It began the next night.
The wind did not rise.
The sands did not glow.
The Door Between did not appear.
Instead … the darkness came.
Layla felt it long before she saw it. She felt it in the way the air pressed against her ribs, heavy and hot, as though the desert itself resented her footsteps. She felt it in the whispers of the villagers, louder and sharper now, following her even into her dreams:
"Witch."
"Monster."
"She brings the night with her."
Even her lantern was weaker now. Its flame guttered as she reached the edge of the dunes, its golden light no longer able to push the blackness away.
Tonight the darkness was alive.
And it was waiting for her.
…
It met her in the heart of the dreamland.
Gone were the sands and the stars.
Instead, the earth cracked and gaped like a mouth, and jagged shadows rose like teeth.
Malik stood at the center of it all … or what remained of him.
He was barely more than a figure of gold shards now, his light leaking into the void around him, his hands chained by black tendrils that slithered up his arms and around his throat.
And behind him, the darkness itself loomed.
It had no face. No name.
Only a vast, roiling presence that whispered in a thousand broken tongues.
"Dreamer," Malik's voice rasped, and even now … even now … it was beautiful.
"You shouldn't have come tonight."
"Why?" she demanded, stepping forward even though the air burned her lungs.
"Because it's hungry now," he said, his golden eyes sharp with pain and fire. "And you're the only thing it craves more than me."
The darkness laughed at that … a sound like glass splintering in her skull.
"She is mine," it hissed.
Layla stood taller, though her knees shook.
"She belongs to no one," she said quietly.
The black tendrils hissed and struck toward her, but Malik roared, golden light flaring from his chest and burning them back just long enough for him to scream:
"Run!"
"No!" she cried.
"Dreamer…"
But she cut him off, her voice rising like a storm:
"I am not leaving you!"
For the first time in all their nights, she felt the darkness turn its full attention on her.
And she heard it … not with her ears but deep in her bones:
"You are not one of them anymore. You are almost mine already. Every grain of you that forgets her world… belongs to me."
Her chest ached at its words because part of her knew it was right.
She no longer remembered her mother's face.
She no longer remembered her father's laugh.
All she remembered… was Malik.
And her madness for him.
…
The darkness struck at her again, coiling around her ankles, hissing through her hair.
Malik roared, fighting against his chains even as the black thorns dug deeper into his skin.
"Dreamer!" he called, his voice breaking. "Don't let it take you!"
"Then what do I do?" she shouted, her arms outstretched toward him even as the black coils wrapped around her wrists.
His voice came softer then, strange and low and full of something raw:
"Call me. Call me louder than it does. Call me until it drowns."
"How?"
"With everything you are."
Her breath hitched, and then … through her tears, through her terror, through the crack of her heart … she whispered words she didn't even know she knew:
"Malik. My sand. My stars. My madness. My everything. Come to me."
The black tendrils screamed and writhed, but her words grew louder, fuller, heavier:
"Come to me! I am yours. I have always been yours."
And suddenly … his golden chains shattered.
…
Malik exploded in light.
Not a calm, steady glow this time, but a brilliant, feral flare that blinded the darkness, his voice roaring through the dreamland:
"She called me!"
The blackness howled, striking at him with everything it had, but he only laughed … a terrible, beautiful sound … as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest.
His golden light burned hotter, brighter, and the darkness shrank back with a shriek of rage.
"You cannot have her," Malik said simply, his breath warm against her temple. "She is mine."
"And you?" the darkness hissed.
Malik only smiled faintly, his cracked golden light spilling over her like silk.
"I have always been hers."
…
When the dreamland calmed, they stood alone again.
The stars had not yet returned.
The sands were still blackened and cracked.
But the darkness was gone … for now.
And Malik's arms still held her, his breath still warm, his whispers still soft against her ear:
"You shouldn't have come tonight."
"I had to," she said, her voice thick.
"Why?"
She tilted her head back just enough to look at him … even now, even broken and bleeding light, he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
"Because if you burn," she said softly, "then I'll burn with you."
His golden eyes closed at that, his laugh faint and cracked but full of something ancient and aching:
"Mad Dreamer."
"Always," she whispered back.
…
When she woke the next morning, her hands were streaked with black dust where the tendrils had wrapped around her.
Her lantern no longer glowed at all.
And when she stepped outside, the villagers stared at her in silence, the fear in their eyes sharper now, colder.
But she didn't stop.
Didn't speak.
Because the winds still carried his faint voice to her:
"Dreamer… you keep me alive. Even when the darkness hungers. Even when it tears at me. You."
And she smiled faintly, her bare feet carrying her back to the dunes.
Because she was his.
And he…
He was hers.
Even in the hunger.
Even in the madness.
Even in the darkness.
Always.