Destined in Stone

Chapter 1

Sasha

◈ Walking Away ◈

He was a thing of beauty—a thing because he was actually an it. Not breathing. Not alive.

Only a statue.

Yet Sasha's intuition insisted that the cut marble was a mere shell, not solid rock but a sheath covering a full-blooded man. Seated on her park bench, she leaned forward as though being half-a-foot closer provided a clearer view. 

She stroked her gaze over the elevated form. The statue stared back down at her in contemplation, one of his legs bent forward as though he'd just taken a step.

He was perfection itself, with his cut cheekbones and square jaw. All those hard muscles in his arms and legs strained against his simple unbuttoned shirt and tight trousers.

She imagined his voice would be as attractive as his appearance. Smooth. Comforting yet sensual. His rolling tones would vibrate through her body down to her very soul. 

And how would he look nu—?

Karen cleared her throat in her impatient way from her seat beside Sasha. "How long will we fool around here?" She slurped the dregs of a strawberry milkshake.

Sasha straightened against the back of the bench. "Huh?" She glanced at Karen’s bored face. "I usually stay until it feels right to leave." 

Most days, that ended up being around two hours. Feeling no need to rush away was one of the many perks of coming to this park.

There was a park nearer their place, but Sasha liked this neighborhood better. It had become run-down over the years, but the older buildings and homes had character, as did this park. 

The architecture was ornate, but not overbearingly so, and the carvings and moldings, patterns, and recesses gave Sasha the sense that this was a place with history. The structures in her neighborhood, on the other hand, were plain, with sleeker modern lines that made the exterior walls look like empty canvases. A blankness yet to be filled.

But when she came here, she'd imagine other times and other places. Other lives she could slip into. Her favorite was always the one she conjured about the stone man. 

It was easy to be transported away in this park with its old bridge, flowers, fountains, and brick walkways. Or, it usually was. 

As their lunch hour passed, Sasha wished more and more she was alone, to be better able to feel the connection she and the marble man shared. Today he felt distant, and she was unused to that. 

Without an audience, the way they'd connect would be as if they talked with each other. She'd feel the heaviness of his spirit, bearing some of its weight and, from the lightness she enjoyed each time she left the park, knew that the experience had to be mutual.

However, she couldn’t have that experience with someone beside her, not-so-silently judging. Unfortunately, that hadn’t occurred to Sasha when she’d replied yes to Karen’s text. Karen had suggested they have lunch together, her treat, and Sasha couldn't pass up a free burger. 

She should have been suspicious though, when Karen hinted that eating outside their apartment would be a nice change of pace. Now Sasha knew Karen wanted to nose in her business, as she kept asking pointed questions about Sasha’s routine in the park.

And there had gone Sasha’s uninhibited bonding time. Was there nowhere she could fully express her feelings? Was there nowhere she could fully feel her feelings?

Karen threw her white foam cup into a trash-filled paper bag between them on the seat. Into the other paper bag, less wrinkled than the one with the trash, she took and pushed a stack of unused napkins, on top of the ketchup packets squirreled away in there. 

She checked the large face of her old-style, non-digital watch. "You’ve been sitting there with your mouth hanging open for a good fifteen minutes."

"I haven’t." It had been more like ten.

Sasha decided she wouldn't tell Karen about that creamy pink drop of milkshake on her chin. Karen could waltz back into work, her usually unblemished honeyed skin marred. Who would be judged then?

"Maybe," Karen said, "you should be scaring up a client so you can, I don't know, pay the rent more than twice a year. It's your turn to—"

"Just look at him, Karen." Sasha squeezed the cup holding her chocolate milkshake. Its lid popped, and she thumbed the unsecured side. "Look into his eyes and tell me you can't imagine someone's inside there."

"Why would I do that? ‘Cuz no one is. And I don't have to 'look into his eyes' to see that." Karen turned her gaze from the statue. "It's a lump of rock."

"I know he's—it's—a statue. But—" Sasha lifted a hand and dropped it. Her lid fell to the grass, and her cup tumbled over. Milkshake splashed onto her skirt and down her legs. "Crap! Crap-crap-crap." Sasha shivered from cold milk soaking through.

Karen plopped half of her napkins onto Sasha's lap. Sasha wiped at her skirt, but the chocolate stains had begun to set.

"You got chocolate on me." Karen blotted her bare leg. "But of course you always make big messes when you're all up in one of your obsessions."

"I'm not—"

"From what you've been telling me, for the past two months, you've been coming here every day so you can daydream about some shiny boulder you think is a real-live boy." Although Karen's tone had a light bounce to it, frustration mixed with the playfulness. And her eyes had a hard candy-coated shine to them, like she wanted to say something more harsh but held herself back through sheer willpower.

Sasha stopped swiping at the persistent blots that would never quite be yellow again. Under her skirt, milkshake residue glued her thighs together. She cast the dirty napkins and her empty cup into their makeshift trash bag. 

Despite how long they'd known each other, Karen often misunderstood what Sasha felt. Sasha didn't expect things to be any different this time. She knew how ridiculous her feelings would seem to anyone. But damn, sympathy would have been nice.

"Why do you need this thing to be real so bad?" Karen asked. "It can’t be because you need a man in your life. You date every dude you meet."

"Attacked..."

"But how am I wrong?" Karen flicked her gaze toward the platform. "What would you even do with him if he was real?"

"Eh-vhree-thing."

Karen pitched her head back, scowling. But then she laughed.

Yet her smile faded, and a sigh followed the laughter. "Why are you here wasting your time staring at that instead of…"

Karen mouthed words in silent rehearsal and shook her head as though rejecting options on a mental list. She pushed up one side of her lips into an expression that suggested she'd found no suitable way to state her thoughts. 

Sasha drew a finger around the new blot on her skirt. She didn’t want to know what Karen was getting at but, at the same time, needed to know. Was Karen accusing her of something?

"Instead of…?" Sasha asked.

"How’s your father?" 

Sasha flinched. "The...same." Which wasn’t great news. And on top of that, her sister Mina had texted her about two hours ago. A cramp had seized Sasha's stomach when she saw the notification. She should have read the text — it could have been about their father. But it couldn't have been that bad, not if Mina was only texting.

"Shouldn’t you go see him though?"

Sasha set her teeth together, biting the inside of her cheek. "I did, three days ago."

"Don't go avoiding the hospital just because—"

"Karen. Not discussing." Sasha's vision pulsed, and the blues of the sky paled to nearly white. To a color as sterile as an infirmary's walls.

Sasha had to press her fingers into her legs, calming their shaking, while she reduced her breathing rate from hurricane-force winds to moderate breezes. She focused on boys playing in the distant basketball court.

"Yeesh, girl," Karen said. "Getting all het up. Sorry I said anything."

Karen furrowed her fingers through the sleek ponytail falling from the crown of her head and tweaked the end as if it were a rope hanging from a bell. She fidgeted, clearly agitated. Most likely her discomfort stemmed not from her conscience but from Sasha's display of emotion. 

Sasha nodded her acceptance of the apology anyway, but a gloom settled over her like a filmy veil. Her thoughts darkened, became heavy. 

Three days ago, Mina had confronted her, and Sasha had lost the ensuing argument. She'd kept that to herself, and consequently, Karen knew nothing about what Sasha was going through.

Chewing at her lip, Sasha brooded over her sister's lecture, which still stung. Mina had claimed Sasha's panic-ridden visits worsened their father's fragile condition, made his vitals go haywire.

Once again, Sasha was burdening their family. Mina had left that unsaid, but she clearly communicated that attitude in her tone and gaze. And because Mina made the decisions on their father's behalf, and because he spoke less and less coherently each day, she had asked that Sasha not visit 'so often.'

Fixated on the statue, Sasha relaxed her back and rolled her neck, as she'd taught her clients to do. She'd deal with her family in her own time. 

And she'd keep visiting her father, just not when her sister was with him, which would be today. The whole day.

Going to the hospital while in her present frame of mind would end in disaster anyway. Sasha needed a time-out from all the...expectation. Karen didn't see how hard she'd been going at it lately. 

Maybe that was the problem. Sasha needed a break. 

But that was why she'd been coming to the park. Being here was a good thing, a great thing. Here was where she got the recharge necessary to deal with her life.

"Sasha," Karen said, her tone firm, "it's time you let the statue go."

Sasha withdrew her gaze from the figure of stone long enough to send Karen a sullen sidelong glance. Yeah, moving on was the healthy alternative, at least in other people's eyes, but doing that also felt like a betrayal of Sasha's happiness somehow, as though she denied herself a dream on the brink of reality, halting its birth.

Karen had no right to ask such a thing of her, not when Sasha had encouraged Karen in the pursuit of her own dreams. And it wasn't as though Karen handled setbacks any better than Sasha. In fact…

"How are you doing these days?" Sasha asked.

Doubt layered over confusion on Karen's face. "More than surviving."

"That's good. Have you been getting enough you-time?"

"About as much as anybody else." Suspicion was overtaking the look of confusion.

"And what about your personal life? Are you spending time with friends? Going on dates?"

"Sasha…"

Sasha knew full well that Karen hadn't dated in two years, not since college, and that she had precious few people in her life she'd consider to be a friend.

"What about your career?" Sasha paused, put on her concerned face. "Is everything going well at work? You've been looking at getting a position as an editorial assistant for how long now?"

Karen glared Sasha's way. "Everything is going well for me, Sasha, in my personal life and otherwise."

"Yeah, yeah," Sasha said. "But you can talk to me about all that stuff whenever you'd like."

"Thanks. I'll put that on the ole to-do." Karen leaned forward and grabbed Sasha's lid off the grass.

"Oh…" Sasha raised her brows. "As a matter of fact, that might be helpful for us both. I need to finish my certification, and you need to talk about the rut you're in."

"I never said that I needed to talk—"

"You could be my next client. I have to coach one more person." Sasha pointed her forefinger up.

"Hmm." Karen shifted, her gaze trained toward the ground. Sasha followed Karen's line of sight to a couple of ladybugs clinging to a grass blade. Karen shrugged. "This weekend I have five more manuscripts needing coverage. And I'm going to be pretty busy for the next few weeks. Who knows when my workload will let up?"

"Sounds like we could use the first session for work-life balance."

"I have to get back to work," Karen said with emphasis on the last few words. "But I'm going to the office first to pick up some more manuscripts. Since the hospital is on the way, I could drop you off."

Was she picking at that wound again? Sasha flattened her palms on her lap and stopped her tapping leg. "You know what? I already have a pushy sister. I don't need another."

Karen jerked as though she'd been struck. Her expression rigid, she grabbed their paper bag and crushed it. "I guess you can get home by yourself then." She jumped to her feet with their trash and hustled away.

"I didn't mean it like—" Sasha said, turning, [following Karen's retreat.] She raised her voice. "You know I was just talking about being pushy, right? Mina's the pushy one and—"

Already out of earshot, Karen pumped her short legs, her tiny plaid skirt hampering her steps. She hooked around the corner, heading behind the restrooms, a pair of boxy brick buildings, and disappeared.

"—and you're the judgy one," Sasha said in a quieter tone. She faced forward again and slumped her shoulders. Now, on top of everything else, she'd have to find a way to appease Karen or else face forthcoming days of Artic-level frostiness and terse conversations. Sasha had brought up a subject that always made Karen contentious—her family, or the lack thereof.

