had spent the last two days studying nonstop. But why was she here now? And how? Could she have gone through two worlds, Ausrine and then to here, while she slept?

She shook her head. Obviously, her growing desire to find her people was starting to seep into her dreams. In the glaring sun, she spotted someone walking off into the sand a good distance away.

She stood up quickly. Sweat was already starting to drip down her back under her dress. “Desmond!” she screamed.

He stopped. She held her breath. How had she taken him with her?

“Airya? Now I’m starting to second guess about this being a dream….”

She needed to get to him so they could go back to his apartment. From what she had read, it wasn’t safe for either of them here. No one survived.

When she took a step toward him, he was gone.

Her heart skipped a beat from panic. She forced herself to want her home world and ran inside a portal, already wanting to be wherever Desmond was next. Ausrine greeted her with a raining mist for less than a second before she dove through a second portal. Her stomach met sand in her dive, and she shoved her hand down into a hole that she knew Desmond had fallen into. Her face burned when hot sand scalded her cheek. She dug her arm in further. Her heart beating again when she felt Desmond’s hand grab hers. She took in an inhale of blistering air as she let herself get pulled into the hole too.

Sand wrapped around Airya, grabbing at every inch of her pores. She held Desmond’s hand as tightly as she could, refusing to let go. They moved downward into the place she had read no one ever returned from. Mouth and eyes closed tightly, the sand scratched and cut into her eyelids and her skin. She wanted to try to open a portal, but she was too scared that if she did, the sand would be too strong and that her grip on Desmond would fail. She couldn’t leave him behind.

Her lungs burned with suffocating panic. Her muscles were starting to cramp. Hysteria was taking over her mind.

No. She had to stay focused all the way to the end, like a queen. She had to prove herself. Something wrapped around her arms and chest like ropes. She bit down hard with her teeth when that something came over her face, prepared. They squeezed tighter, dragging her down faster with a pulse of their own. Desmond’s hand was getting harder to hold onto. His grip had completely slacked. White was starting to take over. Her muscles were about to force her to let go. Her mind was drifting out of focus.

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Desmond’s hand left hers.

The sand gave way, and for a moment, they were in a dark cavern falling into open air. A wall of sand was above them, while a creature was below. A creature with a mouth its own giant ocean of darkness waiting to swallow them whole, and teeth like stalagmites of ice. Whatever was around her unwrapped itself. But she couldn’t focus. Couldn’t see. Just saw Desmond falling with her. She wanted to be back home. Needed to lay on the grass bed of Ausrine one last time. Something opened up right below Desmond. He fell in. She finally let her mind mist to white.

Rain gently sprinkled calm kisses onto Airya’s rough, burning skin as she opened her eyes. Looking up to the sunless calm sky of Ausrine, her shoulders relaxed. She took in a big inhale of breath, unable to move.

She heard a cough.

Painfully making herself sit up, she looked over to see Desmond lying next to her. He was just as scratched up and hurt as she was.

He opened his eyes and then turned his head, his burned scars grazing the ground as he looked at her. He made himself sit up, “What happened? One minute I was standing there like I was in some bizarre dream, then I fell into the sand. It was real… wasn’t it?”

“That was The Conzeal Stran. A place with a hidden secret that no one knows and whenever anyone looks for it, they become lost forever.” She had put him in danger again... “I’ve been studying it and had been planning on going there soon to see if maybe…” she stopped, knowing he didn’t want to hear about her search for a way to bring back her people. The moment Aesha told her that it wasn’t possible rang through her mind, and she shut it out. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah… Did you at least find out what the hidden secret was?”

She laughed for a moment and then flinched. Her lungs did not enjoy the laughter. “Some type of monster creature living underneath, I guess.”

He brought his hand up to his scars and pulled it away. She then noticed that his scares were bleeding. He cringed when he touched his ear hole too, “I feel horrible… and all that sand… I think I have a ton in my ear. There is so much pressure.”

Knowing what to do, she got up and took his hand. They both winced when she helped him to his feet, “Come to the temple. The river may heal you and get the sand out, but you will actually have to go under the water this time.”

He nodded and let her lead him to the temple.

