Chapter Text
The shifting grey-mist wall of the Maan ghost sea rose high above Agrabah’s desert like a sandstorm. At its outer edges, the sun was dulled but not yet gone, and you still had time to turn away. Few caught in the cool froth ever did; within the Maan waited untold riches and certain death for those who attempted to take them.
Cassandra Desert-Walker was going to take them.
The Cave of Wonder’s collapse more than twenty years ago had unleashed strange magics that coalesced, forming four eerie ghost seas — vast swaths of desert obscured by rich magic and the remains of those fallen to the Cave and its daughter seas. Within the seas towered twisted trees, ancient and pre-natal, alive and dead, whose roots plunged below petrified sands and shot up to create looming once-living columns and arches.
Cassandra waded deeper into the shallows. She walked straight and true, careful with the placement of each boot. As the mist deepened, the ground grew firmer; the magic weighed down the sand into only one of its infinite possibilities.
“I am not what I am, but what I could have been and could still yet be,” Cassandra sang.
The greatest danger of the ghost seas was not the rooted spirits or the crooked things that used to be their bodies but the calcifying nature of such condensed magic. If one was not careful, they could become trapped in their present as the dunes changed around the sea and time gusted ever onwards.
Which was not to say the spirits and their former bodies weren’t dangers, but they were ones she was well accustomed to. This was not Cassandra’s first dive, nor had she seen her last surfacing.
A desiccated husk dropped to the worn not-path in front of her from an unseen branch or root above. It’s mouth opened, but the sound of a crying child came from behind. Cassandra swept one blade from her shoulder and freed its head from its trunk with one sure swing, still singing.
“I live, but I am not stone. I change, but I am not formless.” Song was magic, as Mother said, and Cassandra listened to Mother.
Gold glinted to her left. She turned right.
“I know the borders of my skin, but I am not caged by them.” Once more, a lurching corpse. Once more, a swing. Once more, the bite of leather and bone against her steel.
“What will you name your little sister?” Mother’s voice, smoothed by time and memory, asked in her right ear. Cassandra angled left.
“Uhhhmmmm…” A childish voice from above. She looked up at herself, young and innocent, sitting on the peak of a root arching over the not-path and kicking her feet. “I don’t know. Doesn’t the Amma name the baby?”
“I know my past, yet I am not bound by it,” Cassandra of the present sang. “I do not know my future, yet I do not fear it.”
“Not this Amma, Qaszandra. Your big sister Litta named you before you were ever more than a dream.” Mother answered on the other side of the arch. She held her arms up for Qaszandra to jump into. “Just like Eba named Litta, and Lure named Eba, and-”
“And Szvella named Lure, and Riare named Szvella, and Diaire named Riare!” Qaszandra finished happily, flinging herself into open air and never thinking Mother might not catch her.
Behind her, Cassandra heard Mother’s quiet oof. She started the song again.
“That’s right! All your sisters named the next, and now it’s your turn to pick.” Mother swung Qaszandra into her arms and walked beside Cassandra, unaware of her daughter’s scarred future.
Cassandra didn’t turn to see her younger self snuggle deeper into Mother’s arms — she could remember how it felt well enough. She remembered wrapping Mother’s long black curls around her fingers and wrists as if the strands would anchor her enough to stay with Mother.
“I like Rhafinszel,” Qaszandra said decisively.
“Rhafinszel it is.” Mother agreed.
Cassandra’s heart ached, but she walked and sang and killed bodies as their souls watched. Slowly, the ghosts of her past fell behind, as ghosts were wont to do.
“Will I meet her?” Qaszandra asked.
“If you are very good, and very smart, and listen to Amma very well, you just might.” Mother said, and then the ghosts were gone.
As an adult, Cassandra heard the ocean of grief in Mother’s voice; none of her daughters lived to see the next. Cassandra was the first to survive to adulthood, and she’d never met Rapunzel, the little cuckoo who stole her sister’s rightful name.
“I do not know my future,” She crested a still dune and saw a field of sweet diamond blossoms in the valley below. “Yet I do not fear it.”
Three days later, Cassandra dragged herself into Akasha and set her feet to trace the streets to Faye’s Sundries.
Akasha was a good city: closer to Arendelle’s capital, Arendal, than the Lone Keep where Sultana Jasmine held court, big enough for a person to be anonymous and smaller than the cities that bracketed it on the Dune Weave road. Cassandra understood why the Fayes chose Akasha to be their hideaway.