Karen hadn't made a reappearance. Sasha glanced toward the restrooms. Had Karen really left? Had Sasha hurt her feelings that much? 

Sasha pursed her lips. Karen was angry, but she hadn't reacted any worse just now than on the occasions Sasha had slipped up before. It might take a few days, but they'd be talking as if none of this had ever happened. That was their routine, their weekly rut.

It didn't have to be though. Sasha could help Karen at least find another coach or a therapist to deal with her family issues and unexciting life, but Sasha would definitely be the cheaper option. 

But, no. Karen would never agree to let Sasha be her life coach. Not even for one measly session, a couple of hours. 

Sasha scanned the buildings behind her again. But her gaze went back to the statue. 

Why was she acting as if she wanted to work on her certification right now? Thoughts of her father's condition and the need to get a higher paying job distracted her in coaching sessions with clients. The last one ended with Sasha tearfully confessing her woes and her client desperately trying to escape the call.

But that setback didn't mean she wanted to give up on her career. If she could ever overcome the feeling of inevitable failure pressing on her, Sasha knew she'd be a great coach. Making a great living would be a bonus. She wouldn't have to keep borrowing money from Karen or explaining to Mina why she had no steady work, nor would she have to keep putting aside her career to earn a few meager dollars.

Instead of everyone being let down, they'd come to her for help, knowing she'd contribute solutions, not problems. For once, she'd feel accomplished. She wouldn't depend on her father's money or Karen's support.

Sasha's gaze fell to her stained skirt. But was this how she would achieve that? By getting emotional and mouthing off at people and daydreaming about non-existent men?

She had to get herself together. Anxiety was already clawing up her throat. The wind rustled tree branches somewhere behind her, high above. 

A cloud skimmed by, trailing a shadow and bringing her gaze up. To the man of stone.

The sun gave the statue a faint aura, an orange glow that, although the sun provided it, seemed to shine from the statue itself. The statue's warm light reached out to Sasha. 

Her muscles relaxed, and the sharp edge of her emotions smoothed. She smiled. 

Maybe her dilemma was a false one. She could have both her desires and a respectable life. 

Unable to restrain herself any longer, she rose to her feet and strolled forward. The thin hard soles of her flats rapped against the bumpy pavement. 

As if studying for a test, she considered every detail of the statue, from the intricately braided hair to the calf-high boots.

If she had any drawing skill, she could have inked every firm inch from memory. Every pore of the skin, every nick in the leather vest. Those downcast eyes reflecting some unfathomable heartbreak. The full lips curving so softly. The hands promising strength and gentleness.

She reached out to the statue's arm and caressed the warm stone. It never chilled her, even on the fiercest winter mornings. And on a mild day like this, that marble felt like tempered flesh.

Her hand fell to the chiseled cloth covering a powerfully muscled thigh. She scratched a nail along a fold. It was as if a sculptor had first hewn even the tissues underneath and then shrouded them meticulously in stone fabric.

How was he always clean? No dirt coated him. No presents from the birdies splotched his flawlessness. She bet he would smell clean too, his scent radiating from the heat of his body.

She dragged her hand from the leg and into her hair, eyes closed. Her fingers tangled into her short corkscrew curls. 

The intensity of her feelings shook her. And everything and everyone around her told her in ways big and small to give up on this, on him. Because staying here meant giving into something that wasn't real.

Sasha opened her eyes again, her heartbeat rattling. Her hand went from her hair back to the statue. Instead of leaving, she drew closer. Those eyes, slightly crinkled at the corners, beckoned her.

And not simply his eyes. His light. 

Now she'd entered its bounds, an emotion soaked into her that wasn't her own—regret.

His distress pulled her toward him. She accepted the great mass of his feelings as her own, perhaps lifting them from him. She could give comfort as well as receive it.

If he were breathing, he'd be standing before her with his arms wide. Welcoming her into them.

He'd feel like home. 

Better than home—because, in spite of the love she got from her family, she'd never felt she belonged there. Beside this man though, walking at his side, life would be easy, even at its most difficult. She was certain he would be a perfect-for-her partner. If she had someone like him, someone strong to draw strength from, she could overcome anything.

What else would she need?

Sasha climbed the pedestal and unbent before the statue, her head level with his stately nose. Would she give up or give in?

She lifted herself onto her toes and brought her hands, then her head, to the face slanting down to hers. She would determine what was real in her life.

Her lips met his sculpted ones. He would be her real.

His mouth was as warm as the rest of him was. Warmer, even. 

Hot. 

In her mind, she felt his lips parting and responding to her kiss.

"Sasha!"

Sasha jerked her head back. Karen stood below, her face pinched into a pained expression. Sasha lowered her heels. She couldn't meet her friend's eyes.

"What are you doing?" a rumbling masculine voice asked right at Sasha's ear.

Sasha screeched like a deranged howler monkey and let go. She tilted back, toward the ground. 

Dark muscled arms wound around her, preventing her fall. 

Her next breath deserted her. She was too afraid to draw another in. Too afraid to disturb the dream she must have been having. 

The statue was embracing her.

"Sasha?" Karen's shrill voice pierced through the air. 

"I—I—" All sense fled from Sasha. She stared up, but the sun cast the face of the figure in shadow.

The statue stood tall, uprighting her. Light found his face, and she nigh drank in the sight before her.

Where the statue once posed, a man now stood in its place. Moving. Living. 

He held her so close she had no choice but to feel his steady heartbeat pounding against her and his breath mixing with hers. 

She dragged in a wheezy gasp. A low moan escaped her.

Hazel. His eyes were hazel and glinted like topaz gems, deep brown centers with golden edges. His skin, the hue of fertile soil, invited Sasha to nuzzle into him, to know that richness. She relished the contrast in their skin tones, his deep brown complementing her more coppery one.

His fingers tightened at her waist. At the thrill zipping through her, Sasha gulped. 

The man searched the park as if he expected to find someone he knew, someone he didn't want to be there. But, as the trees and courts, the playground, the hiking trails, and the usual joggers and dog walkers were the only things around them, he relaxed, but a sad resignation sank into his expression. His hands slid from her back to her arms and then to his sides. 

What? Why did he let her go?

Sasha brought a foot back, her gaze on his face, but her toes found nothing but air since she balanced on the pedestal, not on level ground. She put her lifted foot down by its mate.

"Who are you?" Karen stared at the man. 

Paying Karen's question no attention, he stepped down from the platform and bent to the ground, plucking up a dandelion. Sasha descended behind him, her gaze on his...trousers while he straightened.

She had gotten her breathing under something like control. The very moment she'd meditated on so many times—it was happening. 

He was going to turn, and recognizing her, he'd open his arms.

Letting his flower go, he watched it float on a breeze. "This must be one of the Dead Dominions — the one the people here call…Earth." 

What did Sasha say to that? “Um...welcome?”

"And I'm alive." He took in a deep breath and issued out a long gust of air.

Then a grin broke across his face. His smile was so gorgeous that Sasha, her knees giving, nearly swooned at his feet.

"I asked you a question." Karen stabbed a finger at him, hard enough to send her ponytail swinging. "Who are you?"

The man finally gave her his attention. He walked away from Sasha and toward Karen. Sasha frowned. 

Karen squared her shoulders though her eyes had a wild look about them. "That's close enough."

 A few feet from Karen, he stopped and stared down at her. "I'm Xoltani."

"Zol...Zolt?" Karen stammered. 

"Zolt is fine." He smiled again.

Karen's gaze darted back and forth from the empty pedestal to the man towering over her. She backed away from him, a distrustful look clouding her face.

Though Sasha wanted to throw her arms around Zolt, to commence what was, for her, a reunion, she moved in front of Karen and offered him a handshake. She'd start slow. "Sasha. Sasha Barnes."

Zolt frowned at her hand; ignoring it, he bowed low. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Barnes."

Sasha let her hand sag. What was he doing? Karen tugged at Sasha's sleeve. That drop of milkshake had dried on her chin. 

"Karen, I'm in the middle of something." Sasha grinned at Zolt.

"Are you well?" he asked, eyeing her skirt. 

Sasha bunched the front of her skirt in her fists, hiding the stains. "I—um...yes."

"It's time for us to go," Karen whispered. "Without him."

"What? We can't." Why was Sasha whispering too? She jabbed a thumb at her friend. "This here is Karen Strider."

"Don't you be telling him my name." Karen raised her eyebrows and jerked her head back, away from Zolt. Let's go, the gesture implied. Or as Karen would say it, let's skedaddle.

"We're not leaving him to fend for himself," Sasha said.

He was patting down his body, probably checking his possessions. Sasha definitely could help him with that.

Pushing Karen's hands away, Sasha tried to catch Zolt's eye, but he looked at everything but her. For some reason he wasn't reacting to her as he had when he was a statue. 

Didn't he know she was the one who'd awakened him? Didn't he know that they were nothing like strangers? Maybe she had to remind him.

"He'll be fine." Karen resumed her tugging. Her apprehensive gaze went back to Zolt.

Sasha moved her arm out of Karen's reach. He would be fine once Sasha had convinced Karen to let him be, and when Sasha had shown him that she was his one. His only one.

Zolt rearranged his belt, muscles rippling and flexing. Out of a pocket, he lifted a leather cord. From it, a crystalline blue stone swung, a gentle light sparkling within its clear depths. He gazed at the capped pendant. The skin between his brows crimped.

What was with that  blue crystal? With it out, a faint buzziness crawled over Sasha's skin. Was she imagining that?

"Pardon me," Zolt said in his deep rumble.

Karen curled her lip. "No, pardon me, Mr. Zolt—What is it, Sasha?"

Sasha gripped both of Karen's arms. "We're not leaving him." She lifted her chin. And Karen wouldn't be getting in her way.

"Ladies."

They turned to Zolt. Sasha couldn't get over seeing his face and form in motion. In color.

"Would you tell me the location of the nearest mage?" he asked.

Sasha and Karen stared at him, then at each other. Did he say mage?

* * *

Sasha

◈ Belief ◈

Sasha batted wide eyes. The man of her dreams, formerly known as 'Statue in Pygmalion Park,' adorned their apartment with his presence. Within her reach. Close enough to touch. 

She lifted a hand toward him, glancing at her bedroom door. But he moved around her. Sasha lowered her hand.

There was no need to rush things. Before long, he would be hers, and she'd get him inside her. 

Okay, no. She meant, she'd get Zolt connected to her, or…. 

Nevermind, what she'd meant. Thinking was difficult when looking at him. But she'd make sure they reforged what they once had and started their life together.

Soon.

Sasha strode to Zolt's side and watched while he tapped their TV screen. He had been prodding every scattered possession he could reach, his expression alternating between amused and bemused. Sasha followed him wherever he sauntered, answering his occasional questions, attempting to nail down the essence of his delectable fragrance.

He asked a few questions about their smartphones but threw her a barrage of mostly unanswered ones about their electricity and how it worked. Sasha tried to listen to what he said, but she kept getting lost in the sound of his voice. It was better than she had imagined, with a soft lilting accent that made his words sound exotic and poetic.

Even when his answers were short and indifferent. Placing her smartphone down on the counter, Sasha leaned into his view again, but he shifted his gaze above her. 

She stood straighter. Why didn't he recognize her? 

