Cress

She paused. They both heard it. Panting, along with the slip and scramble of footsteps.

Cress cowered, pressing into Thorne’s embrace as terror washed over her. A man appeared at the top of the dune, carrying a shotgun.

He saw the animal first, dying or dead, but then spotted Cress and Thorne from the corner of his eye. He yelped, barely keeping his balance, and gaped at them. His eyebrows disappeared beneath a gauzy headdress. His brown eyes and the bridge of his nose were all she could see of his face, the rest of him covered in a robe that draped nearly to his ankles, protecting him from the harsh desert elements. Beneath the robe peeked a pair of denim pants and boots that had long been sun bleached and caked with sand.

He finished his own inspection of Cress and Thorne and lowered the gun. He began to speak and for a moment Cress thought that the sun and exhaustion had driven her mad after all—she didn’t understand a word he said.

Thorne’s grip tightened on her arms.

For a moment, the man stared at them in silence. Then he shifted, his eyebrows lowering and revealing flecks of gray in them.

“Universal, then?” he said, in a thick accent that still made it a struggle to capture the words. He scanned their ragged clothes and sheets. “You are not from here.”

“Yes—sir,” said Thorne, his voice rusty. “We need help. My … my wife and I were attacked and robbed two days ago. We have no more water. Please, can you help us?”

The man squinted. “Your eyes?”

Thorne’s lips puckered. He’d been trying to hide his new disability, but his eyes still looked unfocused. “The thieves gave me a good blow to the head,” he said, “and my sight’s been gone ever since. And my wife has a fever.”

The man nodded. “Of course. My—” He stumbled over the language. “My friends are not far. There is an oasis near here. We have a … a camp.”

Cress swooned. An oasis. A camp.

“I must bring the animal,” the man said, tilting his head toward the fallen creature. “Can you walk? Maybe … ten minutes?”

Thorne rubbed Cress’s arms. “We can walk.”

The ten minutes seemed like an hour to Cress as they followed the man through the desert, treading in the wake carved out by the animal’s carcass. Cress tried not to look at the poor beast, keeping her thoughts instead on the promise of safety.

When she spotted the oasis, like paradise before them, a sudden burst of joy clawed up and out of her throat.

They’d made it.

“Describe,” Thorne murmured, gripping her elbow.

“There’s a lake,” she said, knowing that this one was real and not sure how she ever could have confused that vague mirage with something so stark and vibrant. “Blue as the sky, and surrounded by grasses and maybe a few dozen trees … palm trees, I think. They’re tall and skinny and—”

“The people, Cress. Describe the people.”

“Oh.” She counted. “I can see seven people … I can’t tell their genders from here. Everyone is wearing pale-colored robes over their heads. And there are—I think, camels? Tied up near the water. And there’s a fire, and some people are setting out mats and tents. And there’s so much shade!”

The man with his kill stopped at the bottom of the slope.

“The man is waiting for us,” Cress said.

Thorne bent near to her and placed a kiss against her cheek. Cress froze. “Looks like we made it, Mrs. Smith.”

As they got closer to the camp, the people stood. Two members of the group walked out into the sand to greet them. Though they wore their cloaks over their heads, they’d pulled the covers down around their chins and Cress could see that one of them was a woman. The hunter spoke to them in his other language, and a mixture of sympathy and curiosity entered the faces of these strangers, but not without a touch of suspicion.

Though the woman’s eyes were the sharpest of the group, she was the first to smile. “What a trial you’ve been through,” she said, with an accent not quite as heavy as the hunter’s. “My name is Jina, and this is my husband, Niels. Welcome to our caravan. Come, we have plenty of food and water. Niels, assist the man with his bag.”

Her husband came forward to take the makeshift sack off Thorne’s shoulder. Though it had become lighter as their water had disappeared, Thorne’s face was one of relief to have the weight gone. “We have some food in there,” he said. “Preserved nutrition packs, mostly. It’s not much, but it’s yours, if you’ll help us.”

“Thank you for the offer,” said Jina, “but this is not a negotiation, young man. We will help you.”

Cress was grateful that no questions were asked as she and Thorne were led to the fire. The people shifted, eyeing them curiously as they made room on thickly woven mats. The hunter left them, dragging the animal’s carcass to some other corner of the camp.

“What kind of animal was that?” Cress asked, eyes stuck to the path left by its body.

“Desert addax,” said Niels, handing her and Thorne each a canteen full of water.

“It was beautiful.”

“It will also be delicious. Now drink.”