The desert lay stretched beneath the pale grasp of dawn, its beach bruiting with the dateless shriek of winds that had carried stories for thousands of times. Elara stood upon a drift’s crest, her cloak jutting behind her like a passage reaching for distant midairs. The shards they carried had begun to palpitate with a meter so steady, so alive, that it sounded the veritably earth beneath them was awakening in response. Kael,