Was it because they weren't alone? Maybe Karen being around confused him. Her reactions to him so far had been distracting even to Sasha.

Karen's gaze had been painted on Zolt throughout his inspection. She seemed relatively calm here in the apartment, but Sasha, feeling like a Karen-o-meter, checked her roommate as nonchalantly as she could for any readings outside the safe zone.

In the park, after the shock of seeing a stone statue walk and talk had worn off, Karen had, as usual when unable to plausibly explain a situation, rooted down, arms crossed, unbudging. She declared Zolt wouldn't get away with his shenanigans, or his tomfoolery.

And Zolt had watched Karen as though he'd spotted some rare bird out of season. He seemed fascinated by her even when she threatened to call the police on him. However, when Sasha suggested that she deal with Zolt alone, Karen relented on reporting him but had warned Zolt she needed time to process their preposterous circumstances.

Hence their awkward ride to the apartment.

Karen now rubbed a thumb over her smartphone screen. Her mouth moving, she looked to be mulling over whether she would make a call. What would Sasha do if Karen tried that?

Zolt moved on to a large swath of papers covering their dinette table. He reached for a stack, but, after setting down her phone, Karen swept them all into a box and tossed it under the table.

She ushered him to their dingy, paisley sofa. He raised an eyebrow at it, then grabbed between the cushions, tugging free something that poked out.

"That's...um." It wasn't Sasha's. She turned to Karen.

Zolt slid a switch, and the whole thing vibrated. Karen wrested it from his hands, turned it off, and stuffed it back into the sofa cushions.

"It seems," he said, "that some things between my world and yours are very much the same."

He kept referring to his world. Sasha leaned her head to one side. Was he talking about his native home? Another country? 

A country without electricity? She knew so little about him even though he'd been in her life off and on for over a year.

"Speaking of my world," he said, "I need to get back to Suhla. But I think my stone is empty."

"Sasha, a word," Karen said, eyeing Zolt while moving closer to their kitchen.

Sasha wrinkled her nose. She could predict what Karen would tell her, but she followed Karen with slow steps.

"I shouldn't have let him in here," Karen said.

"You were out-voted," Sasha said.

"Because you said he should get a vote." Karen's voice started as a harsh whisper but rose in pitch and volume. "Why are we dealing with some kook we found in a park?"

"You could have gone on to work." Sasha smoothed the corner of their rug down with a shoe. "He isn't dangerous." 

"I should go to work—I've got deadlines. But I won't leave him in my home without me being here. Have you heard the things he's been saying? How do you know he isn't dangerous?"

Sasha chewed at her lip. Standing in her living room was proof that what she'd felt all along was true, yet Karen was pretending it wasn't so.

Why couldn't Karen trust what they were experiencing and accept this miracle?

Breathing in, Sasha, priming her voice to say just that, remembered that contradicting Karen would likely trigger an eruption that would rival a volcano's. Reconsidering, Sasha freed her breath.

Karen nodded. "Uh huh. Thought so. You don't know. We should find the people who fell asleep while guarding his cell and give them what for." She hurried to Zolt, slapping a pair of her panties out of his fingers. "Sit." She jerked her finger down.

Sasha came to Karen's side. "For goodness' sake. He isn't a dog."

But Zolt lowered onto the sofa. He leaned back, his regard curious.

"That's right," Karen said. "He's a statue."

Sasha narrowed her eyes. "You know, you never acknowledged that I was right this entire time about him."

"You two are very strange," Zolt said from his seat.

Karen answered with a squeaky, "We're strange?"

He smiled languidly and shrugged. "I'd say."

Sasha faced him. She refrained, though just barely, from leering at him. If she was going to have a relationship with him, she might as well get to know him. "How old are you?"

He appeared to be five or so years older than her and Karen, but then again, he'd been a statue. He could be immortal, and so, not age.

"Is that important?" Karen asked.

"Yes." Sasha gazed at Zolt expectantly.

He dipped his head and knitted his fingers together in his lap. "I don't know how long I've been on…Earth."

"But if you were to estimate…?" Sasha asked.

"I'd say, about three demtu."

"Three what?" Karen asked.

Sasha joined Zolt on the sofa and, resisting the urge to touch her knee to his, instead left space between them. The bare minimum. "What else can you tell us about yourself?"

"Almost everything." The corner of his mouth twitched up.

Then she'd ask the most crucial question next: "Do you have a wife, or girl—?"

"Uh, no," Karen said. "Tell us about that nonsense you said in the park. About mages or wizards, or something."

Sasha snapped her gaze to Karen. How had Sasha forgotten Zolt had said that?

"We have no 'wizards' where I'm from," he said. "However, I need a mage seeing as I can only wield artifacts. Stones."

Holding the hem of her brief skirt down, Karen sat on the ottoman, across from Sasha. "Do continue."

"I'll start with how I got here." He paused. "I was cursed."

"He was cursed!" Karen chorused, making a face at Sasha.

"Don't interrupt." Sasha kept her attention on the man beside her. "Go on, Zolt."

"I don't belong on Earth."

Sasha held up a finger at Karen opening her mouth. Her friend pressed her lips closed, cutting off her comment.

Zolt went on. "Back on Ashur, everything went wrong, and I ended up here because of my enemies."

Where did Sasha begin? "Your enemies?"

"I hesitated when I shouldn't have against the royal army's commander, and so the Mage Queen I fought to destroy captured me." His small smile was grim. "My punishment was one hundred twenty-five cycles as a statue, ten demtu."

Sasha bobbed her head in encouragement. Karen, judging by her frown and one narrowed eye, was trying to think of the number to the nearest mental health facility off the top of her head.

"But before the magic had fully set," Zolt said, "someone took me away and placed me here. Which, it seems, is Earth." His eyes lost focus, reflecting deep speculation.

"You don't know who?" Sasha asked.

"Perhaps my youngest brother Petyr. Perhaps my mother."

Karen widened her eyes. She cast a knowing glance between Sasha and Zolt. "Are you a bad person, then?"

Zolt's mouth arched down, and his luxurious eyebrows met as if he'd never before considered that notion. "Certainly not. Our forces wanted to help the outsiders near our kingdom. They're vulnerable to hunters and rogue mages—and have no protections."

"That doesn't sound like a bad thing to want," Sasha said, each word measured.

"So your mother, or your brother, brought you...here?" Karen asked. "Why?"

"I suppose so that I could never return to Ashur. Our mages had opened a port to this realm, consequently allowing anyone who can wield stones to travel to Earth." Zolt's words slowed, as though he'd come to a topic he knew little about. "They had been working on ports to other realms, but it seems the port here is no more. I sense no natural magic around me now, as would be if a nearby port were still open. Perhaps my brother had Earth's port closed, making sure I could not return to rebel against Bavla and shame our family."

Karen stared at her hands. "If they wanted you out of the way for good, then why did the magic used on you have such an easy loophole?"

"Loophole?" Zolt asked. "What do you mean?"

"A way to get around the curse, to escape it."

"I would gather that, as a mercy, my father used his influence on my behalf and against my mother's wishes. He must have swayed our council to include a saving grace." 

His eyes pierced Sasha's and sent her heart tumbling Jack-and-Jill style, down, down, down that fabled hill. A shadow of a smile played at his lips. "Even if I had known about it, I wouldn't have suspected it would be something as simple as a kiss. And, even then, I wouldn't have dared hope that someone would have actually given me one in my state."

Sasha broke his gaze and swallowed. Heat rolling up from her chest to her face, she circled a finger into the fabric of the sofa's armrest.

It wasn't that weird she had kissed him. Was he complaining that she had saved him?

"In any case," Zolt said, "none of this matters anymore."

"Why?" Karen asked in an urgent voice. She cleared her throat. "I mean, like," she asked, more casually, "why?"

"I failed at my purpose. The people I fought alongside, the only ones who had any love left for me, are all likely dead. By now, I may well be forgotten."

"Oh." Sasha blinked, discouraging sudden tears from falling. Would that happen to her? When she finally got up the nerve to see her father again, would he no longer know her?

Karen closed her eyes. Then she opened them, her stubborn face back on. "Okay, your story makes no sense. First of all, if you're not from Earth, how do you know English?"

Zolt looked past Sasha and out the window at the early Friday afternoon. "I kept awareness of my surroundings, and I've had a long time to learn the language from the passersby at the city garden."

"Not convinced," Karen said, her face set.

"I didn't know it was necessary to convince you of anything." Zolt's usually warm voice held a hint of coldness.

Karen met Sasha's gaze. Sasha held the look. She had no misgivings about Zolt. Karen was the one being ungracious.

Zolt sat up. "I don't mean to be rude, but I need a stone, your facilities. To…relieve myself."

Sasha laid icy, damp palms on her flushed face, her rebellious thoughts dispelling. Were they supposed to help him use the bathroom? "Karen will show you."

Karen swiveled toward Sasha. But Sasha noticed that the curtains, which were a skosh past Karen, needed cleaning. That was immediately going on the to-do list.

"Come on." Karen waved at Zolt and he followed her.

They disappeared through the bathroom door. Sasha stared after them. Why had she volunteered Karen to attend to Zolt's needs instead of herself? 

Sasha let out a huff of disgust. Surprise had given anxiety the chance to get the better of her, compelling her to step back from an uncertain situation through reflex—a self-assessment she was sure her mentor would approve of. She draped herself over the arm of the sofa. In hesitating, she had tossed away the perfect opportunity to get Zolt alone.

After a few more minutes of self-rebuke, Sasha looked around the apartment and grimaced. She jumped off the sofa and circled the place, whisking every other personal effect from the counter and table and floor and depositing the belongings, most of them Karen's, into a laundry basket by the counter. 

On the table lay Sasha's old mail—overdue phone and credit card bills, student loan balances, and delinquent debt sent to collection agencies. Sasha brushed it all into the basket.

She rubbed her eyes. Fatigue had sneaked up on her. Had so much happened in a few short hours? 

This morning she had been ready to give up on being happy. That's where she'd been emotionally. Ready to resign herself to an okay life as her sister had done. Pretending that everything was glory, glory.

But now that Sasha was so close to getting more than she had ever dreamed, she would never settle for anything less than happiness. She wouldn't stop until she had been fulfilled.

The bathroom door closing again brought Sasha's head up. Karen leaned against it looking how she generally did. Disbelieving.

"Thank goodness," Karen said, "he figured out the concept of indoor plumbing quickly." She had finally wiped her chin clean of milkshake.

Her wedge heels dented the carpet on her way across the room. She grabbed up her smartphone from the table and headed toward their sofa. After edging around the ottoman, she plopped herself into her frayed armchair.

Karen's eyes glittered. "I don't—I can't say I understand what's going on. And every word out of that man's mouth is ridiculous…." Her breath expanded her chest, and she shook her head.

With a clatter, Sasha dropped a cup into the sink. "Can't you—?"

"I believe him, okay? I mean, I saw him in the park when he went from stone to breathing. I thought it was some sort of illusion, but…."

Sasha's heart leapt in her chest. Karen believed Zolt? That was unexpected. "What will you—we— do?"

"I don't know. Write a book?" Bending her legs, Karen tucked her feet beside one hip. "We'll figure it out."

Sasha dried her hands on a tea towel. What did that mean? Was Karen still bent on getting rid of Zolt?

