The portal spat them out gently.
No impact. No shock.
Just… arrival.
Luna's boots touched sand that was warm despite the night. Nyxion steadied herself with a laugh that faded halfway through.
Venya blinked, breath catching. Aethoniel froze entirely.
Lanterns floated overhead—hundreds of them—swaying as if stirred by a breeze that didn't exist.
Their light wasn't harsh or bright; it was soft, intimate, like candlelight remembered from childhood.
Silk canopies layered the sky in arcs of crimson, indigo, and gold, hanging impossibly without poles, without strings, draping the night like a festival that never ended.
Incense curled in slow spirals everywhere.
Every breath smelled different.
Sweet. Bitter. Familiar. Forgotten.
The ground beneath them wasn't stone.
It was sand.
And the bazaar—
It didn't end.