Thin grey wisps of the Maan clung to her still, even after days of burning desert sun. Travellers, those who walked the Dune Weave to pass between Rajas and Citta Manas, gave her a wide berth for fear of taking her ghosts onto themselves. Locals brushed shoulders without a thought; ghosts only sank their claws into those who disturbed them.
City walking was easier than desert walking for the cobblestone and packed-dirt roads that gave no quarter to boot or hoof, but it was harder too. Cassandra was a Gothel in Auradon lands: a thing to hunt. She’d survived well into her third decade by embracing paranoia, and the press of bodies that came with cities made her jumpy.
No bell announced her arrival at Faye’s Sundries, but Mona Faye looked up from her customer anyway. The woman she was haggling with followed her gaze but quickly looked away from Cassandra. She couldn’t be sure what part of her struck fear into the woman — her hair twisted into gnarled spell-knots and frayed blessing braids, the well-loved hilts of her swords peeking over her shoulders, or the ghosts blurring the line of her — but it was fear that darted across the woman’s face before she shied away.
A nod and a wave from Mona allowed Cassandra to pass through the heavy wards into the back room of the shop. The clacking curtain of dark stone beads in the doorway scoured the last of the ghosts from her shoulders, and she sighed into the spell-damp room.
The back room had been the Fayes' haven for decades before Auradon’s founding fanned the flames of Evil hunters across the continent. It was larger than it should have been — with a brass bathtub in one corner, three low beds against a wall, and stuffed fit to bursting with tables and shelves laden with spell components — but not as large as they needed.
Entrance through the one visible door was a privilege few were granted, and Cassandra was fiercely proud she was not only allowed but wanted within. This room had never been her home, but she’d grown up here; it was a breath of relief to come back.
“Be welcome, Kare’tirar.” Ganna Faye croaked. Her wrinkled hands seemed to writhe as she flicked her whale-bone crochet hook through thick ghost yarn.
“Thank you, il-ammagh.” Cassandra was also fiercely proud to have been Named by Ganna Beast-Killer herself. Perhaps even more than she was that she was the granddaughter of the Beast-Killer; blood was not chosen, but to be Named by a fairy was to be loved by them.
“Hi Auntie!” Leffa Faye waved excitedly from her place at Ganna’s feet, not faltering for a moment in pulling thread from Cassandra’s ghosts with her drop-spindle. Leffa took the magic scrubbed by the beads, twisted it into yarn, and Ganna forced it to heel with her hook.
“Auntie?” Cassandra gasped, pretending at mortal offense. “Auntie? I know your mother taught you better than that, little demon child!”
Leffa laughed the high, carefree giggle of childhood. Cassandra dove at her flank, tickling and ducking flailing arms and wings. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! You’re making me mess up my yarn! Amma’natza!”
“That’s better.” Cassandra stopped tickling and fell back to lie on the rug beside Leffa.
The little girl was only twelve, yet already her wings had begun to molt, growing sleek adult feathers. Cassandra gathered up the fluffy baby feathers that had fallen out in the scuffle into a small pile, telling herself firmly she did not pity Leffa. Once she was sure it didn’t show on her face, she looked back up.
“It has been too long since you last came to Akasha.” Ganna scolded. “You must come more often.”
“Ah, but then who would bring you exotic teas from faraway lands?” Cassandra grinned, tossing a silk sachet and a sturdy leather pouch up into her lap. Delicate diamond blossom petals jingled merrily within the leather.
Leffa gasped. “You went to Faraway?” She jumped to her knees, wings flaring to keep her balance. “What’s it like? Is it true that it’s ruled by ogres and talking animals? Did you see a dragon? Did you fight a dragon?”
“Ehja, cousin,” Cassandra begged, smiling. “Yes, I went to Faraway, but only a little bit. It’s very large, you see, and I only have two feet.”
A curse, Merlin thought when he wove the enchantment that only the eldest daughter of Morgan le Fay’s lineage would possess wings. A blessing when wings marked you the descendant of a fairy the King Above Kings had declared to be Evil and sentenced to be Lost.
“Wow,” Leffa breathed, eyes wide. She opened her mouth to let loose a torrent of questions only a child who’d lived their whole life in one room could have, but closed it with a clack of teeth when Ganna pinched her ear.
“Leave her be, Leffa. Cassandra has a hard journey behind her, and a harder one ahead.” Ganna said, rubbing the pain away until Leffa shook off her hand.
Cassandra raised her eyebrows at Ganna. “Do I?” She’d planned to linger with Mother’s family for a week at least before she set off again.
Ganna hummed mysteriously. “Sleep now.” She nodded to the beds. “We will wake you when it is time.”
“Alright,” Cassandra agreed warily.