A flush from behind the bathroom door made them both jump. The door clicked open.

Zolt stuck his head around it. Karen pointed him back inside.

"Dude, wash your hands," she said.

He grinned and did a weird side salute by his head. "Will do." He disappeared and reappeared. "If someone would…."

Grumbling, Karen swept her feet down and pushed off the armchair. She proceeded toward Zolt and shoved past him into the bathroom.

Left alone in the kitchen, Sasha stared at the bathroom door. She was doing something wrong as far as Zolt was concerned, but what that could be eluded her. What was more plain to her was that he was slipping from her. 

And she'd never had him.

From inside the bathroom, water turned on. Karen's demanding voice penetrated through the door. 

Sasha moved toward the bathroom. If Karen was dissatisfied being with Zolt, Sasha surely would take her place.

The milkshake on her thighs made the skin there stick together then smack apart. She stopped and spread out her mottled skirt. Her dirtied clothes had given Zolt a bad first impression of her, she suspected. She needed to change.

In her bedroom, after kicking off her skirt, wrestling off her blouse, and changing her underwear—because one never knew—Sasha wiped off the milkshake from her thighs before sliding into stretch jeans and a soft, long-sleeved shirt. 

She put on high-ish heels, but a few steps proved that with her nerves as tattered as they were, she'd keep falling on her face. Off went the heels. 

Zolt wouldn't be interested in her because of clothing choices anyway. Sasha decided her favorite Converse high-top sneakers would make her feel the most grounded—she needed the security. 

Combing her fingers through her coily hair, she glided as elegantly as she could back into the living room. But no one witnessed her reappearance.

Her head bent, Karen stood before a seated Zolt. She grimaced at something he held. Sasha neared, squinting at a blue glow dyeing their faces. The light came from his crystal, which he'd put around his neck.

"Someone is contacting me," Zolt said. "I hadn't thought anyone would be able to." He raised off the sofa, standing. "But if I can be contacted, then I can be track—"

The front door burst into a flurry of splinters and pink flames.

Sasha had no time to comprehend the ramifications of Zolt's words. Five masked men and women charged into the apartment.

They wore glistening white robes, with a hand enveloped in pink fire. Each person turned a blank face to Zolt.

Karen was shrieking with her hands up, as if she thought they would arrest her. Sasha elbowed her, prompting Karen's screams to die down to a squeak, then a moan. Karen held her smartphone to her chest.

"I have no weapons," Zolt said. "And we have no means of escape."

Although he kept his tone level, the words sent a chilly finger of realization down Sasha's spine. These people must be the rogue mages he had mentioned earlier. How much danger did they pose? 

Going by what they did to the door, they'd have no problem exploding her or Karen. 

Pepper spray would probably be of no use, especially seeing as Karen kept it stowed in the middle of that nest she called a bedroom. There wasn't even a pretense of defense against the mages' magic.

His face ashen and lips tight, Zolt glared at the trespassers. The stone at his chest pulsed. But he made no moves, and the stiff way he held himself gave Sasha the impression he had no plans to act. 

She sniffed, a burnt wood smell from the remnants of the door tingling her nose. As awesome as transforming from a statue was, Zolt also being a powerful mage would have been that much better. Then he could magic away this mess.

His pulsing stone projected some sort of blue bubble. Karen stumbled away from it, nostrils flaring. The bubble ballooned out until it touched the ceiling and carpet. Could Zolt do magic after all?

"My stone had enough magic for a throughway, it would seem," he said, stepping away from Karen. The mages followed his movement with their hands, crowding closer. "Ladies, I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you. To prevent further harm, I shall leave you and lead them away."

He pushed into the bubble, its walls molding around him until they sprung back into place with him inside. Sasha's heart tripped. She hung her mouth open, not knowing what to say.

He couldn't be leaving. Not this easily. Not without even a goodbye. Sasha dashed toward Zolt in his bubble. 

He wasn't leaving without her. She wouldn't be abandoned again.

Zolt held a hand up, a signal to stop Sasha ignored. But his gaze slid away from her and widened, then narrowed.

Behind Karen and Sasha, the mages parted, and a lanky masked figure decked out in a dark, hooded robe strode into the room. Karen and Sasha retreated as the dark gray figure advanced.

What was that popping from him to the ceiling? Drops of some liquid? They beaded from his wet robes and looked like water dripping up. 

That meant this guy was bad news, didn't it? He'd be the rogue mages' leader, the most powerful of them, impossible to escape. Sasha pulled her gaze from the drops splashing to the ceiling back to the figure.

He held his dry gloved hand, wrapped in a thin chain, palm up. About the hand sputtered a yellow flame.

His wet gaze strayed to and then over Karen and Sasha, the two dismissed as indifferently as if they were trees. That gaze instead found Zolt inside the blue sphere. 

Yet the figure's glare flicked back to Sasha as though just noticing she was there, and he curled his fingers as if holding up his fire. Karen gripped Sasha's arm, but Sasha stared at the figure's growing flame. 

How would anything they could do get them out of this?

Karen yanked Sasha until she was behind Karen. But they had nowhere else to go, their potential exits either too far away or blocked.

The figure's eyes glowed white, and he pulled back his arm.

Sasha backed away from him and Karen, her feet unsticking from the floor. Shouldn't Zolt be coming to her rescue? But rather than leave his bubble, he yelled at the figure, his words trapped, inaudible.

Karen also shuffled back, but her feet tangled in the rug. The figure shot his yellow flame into the living room. 

It whooshed toward Sasha and Karen, its heat strangely heavy. Karen tripped onto Sasha right as the yellow flame crackled across Sasha's arm. 

However, instead of hitting the floor, they landed on something that offered a soft resistance before giving.

Then the world was blue-tinted, and they continued falling.

* * *

Karen

◈ Mirage ◈

Heart pounding so hard it hurt her chest, Karen fell by Sasha inside Zolt's bubble. Sasha slapped at her arm, but none of that maniac's yellow fire had touched her. She hopped upright and gawked at their uninvited guests.

Karen stared underneath her, then all around. She was actually inside this bubble-bauble. Another hoax to hold against the Pinnochio-man she'd found herself with. She prodded the curving inner surface.

The see-through walls stretched as much as a rubber balloon's would but gave more like soft dough. Karen pushed her heels down and rocked forward, but rather than getting up, she toppled to one side. 

She stared at Sasha, but her so-called friend, though a foot away, had her gaze fastened to the scene outside their round space.

Zolt, the Pinnochio-man himself, offered Karen a hand. She took it and clambered to her feet. Heat from his skin warmed her fingers. 

The statue-man was touching her. She jerked away.

Why had she been so chummy with him before? She should have known he meant trouble.

He sized up the masked people skulking about the apartment and the drippy man waving a hand over the front door. Karen tilted her head. 

The door now appeared as whole as it had before the explosion. One of the intruders, a woman with a mask in the shape of a comma, inched toward the blue bubble. Over her palm a flame spread.

What did they want? Why didn't they leave?

"Get back." Karen shook her phone at the woman. "Get out of my apartment."

But they wouldn't be able to hear her, would they? She'd seen Zolt talking in here but hadn't heard what he'd said from outside the bubble.

Karen wouldn't just stand around watching them torch the place or set up camp out there. She had to get around them and to the police.

And clean the apartment. When had the place become such a dump? Dirty dishes. Bits of energy bar wrappers. A pile of laundry Sasha had dropped into a basket. All Karen's. But until she got Sasha to clean up….

Karen unlocked her phone. She was surprised it got reception in the bubble. But good thing it did. This was a 911-kind of situation. 

She held her thumb over the nine on the virtual keypad without lowering it. What would she tell the 911 operator? 

Well, she wouldn't go on about mages and magic fire. She'd simply say some people broke in and were holding them hostage. And they had flamethrowers. 

Though that sounded far-fetched too.

Yet what she'd tell the operator and law enforcement had to be enough to convince them. There was nothing else to tell them but the truth. She'd work out how to make her situation sound more plausible, if it came to that. However, another thought started poking her conscience, delaying the dialing of the emergency number.

What if the police showed up and got blasted by those weirdos out there? What if the officers got killed because she called them to the apartment, and they weren't equipped to handle those people's…?

Karen sighed. What was she thinking? Why was she assuming that those people out there, or the bubble she thought she was in, could be real? What she saw had to be fake. She wobbled to the globe's walls. 

"Please don't try to leave," Zolt said.

She certainly wouldn't be staying in here. Karen lifted her hand. Zolt thrust his arm in front of her, barring her way.

"It's too late," he said. "I've set the throughway."

What was he talking about? "Move out of my way."

Yet he kept his arm up. Karen pushed at him, and when that got her nowhere, she ducked under his arm.  

"Karen, you'll be hurt."

The curving inner surface threw her off balance. She swayed forward, toward the bubble's walls.

Zolt steadied her with a touch. Even though her forward progress stopped, she belatedly threw up her arms. The phone in her hand touched the bubble, slid through.

No. On contact it crumbled into fine dust. Or was that ash?

The phone was growing hot. Karen dropped it, and the un-ashed half bounced on the bottom of the bubble. She pressed her fingers to her temples. 

This thing she was trapped in was dangerous. What if she fell through it? How would she escape the bubble and the people in her apartment?

"What's happening?" Sasha asked.

On the other side of the blue film, their apartment and the robed forms hurling heedless flames were fading. A nothingness replaced the living room. 

Then, like a day dawning in fast forward, a flat landscape revealed itself.

Karen drew in a sharp gasp. But then she firmed her mouth into a sneer. Zolt's tricks were shaping up to be something special.

Sasha, her blinks slow, had an unseemly satisfaction shining from her face. Was that chick enjoying this?

The globe shrank. Its walls were closing in on Karen.

She widened her eyes. She was going to be ashed like her phone.

"The throughway won't hurt you now," Zolt said.

Karen closed her eyes, waiting for the heat to come. But though an unnatural warmth squeezed over her, there was no pain. Her eyes opened.

Along with Sasha and Zolt, she was outside the bubble. Her half-a-phone plopped into the sand. Zolt's crystal pendant pulled at the small bubble, sucking it all back in. The pendant paled, becoming as colorless as drinking water.

Karen took a step forward. Around them, a strange vastness expanded to the skyline. Featureless. Empty. Nothing for miles save them.

In the purple sky, a small ruby of a sun hung over lead-colored sand. Like bits of rock sugar tossed into buckwheat flour, hunks of dull amber rock pushed out of the fine grains. 

The unexpected colors of the land reminded Karen of cleaning products made from synthetic chemicals. Poisonous.

Sasha huffed, her dark brown gaze shifting over the barren terrain. She fell to her knees upon the loose sand. 

Dramatic as always.

Karen picked up what was left of her phone and brought it close to her face. It had really been damaged. What was this madness? The phone slipped to the ground.

She couldn't be worried about explanations right now. What was important was getting herself and Sasha back home and away from Zolt.

Turning to him, Karen folded her arms at her chest. "Take us back."

"I've told you," Zolt said. "I'm not a mage."

She bared her teeth. Then what had that business with his stone been? What was this con?

Next, he'd be luring them into his hovel and locking them in a basement. And neither she nor Sasha would be able to do a damned thing about it.

She couldn't believe she had listened to Sasha and let herself be duped by this man. Did he really suggest that they were stuck here? In this freakshow?

