It has been a while since I posted a story here. Behind the scenes I am deliberately working on finishing my first book. It will still take a while but I today I was in the mood of a quick introspective scene which may or may not be in the third book.

---

She felt the heat of the sand beneath her feet and thought about how simple everything used to be.

She had a home, a comfortable bed, enough to eat and drink – everything she needed. And she had thrown it all away for an illusion. For a man who wielded charm like a blade, concealing the monster within. Ava had warned her, time and again, but she’d ignored her. She had fallen for the honeyed words that masked the venom underneath. She’d stayed. She’d believed in him.

The memory of him towering over her, hand raised to strike, was burned into her mind like a scar that refused to heal. Her lips curled in disgust, and she spat into the sand, her anger as scorching as the desert sun. That bastard. So full of himself, so drunk on his own ego that he couldn’t even see the people he trampled beneath him. How could she have been so blind? So stupid?

And now? Now she was hundreds of miles from what she once called home, alone, desperate, broken. She let out a weak, bitter laugh, her breath catching in her throat.

Her knees buckled and she crumpled into the burning sand. It stung like a thousand needles against her bare skin, drawing fresh tears to her eyes. She wouldn’t make it. Not through the southern passage. Not like this. If the heat wouldn’t kill her, the thirst definitely would. Or worse.
Maybe that would be better. Ava was better off without her anyway. For a brief moment her thoughts flicked to him… She clenched her jaw and pushed the thought aside. She wouldn’t think of him. Not now.

The sand seemed to cradle her as she collapsed fully, letting her head rest on her forearm. She lay still, her breath shallow, her body trembling. The radiating heat enveloped her but there was something more. Something unfamiliar.

At first, she thought it was a trick of her mind—a hallucination brought on by the relentless sun and the dryness clawing at her throat. But it was there, steady and persistent, like a pulse radiating through her very core. As if something —someone— was reaching for her.

You can’t die.

The words were not spoken. They were a force, a thought not entirely her own, echoing inside of her and pulling her back from the abyss. Was it her own resolve speaking? A last-ditch effort of her subconscious to keep her alive? Or was it… something else? She couldn’t tell. The feeling didn’t belong to her, yet it wrapped around her like a tether, a lifeline, pulling her back from the brink.

Get up, Zahrah.

The vibration deepened, reverberating through her limbs. With it came an overwhelming certainty: she had to move. Step by step, her mind urged, unrelenting. Her body protested, weak and trembling, but the compulsion was stronger than her exhaustion.

She forced her head up, her vision swimming in the searing light. The horizon wavered like molten glass but there—distant and hazy—rose the jagged silhouettes of a steep mountain range. Shade. It wouldn’t save her, not really. Maybe only delay the inevitable.

Yet her hands curled into fists, pressing into the burning sand as she tried to push herself up. Her muscles screamed in defiance, her skin stung where it met the blistering heat, but the vibration inside her didn’t waver. It whispered without words, a quiet insistence that she wasn’t finished yet. That this wasn’t where her story ended.

Her knees scraped against the sand as she rose. The sun bore down on her with merciless intensity, but the tether inside her held firm.

For a fleeting moment, a name surfaced in her mind. Was it his voice she had heard? Or was her mind weaving illusions from desperation? She didn’t know and perhaps it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she wasn’t alone—not entirely.

The rocks seemed impossibly far, the shimmering heat distorting their edges, but the compulsion to move was relentless. She didn’t know where the strength came from, but she obeyed. Her feet dragged forward, each step a battle against the desert. The sun bore down on her mercilessly, but for the first time in what felt like hours, she felt something stir within her: hope. Fragile and faint, but alive.