In the palace gardens, night-blooming jasmine unfurled their white throats to the dark, and the fountains whispered in the old tongue—names of gods, names of kings, names long buried beneath the sand.

You walked the colonnaded path alone, the cool stone beneath your bare feet, the scent of myrrh and lotus oil clinging to your skin. The silks you wore—woven from dreamstuff and shadow-moth wings—rippled like water, catching the moon's strange light.

Behind you, the palace glittered. Before you, the desert stretched, endless and patient.

And then, a sound.

Not the wind. Not the jackals. Something closer. A voice, low and velvet-smooth, curling out of the shadows like smoke.