The unfairness what Karen faced bit at her, up and down her back. Before her was headaches and hassles and stresses. She threw herself at Zolt. 

With a smug smile, he kept her at arm's length. She could reach no part of him that counted.

"I never asked for this." She dragged in ragged breaths from her effort to get at him.

But Sasha, already on her feet, pulled Karen from Zolt. "Karen, would you be cooperative this one time?"

Karen yanked away from them both. Her roommate probably wanted to keep Zolt's face free of damage so she'd have a constant source of pretty to ogle. They were in a terrible situation, and Karen would bet that their abductor's looks would be Sasha's first concern.

"We don't want to be here," Karen said to Zolt.

Sasha dropped her gaze to the gray sand. She alternately pushed air into one cheek, then the other—her habit when she refrained from disagreeing with Karen out loud while plainly showing a difference of opinion.

The air in Karen's throat and nose heated to magma hot. Sasha would simper while Zolt did whatever he wanted to them.

And he had the nerve to be amused right now—might as well have been eating popcorn as entertained as he looked. Karen shoved at him though he moved not a stinking inch.

But annoyance darkened his snake-charmer eyes, and she felt content enough with that. She put her back to him. When they came across other people, she'd get away from him, forcing Sasha to come along if she had to.

"I can find a way," Zolt said, his voice coaxing and oily, "to return you and your friend to Earth once we cross the desert."

"No!" Sasha was panting hard as though she had been running.  She pushed her palms into her eyes. "I just—"

"How did you do all this?" Karen asked Zolt. "How did you make us see you as a statue, and the people who broke in, and all—" She swung her hand around. "—this."

Zolt dropped his head back and closed his eyes, not replying. Karen's gaze went to the pendant at his chest. Had he used that to hypnotize her and Sasha?

"We don't have to leave immediate

Karen stepped toward him, moving sideways, one foot crossing in front of the other. She had to get his necklace away from him if she was to have any shot at getting away.

"You won't be able to use it," he said, his eyes still closed.

"What?" Karen came to a stop, her heart picking up its pace. 

"This stone can only be used by me. It's been bonded to my will."

He could have been lying. Yet Karen had to fight against believing him. She stared around her again. Believing what she was seeing was asking too much. Bending down, she scooped up sand.

It was some weird stuff. Instead of being gray as she'd expected, up close it appeared to be blue and green and orange. It sparkled under the strange sunlight. Was this how sand usually looked? She'd never been to a desert and didn't know how different types of sand could look. But there were plenty of things on Earth she hadn't seen before.

The sand sifted through her fingers. With a hard shush, it streamed to the ground. 

Karen tapped the toe of her boot on a yellow rock. What was her plan here? She knew too little to be confident she could handle what she might have to face. Being unsure of everything would distract her, make her hesitate at the wrong moment.

"Hey!" she yelled.

Sasha jumped and drew her hands from her face. Zolt kept his eyes closed, not reacting.

"Can someone hear me?" Karen quieted and listened. No one answered her.

She stooped and grabbed hold of a rock the size of a baseball. It was pretty hefty and seemed to buzz dully in her hand. She drew her arm back and then flung it toward the purple sky.

It arced up. But it fell and hit nothing on its way down. No matte painting backgrounds pierced nor any projected images displaced.

This was probably not a movie set.

Sasha had her fingers pressed to her stomach. Was she only now realizing the depth of their dire situation? Or was she simply feeling excitement?

Karen narrowed her eyes up at her friend. "What have you gotten us into?"

Sasha frowned and stilled. She leaned her head toward a shoulder as though she didn't know what Karen was talking about.

Karen set her teeth together. Didn't Sasha know that Zolt would be stronger than the two of them together? And that he knew how to make them see things that weren't real?

They wouldn't be able to overpower him very easily. On top of that, he seemed to know this place while they knew little about it. 

Yet that wouldn't bother Sasha. Karen would expect her to wander about, eyes full of stars and magic, while Karen worked to get them out of this, if getting out was even possible. Yet maybe they were still on Earth after all, and—

"Ladies, this is no time to bicker." Zolt rubbed his mouth, brows creasing a line between his eyes. He stared at the horizon, or perhaps beyond it.

His breaths forceful and raspy, he staggered, kicking up a gritty spray. "The mages—they might follow us here."

Whirling about, Sasha moaned soft and low. Karen peered closer at Zolt.

"Hey," she said, "are you dying on us or something?"

"I'll be fine." He lowered to the ground and sat, cratering the sand.

Turning at Zolt's sudden drop, Sasha curled her hand over her mouth. Karen stepped toward him, her hand held out. But she paused, not wanting to get too close to him.

She clasped her hands together. This could be a scheme to get them to trust him. She couldn't afford to feel even pity.

Sasha, muttering, frowned at Zolt, and then at the ground. She popped her gaze up. "That's right..." she said. "Your friends…. I'm sorry…. They—"

"My brother." Zolt closed his eyes, his face contorting.

"The one who's…" Karen asked, "...who's trying to kill you?"

"I have—I had—" He hung his head.

"You have another brother?" Sasha asked.

Zolt nodded, his head dipping as if upon a deep wave. "He was the second of us three. And he...died before I was taken to Earth."

Karen scrubbed her palms on her skirt and studied a golden-hued rock beside him. The way he looked—his pain seemed to be deeply felt. Sincere. It absorbed through her skin and bounced through her until it left her trembling.

"It's strange," he said, "to exist between time. My mind says years have stolen away, my heart days."

So for him, it would feel as though his brother had just passed. Karen let out a shaky breath. She headed off Sasha in the midst of sitting beside Zolt.

"We'll give you a moment," Karen said to him. If he was going to start beating his chest in despair, she wanted to be far away.

His eyes concealed by his lowered eyelids, he angled his head up, once. Sasha squirmed in Karen's grip.

"But—but—"

"We won't go far," Karen said. "He seems to know the way out of here." She nudged Sasha and led her away, though Sasha shambled along and kept looking back.

"But he looked like he needed…." Sasha shrugged. "Like he needed a shoulder."

"Taking advantage of a person mourning—really, Sasha."

Her mouth and eyes rounded. "I'd never."

Karen ran a dry tongue over her teeth. Sasha's affronted whisper wouldn't persuade a fresh babe.

They ended up sitting a good distance from Zolt. Yet the dry air carried to them his sorrow.

* * *

The minute Zolt stood, Sasha did as well. "He's ready."

Before Karen had even raised her head, Sasha had sprinted halfway to him.

This chick.

Karen got up and massaged her lower spine. She traced Sasha's deep footprints to Zolt, who by now had thankfully hidden any signs that he'd been upset.

"How will we get home anyway?" Karen asked him. The rest had given her time to get her mind out of panic mode. She was ready to come up with a sensible plan of action.

"You'll need a throughway stone. However, they are difficult to get."

She filed that away. A car would have been a more acceptable answer, but maybe the people around here called their vehicles stones.

"I wish we hadn't come to the Dearth Lands," Zolt said. "Anyone who might help us will be on the far side of this desert." He lifted his stone. "The little magic left in this was nearly drained getting us here."

"Then why bring us?" Karen asked.

"I didn't bring you. You breached my throughway." Zolt began walking with the small sun to his right. "Moreover, if you hadn't come here, you'd be dead. My brother Petyr was behind this, and he's a ruthless, vindictive man."

Karen and Sasha stood shoulder-to-shoulder staring after Zolt as he left them. A sudden bone-deep weariness settled into Karen. Moving felt impossible for her, but not for Sasha, it seemed. She shifted between each foot in a restless dance, jostling her, yet ultimately doing as little as Karen did.

His posture stiffening, Zolt halted and faced them. "I'm sorry I have put you in this predicament." 

"We don't blame you, Zolt," Sasha said before Karen could open her mouth.

"If I could change this," he said, "I would."

"Right…" Karen said. "Where are we?" Maybe he'd be truthful.

"We are headed to a town in the kingdom of Bavla. This is the land of Suhla, on the world of Ashur, located in the realm of Zahli."

And what was she supposed to do with all those names? She shook her head. As long as he was really taking them to a city or town, she'd figure out the rest. Karen left Sasha and, in the direction Zolt had been walking, punched a course past him, her wedge heels sucking into the sands.

In her wake, Sasha tittered. "I'm sure," she said, "when we get out of this, she'll be the first to laugh about it."

Karen scoffed. She'd hold this against them forever.

Forever.

Zolt's strides drummed a heavy rhythm, and Sasha's an odd patter. They followed Karen close enough that their every word zinged at her ears.

"I hope we can one day  all find grace in this," Zolt said.

Karen scowled behind her. She was too sure this 'one day' would never happen. Zolt was looking down at Sasha with his characteristic untrustworthy smile. Sasha, with a dopey grin of her own, shuffled closer to him, her fingers brushing his.

Locking his hands at his back, Zolt caught Karen's gaze. His mouth curved.

She faced forward. Would she have to go through this again? Suffer an infatuated Sasha shutting everything else out but some guy she'd known all of two hours?

Sasha usually kept the parade of men she dated away from Karen. But when one did visit their place, Karen ended up feeling like an outsider even in her own apartment. Just as she felt like one now, with Sasha and Zolt paired up and talking intimately without her.

"How long have you known her?" Zolt asked Sasha.

Karen's stride faltered, and disturbed sand poured over her boot's top, slipping between her nylon-socked foot and insole. His voice had grown quiet but intense.

No, no, she told her quickening heart. She would not be falling into his hand too.

Sasha still had not answered. She puffed out hard.

"Ever since middle school," she said, "So...eleven years?"

Karen puckered her mouth, calculating. Had it been that long?

"Middle school?" Zolt asked.

Sasha gave him a semi-accurate idea of what the American school system was like. In turn, he described Bavla's, which included the usual reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also nonsense such as stone-wielding and magic scavenging.

After that, he asked no more questions nor made any more comments. They walked on in silence. 

Karen checked her watch, grateful it had remained unscratched. How long ago had they last been in the apartment? 

Three hours. It should have been getting dark by now. 

That was, if they were still in Tennessee. Which they should have been. They'd been taken away from the apartment in less than a minute, so wouldn't that mean when they'd first come here they had been close to their place? 

Even so, everything she looked at said they were far from Tennessee. She had to figure out where they really were if she was going to get back home.

But the gray sands went on and on. No other terrain broke the unending smoothness. They could have been going in circles without knowing it, if it hadn't been for the trail of footprints they stamped out. 

They were really in a desert, weren't they? How had they been taken here so quickly?

Sasha cleared her throat. "Is this what the whole world looks like?"

"Of course not," Zolt said. "There are mountains and great waters and—"

"Castles?"

"There are a few fortresses yet standing."

"What does your home look like?"

"I have none."

"When will you choose a place to settle down?" 

Sasha was being nowhere near subtle, and Karen had to battle embarrassment, and irritation, the more Sasha threw herself at Zolt.

"I have," he said, "other business to attend to before I can think about that."

"Hmm…." Sasha's tone had an artificial quality about it. "You know, you never answered my question. Back in the apartment."

"Which was?" Zolt asked.

"The people you've left behind. Is one of them your wife?"

"No."

"Fiance?"

"What's that?"

"Someone you've promised to marry—anybody like that here?"

"Not...anymore." 

