The stars fell silent that night.
Not absent … but silent.
Like an audience holding its breath, watching what Layla would choose.
She stood at the edge of Qamar's dunes with her scarf loose and her lantern dark, staring at the thin silver line in the sky where the dreamland's Door shimmered faintly.
It was wider now.
Open.
Waiting.
Behind her, the village lay asleep, though she knew by now that even in dreams they whispered her name in fear.
"She's not one of us anymore."
"She walks with the wind."
"She talks to the stars."
And tonight, they were right.
….
When she stepped through the Door, she found Malik waiting.
He stood in the center of the dreamland's cracked, golden earth, his figure clearer than she'd seen it in weeks.
No longer a faint shard of light … but whole again.
Almost.
The fractures along his arms still glimmered faintly, but his golden eyes burned brighter than she'd ever seen.
When he saw her, his smile curved faint and sad.
"You came."
"You knew I would," she answered.
"I did," he admitted, his voice low, reverent. "But still I hoped you wouldn't."
"Why?"
He stared at her for a long time, the dreamland wind catching at his hair, his light flickering.
"Because once you step through that Door completely, Dreamer… you don't get to step back."
"Good," she said simply.
That startled a laugh out of him … soft, sharp, full of something ancient.
"Mad Dreamer."
"Always," she replied.
….
He didn't move toward her.
Didn't reach for her.
He only stood there, golden and broken, and spoke in a whisper that sank into her ribs like a knife wrapped in silk.
"If you choose me… you'll forget everything else. The village. The smell of rain on sand.
The sound of your own name in your mother's voice."
"I already have," she said softly.
"You'll become something you don't recognize anymore. Not a woman. Not a girl. Not even a dreamer. Just… mine."
Her breath hitched at that, but her voice didn't waver.
"I already am."
Malik's eyes closed for a long moment, and when they opened again, they were darker somehow … but still full of her.
"Then listen," he murmured, stepping closer now, his words winding through her like gold thread:
"If you are my flame… let me be your ash."
"If you are my storm… let me be the hollow it leaves behind."
"If you are my madness… let me be the quiet that waits for you at the end."
Her ribs ached with how much she wanted him.
"Then take me," she said. "I don't care what it makes me."
But Malik only shook his head faintly.
"I can't take you," he whispered. "You have to choose."
"I already have."
"Not yet."
….
And then the dreamland changed.
The golden ground fell away beneath her feet, leaving her standing on nothing but a thin bridge of starlight stretching out into the void.
On one side: Qamar. Faint, distant.
The scent of bread baking.
The faint laughter of children she no longer knew.
A name she couldn't quite remember anymore.
On the other side: him.
Malik, burning gold and black and beautiful.
His hands outstretched, waiting.
His whisper weaving through her like wind through a harp:
"Dreamer… choose."
Her knees shook as she stepped closer to him, the starlight bridge trembling beneath her feet.
"It won't be easy," he warned softly.
"I don't care."
"You'll lose yourself," he murmured, though his arms opened wider for her.
"I already have," she whispered back.
"You'll never wake again."
She smiled faintly.
"I don't want to."
…
The darkness rose on either side of the bridge then, hissing, reaching for her, hungry and jealous.
"She is ours," it hissed.
But Malik's voice roared back, low and beautiful and terrible:
"No. She is mine."
Layla's chest burned with his words, and suddenly she was running … running across the bridge, her feet light, her heart full of stars, her voice breaking as she cried:
"Take me!"
And he did.
He caught her in his arms, his golden light shattering around them as the darkness screamed and fell away.
And the dreamland burned gold and alive as she buried her face in his chest, her breath hot and her tears wet against his light.
"Mad Dreamer," he whispered, his voice breaking now too. "Do you know what you've done?"
She looked up at him then … her hair tangled, her lips trembling, her eyes bright.
"I chose you," she said. "I'll always choose you."
And for the first time in forever, Malik laughed … a sound full of love and madness and something eternal.
"Then come, Dreamer," he whispered, his hands cupping her face like something sacred. "Let me show you my world."
....
When she woke the next morning, she didn't open her eyes.
She didn't have to.
Because she already knew:
She would never belong to Qamar again.
And she didn't care.
The winds whispered through her window, and she smiled faintly as she whispered back:
"Malik… my stars. My sand. My madness.
Always."
And in her mind … warm and low and full of everything she had chosen … his voice answered her:
"Always."