Airya went in first after taking off her dress while he looked away and waited. She now knew why he did that after being around him for so long and watching so many shows with him. She respected that he respected her. The water was great on her body and helped wash the sand out of her hair and soothed her skin. After getting out, she dunked her dress in and told Desmond to count to thirty before he stripped and went into the river. He had been sitting on the temple floor with his eyes closed, waiting. She went outside hoping that her dress would dry a little faster in the air. The light material seemed to like the gentle breeze and became livelier as it dried, deciding to dance along with the wind. She thanked Ausrine. When she put it on, she figured that Desmond should be done and started heading back to the temple. He wore his wet pants and was shaking out his soaked shirt when she walked in. His scars had stopped bleeding, and his skin looked fresh and new, as if they were healing already.

“I’ll completely change when I get back. We really need to get you a new dress though. I can’t believe you only have the one,” he laughed and then bent his head over, looking to try to empty out his ear, “The water did seem to get the sand out of my ear. I just feel a different kind of pressure now. Probably the water. I’ll have to put drops in it when I get back. It was different though, as if the river knew to be gentle with me right around my ear…” He tugged on his shirt, “Are you coming with me?”

She smiled, went over to him, took his hand in hers, and then opened a portal back to his apartment.

"Airya,” he said as the portal closed behind them. He plopped down on the couch. “Why don't you stay-stay here? We could be roommates. You could take my uncle’s old room. I’ll clean it out for you and help you settle in.” He paused, “I’ll be graduating soon, so maybe somehow, I can find some way for you to go to college or something and get a job later on… I feel like you going away and being gone and alone for multiple periods of time isn't helping. I mean… you just opened a hole to another world and didn’t even realize you had. You could have died..."

Her heart sank, "I have to find my people. I’m their queen."

"I know… but…” He ran his hand through his hair and looked away from her, “You’re are putting yourself in danger trying to find them. I… I really can’t believe you were planning on going to that place alone where we both nearly died… You’re risking your life for something… for something that may never happen. I just don’t want you to be sad for the rest of your life. There’s a time to move on. I had to teach myself that.”

" I’m ok being sad. Sometimes I want to be sad. It reminds me of what I need to be doing."

Desmond laughed, "No one wants to be sad."

"Sometimes it’s good to be sad,” she clenched her jaw. He was looking at her again, "Being sad can push you."

"Push you where? Into despair? Self-hatred? Into an unfulfilled life getting you nowhere?"

"It can push you to achieve the goals you need for happiness. Push you to grow and never forget," she was trying to ignore the anger on his face that she had never seen before. Was it because he knew she was calling him out? "Feelings that aren't just happy are good sometimes. Like the anger you are trying to hold down right now for some reason. Jealousy can be helpful too. All those things can help you see what to fix.”

“It can also cause you to push away the truth. To dive into anger and not see the other people who need to be seen and heard.” Desmond was grinding his teeth. “Unless you use empathy to try to understand others, like the Solocs, there is no point to it.”

“The Solocs again! Are you serious?”

“Your pain and sadness keep you from seeing the whole picture.”

“I carry pain to fight to bring them back!"

"Your pain makes you not realize that you have no people. That you’re wasting your life away trying to bring back what can't be brought back when you could actually be working on being happy and on yourself like I had to. You shouldn’t be playing Queen to a kingdom that no longer exists."

Tears started warming her cheeks, "You don't understand."

"What is there to understand, Airya? I don't get how you can be a queen to no one. And then the people that are there, you refuse to talk to."

"Sedeth understood," she whispered and repeated it to herself over and over again under her breath, trying to drown out his reasonings. She needed to remember that she was a queen. Her duty was to her parents' legacy and the kingdom they died in but where their dreams didn't. She could make their dreams come true. She could make their lives matter and not be all for nothing.

"Sedeth understood?"

She turned on him, "Yes. Sedeth understood the true purpose of a queen and her kingdom. He understood the pressure and the duty that I have to withhold. He understood that he could not stand in the way of a destiny bigger than him. Unlike you, who keep trying to convince me that all that happened should have happened. That we deserved it for some reason. No one deserves death like that, Desmond. No one. My people did not deserve what happened to them.” She started pacing and tearing at her hair. “You’re trying to keep me from my kingdom and my home that I swore to protect!”

Desmond paused momentarily and whispered, " I can't continue to watch you slowly waste away and not see the truth."

She ran. Out of his room. Down the hall. Away from another world that she had grown to love and learned to hate in a second. Away from another person who broke her heart and couldn't understand. She hated it. She was so sick of being alone. She heard him following behind her as he ran after her. Down endless flights of stairs and then out into the sun. She opened a hole into her world and fell to Ausrine’s ground in tears.