"Oh. Did she die? Um, pass away?"

Karen strangled back a cough at Sasha's breathless and eager response. 

"We were growing apart before I left." Zolt's voice had a finality about it. Subject closed.

"How far do we have to walk?" Karen asked him.

"At the rate you're traveling, we have at least a two days' walk."

What did he say? Karen revolved like a broken merry-go-round, glaring at a gaping Sasha and an unconcerned Zolt. She marched to them.

"We don't have any shelter," she said. "I'm wearing garb inappropriate for desert life." And more than that, her skirt had torn at its side seam, leaving her exposing all that she'd been born into her world with. No wonder Zolt grinned at her as he did. Yet his lechery was the least of her worries. "And we don't have water."

But her biggest worry was that he was being honest. If it would take two days to get out of this desert, she would have no choice but to depend on him to lead her and Sasha out. Karen would get lost on her own. 

"I've enchanted us," he said, "with the stone's remaining magic. We shan't want for water."

Who told him he could enchant her? What exactly had he done?

"So our bodies will need water," she asked, arms akimbo, "but we won't feel thirsty?"

"No. Water sources will be found and transported into our bodies, without our even being aware. It won't be much, but for that small task, the stone will last until the end of the day."

"But we'll be out here a day more than that. And what about food?"

"There's none to be had."

Frizzy hair stuck to her temples, Sasha touched her brow, her gaze fixed on nothing. Then, blinking, she scrunched her face. "Hold on. I thought you weren't a mage."

"Most anyone can wield a stone," Zolt said, thumbing his crystal, "particularly a vari-purpose one. It's doing all the work." 

"Why didn't you use it to help us with the mages in the apartment?" Sasha kept her words soft, but her expression had hardened.

Karen studied her. It usually took a few weeks for the glamour of a man to wear off for Sasha. Was she already getting over her infatuation? 

Or had the infatuation been Zolt's doing and had begun to wear off?

"How did your stone bring us here, then?" Karen asked. "You said that a portal had to be open."

"A port, yes." Zolt's expression showed that he thought that a mystery as well. With a shrug, he scoured the gray desert, presumably searching for that tall, wet person. "We must be off."

They walked for hours more. Keeping up the pace was getting more difficult for Karen. Her issues weren't physical but mental. The impossibility of her situation dragged her thoughts down.

What would she do about her job? There was no way she'd still have it by the time she returned. She couldn't call in and ask for sick leave or to use her vacation days or anything. 

Zolt called for a short break. "We'll walk through the night."

Karen raised a brow. They most certainly would not. He'd find that out. Sasha made a snicking sound.

"I need to use...it." Sasha said.

"Me too." Which was good news, wasn't it? They weren't dehydrated.

"Have at it," Zolt said.

But how would she and Sasha take care of their needs with Zolt around? The desert was flat and provided no cover.

Zolt turned his back to them as if that would help anything. Sasha stared at him with a look Karen knew she'd never permit Zolt to behold.

"Come on," Karen said. "If we go far enough away, he won't hear or see anything."

Sasha brought her scathing gaze to Karen. Karen blinked. Then she tightened her mouth. Sasha was really pushing it.

Karen walked away. After backtracking for five minutes, she squatted and released her bladder, not even looking back. Then it was a drip dry, and she was finished. 

Sasha hadn't gone as far away as Karen had. She was pushing sand over a wet spot when Karen passed her.

They both returned to Zolt. On this break, the three of them sat in the sand and stared at grayness. Well, Sasha and Karen did. Zolt's gaze kept going to Karen.

She clamped her skirt's ragged split in her fist. Sitting on her heels lessened how much hip she showed, but she cared less and less about what she was coming to see as a trivial matter.

There was no ignoring Zolt's interest in her though. He wasn't being that obvious about it, but Karen felt the pull anyway. When she'd catch his glance, her stomach would flutter in a nervous pulse. As if his look excited her. But that made no sense—she couldn't be attracted to the person holding them hostage. 

And...Sasha already had designs on him. Karen had no intention of claiming Zolt, even if he hadn't been holding her there against her will, but knowing that some small part of her responded to him made her feel as though she was a traitor to Sasha.

It shouldn't matter. Zolt would be out of their lives soon. Karen yanked off her boots and emptied the sand out of them. 

Hmm. If none of that mattered….

Maybe she should take advantage of Zolt's attraction. If she were friendly with him, he would let down his guard. Then she could get close enough to take his necklace, and she and Sasha could leave safely. Karen tugged on her boots again.

As though reading Karen's thoughts, Sasha glinted a resentful stare at Karen, her eyes reflecting the pale gray of the desert. Karen's heartbeat gave a clumsy thump-thump. Sasha turned away, rubbing her hands together. Karen relaxed.

Zolt stood. Karen dug away a sharp rock poking her leg and got to her feet as well.

She pulled the corners of her mouth back, hoping she looked as though she was smiling. "Lead the way."

He gave her a long stare. His face softened into a grin. Karen cleared her throat and looked away.

Sasha bored her feet into the ground as she stood. She glared between Zolt and Karen. Zolt headed off, and Karen and Sasha followed.

The temperature dropped as the sun did; its red light provided little heat. Goosebumps ran up and down Karen's legs, and Sasha kneaded her arms through her shirt though it was long-sleeved.

Karen imagined, come night, pockets of sinkholes would form at the surface of the motionless sands, and out of them would climb critters, all seeking flesh to bite or sting or pinch. Her legs would provide a ready feast.

"What kind of animals live here?" Karen asked quietly. "Any that eat people?"

A few paces before them, Zolt shook his head. The low sun slanted a scarlet beam across his temple. "Animals keep clear of these parts."

A small whine released from Sasha. Karen shivered in her thin top.

Losing Zolt and leaving this world was a top priority, but her first aim was surviving this desert. Getting out of this place alive.

Chapter 2

Tambren

◈ Caged ◈

Tambren sensed an intrusion to her left, close to the locked double doors across the room. At the crackle of magical charge near one of the tall windows shut to the evening, she jerked her hand from an outline on the floor and straightened to her feet. Her captor had returned, after being absent for a week now.

The interruption made no difference to her. She had preoccupied herself with her task for nearly a cycle now. Time was all she had. 

Blinking away the haze clinging to her thoughts, Tambren waited until some strength came back to her dulled limbs. A confrontation would try her mentally and physically, beyond her diminished capabilities, so she had to be careful of how she spoke and what she gave away. 

She padded, feet bare and cold, away from the charoite crystal inlaying the stone floor tiles and enclosing her in a jagged ring. To her surprise, her feet carried her without tripping over each other.

Tambren strode toward the opposite side of where she had crouched in the irregular oval but halted her steps, stopping at its center. By fleeing as far as possible from the site of her misdeeds, she'd signal their exact location.

Her hands were shaking. 

She had burned through an immense amount of magic. Her body would be weak for hours more. She swished lacy cuffs over her fingers, obscuring the faded azure of her skin from view. Her undergarment covered as much as her full ceremonial attire would, but she felt exposed in the thin chemise. 

When had she become accustomed to the stifling layers of clothing she once had been required to wear daily? She should have been grateful the weight of thick fabrics no longer burdened her. 

Instead, though nothing heavier than her stone, into which she trickled her essence to take care of bodily needs, laid upon her, resentment cottoned her mouth. That solitary relief had not advanced her progress.

The one thing she wanted to do — escape so that she could speak with Anzuri, ask for her forgiveness — she could not do. If she could have done that one thing, she would have gladly accepted what was coming to her. 

From in front of the windows came a stuttering hum. There, a small transparent sphere appeared. In the orange-tinted glass panes, it created a faint white reflection. This throughway enlarged, and inside it, the form of a man materialized. Tambren wrinkled her nose.

Wisps of a new scent, harsher than the usual odors one would expect from a throughway, threaded into the room. Burnt metal and sweet bone marrow. The smell of costly magic.

Flesh magic.

Her stomach heaved. She expected such an odor, of course. Misca insisted on carrying the stone their enemies had trapped Anzuri's essence in. But the smell rolling off him had an unusual pungency.

He must have had another clash with Inducers. That group of mages used flesh magic so freely that the residue of it would be left on anyone who came near them. 

Misca had taken up a foolhardy endeavor. Fighting the Inducers would only lead them to target their people more than they had in the past. Misca brought trouble on them all.

Turning from his robed form thinning the throughway, she faced a long empty table made of stone with orange and cream whorls. But her gaze lifted to the walls behind the table where four circles, darker than the surrounding wood, formed an arc. 

The stripped walls reminded her of all she had failed to protect. The banners and energy stones of the royal family no longer dressed the room. Without those stones, she could not be sure of who still lived.

"Xoltani has come back to us," Misca said behind her.

Tambren's breath burned down her throat. What had he said? 

Did he tell her lies? Was this another challenge? 

She imagined that his face would have that gentle mocking look he often flaunted. He'd be contemplating her back, a hand grasping his chin, his elbow propped at the waist.

Did he mean to say that Xoltani was here, on Ashur? Misca's words were almost incomprehensible to her. Perhaps to discern them, she needed some measure of hope, some ray of light. But she had none.

Or so she had believed.

She had thought Xoltani, even if he had survived, would be unable to ever return to Ashur. Every attempt to reach him had failed.

Tambren bit the side of her tongue, teeth sinking into muscle, in her struggle to appear unmoved. Blood pulsed through the veins at her temples and at the same time into her mouth. 

If Xoltani was alive, and moreover, on Ashur, then that changed her circumstances. She could no longer hand her life over to Misca.

Before Misca's announcement, Tambren had decided she would no longer resist what he'd eventually do to her. Why fight against what she more than deserved?

But now she needed to help Xoltani, which meant she'd have to take on the battle she should have finished long ago. And Misca couldn't realize what she was intending to do.

"He travels through the Dearth Lands," he said, as though chanting the words to a chantey. "Shall I welcome him to Bavla?"

Wind gusted around her, whipping the hem of her chemise from the floor. Her skin stained to a darker hue, and a bright blue aura rose like flames off the surface of her hands.

Misca had just issued a threat to Xoltani's life. She felt the coldness coming off Misca even as he kept his voice friendly. Yet would he go that far?

Tambren tensed her fingers into fists until they ached. Her aura died down.

She had to focus her energy on freeing herself, not just from this room, but from the estate. She had to try harder, now that she had a reason to do so.

Though the floor was shiny and hard, Misca's approaching steps fell in muffled raps. Tambren opened her hands. 

She hadn't used the full force of her power in so long that Misca likely thought she could not touch him. He'd think that what she refrained from doing was the same as what she couldn't do. 

But no more of that. Doing nothing had gotten her in this prison. She had lost her family. 

Despite her power, everything had been ripped from her. She'd allowed the violence and death that had visited her. And now Misca threatened what she cared about most.

An old emotion bubbled in her chest, unfamiliar to her these days. Anger.

Misca kept a wide berth from her, his path curving around rather than cutting in a straight line. She permitted herself a muted laugh. The coward. However strong he thought her prison was, however weak she'd become, he was afraid of her.

But did he not know her power could still reach him?

The hem of her chemise rustled against her shins. When Misca reached the edge of her view, his foot slipped. He drew in a sharp breath. Tambren lifted a corner of her mouth. 

