“Our supplies,” Tal explained. “The camel’s gone—I lost it during the storm, which means we’ve lost the water and the tent and everything else. All we have left is what we were carrying. And that won’t last long, no more than a day. So unless we’re very close to the Well…”

Jae held up a finger, motioning for him to be quiet, and sank back into other-vision. Now that the barrier was gone, the desert’s energy had returned to normal, the magic floating around them with no snarls. She soared, searching, until she found a bright speck on the horizon. Followed it, and—

The Well was enormous, glistening with energy and life, but it was dwarfed by something behind it. When Jae looked, she saw…mountains. They were like nothing she’d ever seen before: enormous peaks that blotted out the sky, infused with strange, dark magic. Something more powerful than she could imagine had created them, something powerful and twisted. They were wrong in a way she hadn’t ever felt before, something not even the Curse’s cruelty could compare to.

Shuddering, she slipped away, back to her own body. “I can find it now, but there’s something else….” She shook her head. The mountains didn’t matter. She didn’t want to go near them, but the Well sat near their base, so they had no choice. They had to reach the Well—not just to save Aredann, but also to save themselves from the desert. “Another two days, maybe three.”

“Then unless you can find our supplies, we’re in trouble,” Tal said.

Jae barely had to glance in other-vision to find the camel. There was so little life in the desert that it stood out in sharp relief, bright and shining, remarkably still alive, and heading back to Aredann on its own. It was making good time, though it wasn’t fast enough that they couldn’t have caught it—but there was no reason to. There was no glow of water attached to its back. The jugs must have come loose and shattered somewhere in the storm.

“We’re in trouble,” Jae confirmed.

“We could head back, get more supplies,” Elan said hesitantly, then shook his head. “No, never mind. If we tried, my father…It’s too far, anyway.”

“Then we should go,” Tal said. “There’s no point in putting it off. We’ll ration the water, get as far as we can….We can make it. We have no choice.”

Jae nodded grimly and helped him gather what remained of their things. Everything was so much lighter now. It would be easier to move, but wandering through the desert with no reprieve…

It was like Tal had said: they had no choice.

Crawling up the sand wall Jae had accidentally built was no easy task, but they made it out and back to the desert floor. There was no sign that they’d passed this way before, no sign that anyone had, ever. Nothing but endless sand in front of them, and silver-specked black overhead.

Any sense of renewed energy Jae had felt evaporated with her sweat. The desert itself was cold at night, but the travel robes were heavy, and marching forward kept the three of them from cooling down. Jae kept moving because she had no choice, the cursed boots weighing her feet down with every step, but staying still was worse. She couldn’t stop picturing their bodies, lost forever in the desert. The wind and sand would beat against them. Their bones would be bleached white by the sun, then lie buried in the sand forever, or dry entirely and turn to dust.

“I can’t,” Tal finally panted as the sun came up. “We have to stop. I can’t…”

Stopping was almost as frightening as continuing, especially when Tal opened his water skin with shaky hands. He drank for a moment, no more than a few swallows, and passed it on. She did the same, and Elan finished what little water it held. Now they were down to just the satchel. Meant for one person, to last one day, now it would have to serve all three of them for at least another day, if not more.

It wouldn’t last. They wouldn’t make it.

Their tent was gone, and the desert was an endless expanse of dunes. They settled at the base of one slope, which at least would be shadowed during the worst of the sun, and huddled together. Jae shut her eyes and in other-vision tried to imagine a solid stone behind them and hanging over them, providing shelter. She could feel the energy of the earth building and building around her, and released it slowly.

There was a scraping, rumbling sound, and solid stone appeared, growing out of the sand around them, giving them shade and shelter. She smiled, exhausted but pleased, and found Tal and Elan staring at her.

“That…that’s really something,” Elan murmured, pressing a hand to the smooth stone.

It wasn’t exactly comfortable to sleep in the small shelter. It was still too hot, with only the hard rock floor beneath them, and there was no water. As the sun rose, it spilled in far enough that Jae had to hide her face in the crook of her elbow to avoid it, but the shelter she’d built was still better than nothing.

When the sun finally sank, they resumed their walk. The moon was high and bright by the time Tal said, “Maybe…maybe we should stop. I’m so tired, Jae.”

Jae frowned, then reached for him, pushed his robe aside, and pressed a hand to his neck. It burned against her skin, but there was no dampness there, no sign of sweat. Which meant he didn’t have enough water in him to sweat, which meant sunsickness—even at night, from heat and exhaustion alone. She shook her head. “Drink now, just a little. We’ll have more before we camp in the morning.”

So they did, and then went back to walking. When the sun finally started to come up, they found another dune and drank, then lay down, all three pressed together. Jae reached for the energy of the earth again, but she was so tired that she was dizzy, and she couldn’t quite force it to take shape around them. The ground rumbled, but nothing else happened, and she sagged in place, shaking her head. Too tired to do magic, but still not quite able to sleep through the worst of the sun.

Jae started them walking before dusk, squinting at the horizon. By midnight, Tal was dazed, stumbling and staring aimlessly around them. He fell to his knees and dry heaved. “Drink something,” Jae urged him, but he shook his head.

“Later,” he promised. “When we rest.”

After that, Jae kept their hands linked together, pulling Tal along with her. Otherwise, he trailed behind, his gaze vacant.

—

They gave in and drank at dawn, but this time, they didn’t stop walking. Jae tore a strip from her ragged travel robe and tied it loosely over her eyes. Once she’d blinked the sand out of them, not even able to form real tears to wash the sand away, it wasn’t bad. She couldn’t see much, but there wasn’t much to see, and the strip of fabric helped keep the glare of the sun from hurting her eyes.