The desert was restless tonight.
Even in Qamar, where the winds usually slept with the sun, the sands hissed and shifted long after dusk, curling into strange shapes under the crescent moon.
Layla stood outside her door, barefoot, her scarf barely clinging to her hair as the warm wind tangled it. She couldn't sleep tonight, though no one could say why.
Somewhere deep in her chest, something ached.
Something… called.
Her neighbors muttered behind their doors as she passed … words she could almost hear, sharp and fearful.
"That strange girl again."
"The one who speaks to the wind."
"Does she even belong here?"
But Layla didn't care.
Her heart had stopped caring for this village long ago.
Ever since the first whisper.
The desert's edge lay just beyond the last houses, wide and silver in the moonlight. As she reached it, the winds rose all at once … lifting her scarf clear off her shoulders and carrying it into the dunes.
But she didn't chase it.
Because she could already feel him.
"Dreamer…"
Her breath caught. That voice … faint, almost drowned in the wind … still set her heart alight.
"Dreamer… can you hear me?"
She closed her eyes, stepping farther into the sand, letting her feet sink into the cool grains.
"Yes," she breathed.
And then, like always, came the poetry.
"Between stars and storms, I burn."
"In the cracks of night, I send my love like whispers."
"Even as darkness claws at me… I choose you."
His voice was thinner now than before. Harsh, sometimes cracking. As though each word cost him something.
But the way he spoke … oh, the way he spoke … made her ache to rip open the sky and fall into him.
"Why do you sound… hurt tonight?" she asked softly into the sand.
A long pause.
Then his answer, curling like smoke around her:
"Because they fight me, Dreamer."
"The darkness knows what you mean to me. It tries to silence me. But no void can keep me from you."
She pressed her hands to her chest, her eyes stinging.
"You make me mad," she whispered, half to herself.
A faint laugh came back to her … low, tired, but still full of strange light.
"Then let me."
"Let me drive you mad with love. With the impossible. With what no other could ever give you."
The winds howled louder suddenly, and she stumbled backward as a strange pattern etched itself into the sand at her feet … spirals and lines glowing faintly gold.
It almost looked like… writing.
Or a doorway.
Her heart slammed in her chest as she knelt and touched the symbols. They shimmered briefly under her fingers, then faded, though she could still feel the warmth of them.
"What is this?"
His voice came again, quieter now.
"The winds remember, Dreamer. They know you don't belong fully to their world. I've known it since the first time I saw you. Even the sand whispers your name as though you're not truly theirs."
"What are you saying?"
"You'll see," he whispered.
But his tone had changed … heavier, sadder.
And when she opened her mouth to press him, the wind rose suddenly, howling in her ears. When it quieted again… he was gone.
No more whispers.
No more poetry.
Just the faint hiss of sand curling in the moonlight.
When she woke the next morning, the villagers were waiting.
Their faces were tight with fear.
An elder woman stood at her door, clutching a string of beads.
"You must stop," the woman hissed. "You've angered the winds. The sands do not speak to a good girl."
Layla met her gaze without flinching.
"Maybe they never spoke to you because you never listened."
Gasps rose from the small crowd, but Layla turned away and shut her door.
She no longer cared what they thought.
Not when the sands whispered to her.
Not when Malik's voice still burned in her chest.
But as she lay in her bed that night, she heard something else in the winds outside … whispers she didn't recognize.
Cold ones.
"She's changing."
"She doesn't belong here."
"She'll bring ruin to us all."
Her hands trembled, and she pulled the thin blanket tighter around her shoulders.
That night she dreamed of him again.
But he wasn't waiting at the edge of the dreamland this time.
No … he was farther away now, standing atop a broken spire in a swirling storm of black sand. His golden eyes burned bright, but his skin was cracked and bleeding light, and dark tendrils wrapped around his arms and throat.
"Dreamer," he rasped. "Can you hear me?"
She ran toward him, screaming his name, but the winds between them roared higher and higher, pushing her back.
"Malik!"
"The darkness grows," he shouted, his voice breaking. "It hates you … because you're the only thing that keeps me from vanishing."
"Then come to me!" she begged.
His eyes closed for a moment, and when they opened, they were full of something that broke her … not fear, not pain.
Love.
"Call me," he whispered. "Call me, Dreamer. Say the words, and I'll tear through every shadow to take you into my world."
"But I don't know how," she choked.
He smiled faintly … a sad, aching smile.
"You always have. You just don't remember yet."
Then the winds roared again and tore him away from her sight.
She woke gasping in her bed, her sheets damp with sweat.
The lantern on her table … cold and dark for so long … glowed faintly gold.
And outside her window, the sands whispered her name.
That morning, the villagers turned their backs when she passed. Children ran from her. Women clutched their beads and muttered curses under their breath.
"Witch," someone hissed as she walked past.
But she didn't stop.
Didn't flinch.
Because she finally understood now.
She didn't belong here.
The sands had been telling her all along.
And tonight … tonight she would call him.
She would call Malik.
And he would come.
Even if it meant leaving this world forever.
Because she was his Dreamer.
And he was her impossible star.
Her love written not in blood, but in wind and sand and light.
And she would go to him.
No matter the cost.