Misca regained his balance, adjusted his pewter-colored robes around his muscular frame. He lowered his head, perhaps stared at the reflections below his feet. The smooth floor presented nothing that would have tripped him.

He pushed off his hood and pivoted toward Tambren. Suspicion creasing his silvery face, he narrowed eyes of the same color at her.

Tambren dropped her smile. Had she betrayed herself with her silly trick? He strode half a step toward her. Tambren softened her breathing. She had to practice discipline if she were to escape. 

Misca's gaze flitted over her. He would realize she had a way to pass through her magic. What should she do now?

"I—" She swallowed, her stinging tongue rough under the blood. Hidden stones supplied her with just enough water that she remained lucid but weakened. "I have a proposal."

Misca's mouth twitched. "What do you spell?"

"You want to contain my power and to save our people."

"Get on with it."

"I can drain my magic. Then there'd be no need to worry about—"

"That would be useless." Disappointment pushed his eyes into slashes of light. "Your magic restores itself."

That they both knew. What would capture his attention? What didn't he know? "I can rip my life energy from myself. Permanently. And then you'd be able to destroy my body." She grimaced, unable to hide her distaste.

Tambren could push her energy out of herself but had never untethered it — except once. That had been during the long dark time in her life when glittering eyes had borne down upon her, commanding her to show them the fruits of their tests. 

And she had, though against her will. 

Being disembodied had felt like an irredeemable death. Utterly wrong. Untethering herself deliberately would be an unthinkable thing to do.

"You think I could ask that of you?" Misca asked.

"You don't need to. I'm offering. My life for Xoltani's." She didn't believe Misca would accept her offer, not when he could have his revenge on both her and Xoltani.

Tugging at his robes, Misca lowered his head again and, keeping his distance from her, paced in a slow circle. He paused, raised his silver gaze. "You've misjudged me, Tambren."

Her gaze met his. That might have been true. Though Misca kept her imprisoned here, he seemed content to do nothing more. But he'd implied harm to Xoltani.

She brought her aura just underneath the surface of her skin. Why had Misca come here? What did he profit in telling her about Xoltani's return? 

Misca stared at her hands, his head at a shrewd tilt. What was he figuring out for himself? Tambren had no other diversions for him. He was going to find her secret. 

She watched, unable to do anything as his eyes widened. From his robes, he snapped out a thin crystal, a metal-capped indigo stone.

Through the magic barrier, Tambren smelled the reek of sickening magic. It made her dizzy. 

Why had the stench of flesh magic heightened?

Rushing toward her, his robes flapping, he raised the indigo stone. Tambren held her body and face still, unflinching. However, Misca touched the stone only to the air above the outline.

The air shimmered, an indigo wave flowing out from the stone, flashing around the line on the floor. The wave revealed a twisted structure surrounding Tambren, invisible until the stone had struck it. The hollow crystal cluster bulged halfway up and then tapered to a crisp point under the tall slatted ceilings.

The sight of her confines made ignoring them impossible. Her space was too small. She had to get out.

He tapped the air again and again while striding along the perimeter of the structure. The waves rolled around each time, following the marked lilac boundary. 

Tambren clamped her teeth tight. Perhaps he would miss it. Although she'd worked for so long, she had made few gains. It would be too small to notice. 

Silence. Misca had arrested his probing. Right where Tambren had been before he'd arrived.

She swore to herself. Her progress would be erased. She'd have to start over. 

With his stone, he knocked on the air once more. A shimmer spilled out. Near the floor, the flow warped.

Misca brought his gaze up to Tambren. She kept hers down.

He bent and touched the stone to the crack he'd revealed. The crack, the length of Tambren's thumb, shrank. His stone glowed, intensifying from its dark grayish blue to a deep black. 

The fissure in her prison funneled into the crystal. He might as well have been drawing her life from her body. 

Her hope. Her light.

However, it came to her that fracturing the structure enough that she could get out would have taken too long even if she could continue what she had begun. The thought did not soothe her.

The vibration of magic in the air ceased. The break had disappeared, and the glow had dimmed from the stone. Misca lifted it, examining its pallid facets. He tucked the empty stone away and stared at her.

And now that filthy reek…. Tambren shook her head, over and over. She hadn't realized what had been going on before. Inducers weren't to blame for what she had sensed at Misca's arrival, nor when he restored her crystal confines. When the magic emptied from his stone, the taint of rotten magic had lessened. 

"Why do you have a flesh stone?" she asked, not caring how her features wrenched, how they told him of her misery. Would he claim he was doing these despicable things to save their people?

Misca half-turned from her. He bridled his expression well; nothing on his disinterested face gave away what he was thinking or feeling. But his hand seized the fabric at his chest.

And he denied nothing. 

How had it come to this? Why had he become so desperate that he would debase himself and their people? 

Surely not for a bit of power. 

She had to stop him. He was going to destroy himself, and she wouldn't allow it to happen. Not to someone she loved. 

Tambren released her blue aura, its sigh reaching only her sensitive ears. Like smoke it rose. She sent it to the walls of her prison.

There must have been some weakness around her. She had to discover it and break through. A small crack would do. If she could get her energy out, she could enter his mind, influence his thoughts, redirect his actions.

She had to untether herself.

More of her aura whispered out. It pressed against the walls, taxing them for any fault, any thinness. Her aura revealed the shape of the structure, as though it were nansah wine poured into an intangible glass.

She shoved outward, but her aura curled back into itself, the hardness of the walls rebounding her energy. They had been reinforced.

He hadn't just been repairing the crystal structure but strengthening it. The aura she had sent out fell back in weary twirls into her body. 

Her legs trembled in her exhaustion, and her vision swam. Where did this leave her?

"I expect Xoltani will be coming here," Misca said. "I suppose, to take care of what's unfinished between you two. But he and I have left things unfinished as well. Before he gets to you, I'll see him under my control."

* * *

Sasha

◈ Weak ◈

Night did not look like night in this desert. The differences between Earth and Ashur had begun to impress themselves upon Sasha. 

The worlds did share some features after their suns had set. The sky on Ashur had darkened somewhat like Earth's would. And there was a moon. Or three. A ringed one was rising to block a quarter of the sky, framed by two smaller moons that already had ascended, a basketball-sized silvery pink one to the left of the biggest and a softball-sized rose gold one above.

However, unlike on Earth, though Sasha, Karen, and Zolt had no artificial lighting, they traveled in about the same amount of brightness Sasha would expect on a winter's evening at a Wal-mart parking lot. 

All around them, the sand glowed. Yellow light flowed like an aurora over the sand, bending and curving to above their heads. The glow gave the flat desert an eeriness Sasha disliked. 

Magic made this possible. Yet it didn't feel magical. Fear edged around Sasha's curiosity and threatened to crowd out her captivation with being in a strange other-world.

Sasha took her gaze from the crowded expanse. She and Karen walked away from the site of their latest pee break toward Zolt. Karen stretched out her strides while Sasha's footsteps smudged into long troughs.

Her muscles ached from the hours of continual exercise and the cold. But halfway to Zolt, Sasha summoned a reserve of energy and caught up with Karen.

Karen looked ahead of them, her eyes focused, her face determined. Sasha knew what, or who, Karen set her sights on without looking herself. An easy guess—he was the only thing around.

She needed to ask Karen what her deal was with Zolt. Sasha couldn't ignore the chemistry between her best friend and the man of her dreams. She formed and unformed her thoughts, reluctant to put any of them into spoken words.

Asking out loud meant acknowledging their attraction. Their mutual attraction. Sasha would have to contend with Zolt's interest in someone else. In her friend. 

In the past Karen had been bent on having a career and being successful, and she'd dismissed the idea of long-term relationships with men and dating, despite Sasha's urging to go clubbing and have double dates. The situation between them now seemed improbable and unnatural. Simply thinking of Karen as a rival brought Sasha into unfamiliar and shaky territory.

Sasha dipped her tongue over her dry, sand-frosted lips. Having trouble voicing her feelings was new to her too. Would their potentially cross purposes damage their friendship?

Her opportunity to speak had passed, for she and Karen had come to Zolt. He had his broad back to them and his arms crossed. His posture extended as straight as it had been when the three of them had started their trek. 

Obviously, he had heaps of stamina. Sasha hung her head as her shoulders rounded forward. She was so tired that the evidence of his vitality failed to excite her usually vivid imagination.

"Can't we take a nap?" She cringed at the plucked-violin note of her voice. It grated her own ears. The prospect of walking forever through an unchanging desert without sleeping did not inspire gratitude. 

"We might succumb to the night miasma." Zolt's voice had lost its lovely color. "This sand has drawn enfeebled magic from the atmosphere. I can't say what it might do to us if we slumbered on it for hours." Offering no smile as he had been doing earlier in the night, he led them toward the moons.

They formed a silent train in the golden streaming light. Karen, behind Zolt and ahead of Sasha, flexed her fingers and then folded her arms tight. Her glances kept going to Zolt.

Sasha tucked her hands under her arms. What was Karen up to?

"Ah…" Karen cleared her throat. "Do you expect there will be lots of trouble where we're going?"

Zolt turned an ear toward her. "It's a small out-of-the-way place. Not much happens there."

Karen peered at the ground as though searching for something else to say. She hunched her shoulders and sighed.

Sasha squinted her eyes at Karen. Had Karen decided to chat up Zolt? She'd been trying to get away from him up until now. Didn't she still distrust him?

What had changed?

There were plenty of reasons to question his motives. They had no way of knowing if Zolt was headed in the right direction. Or if he would even try to keep them safe. And—

Whoa.

Where had all that come from? Sasha trusted Zolt. He was trying to help them. Get them home.

And if she had to wade through a lifetime of sand while her friend flirted with him, a man Sasha wanted more than anything else, just to get back where she had started? What then?

"Who can help us there?" Karen asked.

"Neither allies nor friends," Zolt said, his voice sullen.

"Then who?" Karen asked. Her tone was actually gentle. Karen's. "Will you be able to contact someone you know?"

He shook his head. "I don't know which of my allies could still be alive. Likely none."

"You can't believe that."

Zolt's look of longing mixed with gratitude barreled right into Sasha's chest. That look was supposed to be for her. But he gazed at Karen.

She could do nothing but watch her happiness die moment by moment. Her throat felt blocked. Air came up no higher than her collar bone. Breathing in failed her too. Her steps became unsteady.

Was she in trouble? But she coughed and found her breath. 

Gazes locked, the two ahead of her hadn't noticed her struggle. Sasha's facial muscles stretched taut.

Of course they didn't notice. They wouldn't care about her. Who would?

Her own family probably hadn't realized she was gone. She'd go to hell and back only for her family to think she had ditched them to take a vacation. And that was only if she got to see them back on Earth again….

Which she wouldn't if she continued to tag along after Zolt as he led them straight to his enemies to die deaths most unnecessary.

Sasha swallowed. That wasn't right. 

This wasn't her. 

Yet who else would it be? It had to be her. 

Even so, what was going on in her mind felt foreign. She kept pushing the negativity away, but it kept rebounding back into her head. 

Zolt slowed until he was walking apace with Karen. "I don't want to believe my friends are dead."

"And they may not be." Karen swept a hand out. "You said someone contacted you before."

"Why would your friends be dead?" Sasha projected her voice at them.

"That's right," Zolt said, sounding as though the memory was coming back to him. "Someone...did contact me." He closed his hand over the blue stone at his chest.

Was he ignoring her on purpose? Sasha slackened her steps.

"An ally?" Karen asked.

"Had to have been. Lilain? Rissa? Nemmin? Hmm..." He brought himself up taller. "Of course. She would have survived. I feel it."

"One of your friends?"

"At one time we were more. But I'm certain she's still my ally. And one of the most powerful mages I know. A former royal guard."

Why was Karen causing Zolt to think of old lovers? Didn't she understand Sasha's objective? Was Karen bent on ruining everything? How was Zolt falling for Karen's ploy? 

Sasha pushed her fingers into the knotted hair at her temples. The questions seemed to dig into her mind. She couldn't stop them.

She had to address what she was feeling—she'd been trained to handle these kinds of situations.

One step at a time... What was going on in her body? Tiredness. Tightness. Heavy head. And speaking of her head… What was going on in there?

"If your friends are alive," Karen said, "what's the plan?"

"Get you two home," he said. "Find my friends. Prepare for war."

"War…" Karen gave Zolt an unreadable look. "Why a war?"

"Revenge."

Karen's shoulders tensed, and she stopped short. "Uh...good luck with that." Her arms folded at her chest again, she let Zolt pull ahead of her.

He made no comment and led them on. But the lightness in his stride left, and his boots pushed deep into the sand.

Disappointment. 

Sasha felt disappointed. But was that all?

She had expected the world of Zolt, and he seemed to feel almost nothing for her. But was that his fault? 

A hot prickly emotion wound around her, tore through her, like barbed wire pulled tight.

Yes. She blamed him. He had called out to her through his spirit and ultimately used her to escape to this place.

Sasha kicked at a mound of the measureless gray sand. It made a pretty arc. But she had gotten over the dazzling colors that had first enthralled her. Here she was, in a land supposedly full of magic, but surrounded by only rocks and dirt.

They were trapped in this world because of Zolt. She glared at his back. She felt...she felt—

She tripped to an abrupt stop. A yellow stone had thwarted her step. After a short delay, pain zipped along the side of her foot. Wincing, she stared at the rock with empty pits trapped in its murky heart.

In her mind, a hand holding a speckled blue stone came forth. Screaming joined the mental image. The stone cracked. Shattered.

What did this come from? It had been like a memory. What did it mean?

She followed the ropey connections of thought and feeling. The further and deeper she went, however, the more desperation scraped at her. It slid into fear.

Then wrath.

These were her emotions. Why was she trying to deny that? She was allowed to feel fury. Zolt had wronged her. He put them in danger.

If they eliminated him, those people after him would beam her and Karen back home. Then she could get back to her pathetic life and set this whole sorry episode behind her.

Zolt glanced back at her and stopped too. "You're shivering," he said, looking from her to Karen, who also had quit walking. "I hadn't thought of the temperature. The Sudlu don't get cold easily. Maybe we could—"

He whirled to the side, evading the football-sized rock Sasha stabbed at him. Zolt, his face calm, opened his palms to her, a gesture someone would make at a bucking horse.

Sasha adjusted her grip, turning the rock so that one of its points jutted at him. She swiped. 

He danced back, dodging the attack.

Karen ran between them, her arms spread wide. "Sasha, what the hell?"

"Move," she said. "I'm taking care of this."

Sasha chopped down again, this time at Karen. Zolt pushed Karen out of Sasha's reach. 

But he misstepped, pitching forward, and connected with Sasha's blow.

The rock glanced off his head. The impact jarred the rock from Sasha's hands. 

Zolt fell to his knees.

She stared at her hands, then at Zolt's dazed face and the red stream oozing over his cheek. 

His blood.

Sasha covered her mouth, holding back her scream. Why had she done that?

She dropped to her knees in front of him, but Karen blocked her. Karen cradled his head, unmindful of staining her hands.

"Zolt, look at me," she said. He blinked but looked nowhere.

"I-I'm so sorry." Sasha pushed her words past nerveless lips.

She had been so sure that getting rid of Zolt was what she had to do. She had felt possessed with that desire. But the anger had fled, leaving her with horror.

"What's wrong with you?" Karen's voice sliced at Sasha.

"It isn't her fault." Zolt slurred each syllable, and his eyelids drooped. "It's Petyr. He's… …to her mind. It's easy… those who… weak-willed and silij im…"

He slumped against Karen, tottering her back. She slapped at his cheeks. His eyelids fluttered, remaining closed. Struggling, she lowered him to the ground.

Sasha broke her gaze from the accusation in Karen's eyes. She had hurt Zolt. 

Or worse. She—she might have—

She shook her head. This wasn't possible. She wasn't capable of hurting anyone.

"Sasha."

Another form superimposed over Zolt's prone body. In the failing light, shadows emerged as tubes connected to him. A trickled beep haunted her ears. The astringent sting of phantom cleaners fogged her nose. She clawed at her neck, wheezing.

She had hurt her father too. She hadn't been trying to help him, never had read to him, nor fed him. Could barely go near him— 

"Sasha!" Bending over her, Karen shook her.

Sasha's inhale caught. Everything had gone wrong. What had she done? 

"I've killed him."

Karen palmed her face. "He isn't dead, Sasha. See? He's breathing."

For how long though? He could stop at any time. Even if he was alive, she'd mess that up. She'd mess everything up, and he'd be—

Sasha trembled. She didn't want to be like this.

Weak-willed—that's what Zolt had said. Because of her weakness, she had injured him.

She clutched at Karen's sticky hands. "I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't mean to—"

"Get up and help me." Karen backed away.

Cooling tears cutting paths down her face, Sasha bumbled to her feet and propelled to Zolt. He indeed breathed, but his chest hardly rose and fell.

Guilt assaulted Sasha. What gusted through her at seeing him still alive hadn't been relief.

It had been apprehension. She'd have to face him after what she'd done to him. He would hate her, and she'd deserve that hate. 

"We'll have to tote him," Karen said.

Sasha and Karen lugged him halfway off the ground, succeeding in mostly dragging him. They laid him on his back.

Sasha wiped her face on her arm, painting a muddy red on her sleeve. "What will we do?"

"You and me are going to find some help."

"We're leaving him out here alone?" Sasha squeezed her hands together. "But he'll—he'll—"

"He's the only one of us who'd make it. He doesn't have to worry about animals." Karen ticked off on her fingers. "He can take the cold, and his enchantment will give him water." She licked her lips and gazed at Zolt. Then she squatted and untied the pendant from his neck. "But only for a few hours more. We'll come back for him though." She stared up at Sasha. "We will."

Sasha nodded. Karen hesitated before picking up the loose cord. Tying it around her neck, she stood. Across her wrinkled top, a long dark smear stroked from shoulder to hip.

"I should stay with him," Sasha said. She had to do something, however trite.

Karen jerked Sasha's arm, prompting her forward, and then pulled her into a run. "Stop being ridiculous, Sasha. Come on."

As they moved away from Zolt, the nastiness that had invaded Sasha drained away. Her body seemed to remember then that she hadn't gotten a proper rest in over a day. Her feet slapped hard against the sand. 

"We can't run the whole way," Sasha said, already panting.

Karen blew out and sucked in air between her teeth. "We'll run until we can't go anymore, then we'll rest until morning."

Sasha's body demanded the aforementioned rest now. A stitch burned in her side, one of her calves cramped, and her heart knocked around in her chest.

"Karen." A breath raked down her throat. "Karen, I just thought of something." A small hidden pit in the sand turned her foot to the side. She stumbled and resumed her trot. "We don't speak…whatever they speak here."

"We'll figure it out."

Sasha shook her head. They had no clue who the good guys or bad ones were. All Zolt's brother had to do was wait, and they'd run into him. Or lead him straight to Zolt. Especially since…

"What if his brother—?" Had that really happened to Sasha? "What if he mind-controls me again?"

"You'll figure it out."

Sasha glanced at Karen's frigid expression. Expecting Karen to sympathize with her right after she'd made such a big mistake had been deluded thinking, it seemed.

They slow-jogged thirty minutes at a time, as marked by Karen's watch. As soon as the minutes passed, Sasha would flop to the ground, groaning and puffing into the sand, her breath labored.

But she had to keep going. Her screw-up, her pettiness, could cost Zolt his life. They had to find that town for his sake. No matter what.

By the fourth shift of running, tears stood in her eyes. Nausea and hunger twisted her stomach. Her vision flared with red flashing spots. 

And her feet must have fallen off two miles back—she could no longer feel anything down there. She was afraid to look.

Sasha slowed to a halting walk. Already? Would she end up quitting after all her vows and promises?

She only had to get help but floundered to do that one little thing. This was going to be another screw-up, wasn't it? Cutting pain around her ankles affirmed that it was.

"We have—" Oh, breathing hurt Sasha's ribs. "We have to stop."

"We can't." Karen, her wedge-heeled boots swinging from the laces she gripped in one hand, kept her pace relentless. "We'll freeze if we do. Can't you feel how cold it is?"

Of course Sasha felt how cold it was. Her cheeks and ears and fingers were numb, even while the rest of her screamed in heated agony. Karen let up on their pace but refused to stop.

Sasha spent the next break retching. Watery chocolate milkshake did not look or taste so great when partially digested in an acidic bisque. She sank to her knees and fell into the icy sand to lie on her stomach.

"You good?" Karen, sitting with her legs outstretched, rocked them side to side. Ignoring Sasha shaking her head no, Karen went on, "Good. We're covering at least two or three miles an hour." She rubbed her bare feet.

Sasha gagged. That slow?

Karen grabbed her boots and stood. "We're going to be there twice as fast jogging than walking."

"I think," Sasha said, rolling off her stomach, sand caking her face and shirt, "that I'm having a heart attack."

Karen pursed her lips. "Break time over."

More tears pooled in Sasha's eyes. "I can't get up."

"Yeah, you can. Let's go."

"I'm not playing." Sasha's bile-splashed throat made her voice thick. "I can't."

"Sasha…"

Karen had to know that Sasha had given this her all. Despite her every effort and intention, Sasha's limbs followed no command to move. 

She had to rest. The question was, would she ask Karen to stop too, endangering Zolt's life further? Or, would she let Karen go on while she lay here useless?

Sasha wanted to ask Karen to stay. Shameful as her desire was, Sasha couldn't bear feeling worthless. But doing the right thing would mean feeling that and worse. She'd failed.

Yet why did that matter? Sasha speared her stiffened fingers into the sand.

Causing more suffering for someone else wouldn't help her feel competent. There was no time for regrets, for shoulda, woulda, couldas. She had to make sure Zolt got well, even if he despised her, even if she had to admit she was unable to do anything right.

"You have to leave me," Sasha said. "I'm just slowing you down."

"I shouldn't…" Karen closed her eyes, looking dead tired. She blinked them open. "If there's some kind of magical vapors coming off this sand, we should be on it as little as possible. I'll wait until you can walk again."

Sasha had to vomit again but had the strength only to turn her head to the side. Yuck soaked into her shirt. Not that she cared. She spat out bitter slime.

"You have to fix this, Karen," Sasha said. "Go."

The deep indigo sky swirled and twirled above her, trailing the light of grotesquely large moons and stars in arcs. She'd been so close to her dreams. To happiness. Sasha closed her eyes and dropped into a sweet blackness.