She was tired, but now she was also suspicious. She undressed and disarmed herself enough to be comfortable, lay down beneath the quilt in Mona’s bed, and fell headlong into a special kind of slumber that came from having Ganna Beast-Killer between her and the rest of the world.
“Wake up, Cassandra.” Someone whispered, shaking her shoulder. Cassandra jolted to awareness with her blade already at their throat. Mona looked supremely unimpressed.
“G’morning,” Cassandra muttered, abashed, and sheathed her knife.
“Good evening, niece.” Mona corrected. “You’ve slept only a few hours, but I’m afraid that is all we can grant you.”
“Right. This mysterious hard journey.” Cassandra grumbled, sitting up.
Mona pointed at the bed that used to be Cassandra’s and conveyed — through elaborate eyebrow movements and viciously simple gestures — that if she woke Leffa, she would find herself missing quite a few vital organs and a less than ideal number of bones very quickly.
Cassandra took care to get dressed silently.
Once dressed, Cassandra accepted a bowl of thick stew and a roll of brown bread from Mona. She pointed for Cassandra to sit in front of the empty armchair with a brush, and Cassandra sat. She loved Mona for many reasons, but the easy way she braided and knotted Cassandra’s hair before she left Akasha was far from the least of them.
Ganna watched Cassandra eat, sipping cool tea the colour of a sunset from a sweating glass. Cassandra ate and waited. Ganna was many centuries old and would not be rushed. She’d borne witness to her mother being imprisoned for ancient crimes forgotten by all but an aged few, her youngest daughter declared Lost for her desperate fear of dying twice, and knew the weight of words long-remembered.
“The tides are changing in Auradon, mother,” Mona said, plucking at the thread of an argument woven before Cassandra arrived.
Ganna clicked her flint-black tongue thoughtfully against steel teeth and spat the spark into her cup. “Auradon means little in the north, and tides even less in the desert.”
“What’s happened? Or what’s going to happen?” Cassandra set aside her empty bowl — careful not to disturb Mona’s spellwork — and folded her hands into Vayensu to centre herself and show that she was listening.
“The King Above Kings has decreed four descendants from the Isle of the Lost be enrolled at Auradon Prep next school year,” Ganna said. “As a trial run.”
“A trial run would imply the possibility of more descendants allowed off the Isle,” Cassandra said breathlessly. Mona tugged pointedly at her hair, and Cassandra reigned herself in. She pressed and pulled her fingers to create the tension in Vayensu that allowed her to control her emotions. “Who?”
“Does it matter? They will be the children of Evil in a land of Good. It will fail.” Ganna dismissed.
Cassandra looked past her grandmother to her cousin, just a lump of blankets and feathers, still whole. “Is Leffa a child of Evil? Am I?”
“Yes,” Ganna answered, implacable and merciless but not cruel. Cassandra increased the tension in her fingers, craving balance, peace.
“I paid a traveller good coin for their names and parentage,” Mona said. “They will be the children of Maleficent of the Moors, the Evil Queen, Cruella de Vil, and Jafar Al-Jafar.”
“It’s rigged,” Cassandra realized. “The children will be Evil to the core; they won’t know how to be any different.”
Ganna watched her with canny eyes.
Cassandra knew — in her blood and teeth, she knew — she had a sister on the Isle of the Lost. Mother was exactly what her name declared her to be: always a mother, always with child. Cassandra ached every day, knowing her little sisters would live and die Lost.
“I know how.” She whispered.
Ganna nodded.
A thousand questions spun through her mind. Could she teach the children to be better? Maybe not Good — Ganna was right, Cassandra’s bloodline was Evil beget from Evil — but simply better than they were? Just enough that more descendants could be let off the Isle? Could she condemn Mother to die daughterless once her little sister was in Auradon? Could she condemn her next sister to be born Lost when Mother refused to die?
And one she knew the answer in her dust: could she live with herself if she did anything less?
No. No, she couldn’t.
“I will go.” Cassandra accepted the burden Ganna wouldn’t ask of her. It had to be her idea, her resolution that guided her through the difficult Good. “I will try.”
Mona finished the last blessing braid and smoothed her hands over Cassandra’s shoulders. “If you fail,” She murmured, low and imploring. “Bring them back with you. Do not let them be imprisoned again.”
“I won’t.” Cassandra agreed, even as she worked through the impossibility of it.
The difficulty of stealing four highly-monitored children from the heart of Auradon Central and smuggling them north between the patrols that would surely be sent after them. The expense of not only four more mouths to feed but the hundreds or thousands of gold she would need to bribe the Gate Guards to let fugitives pass through the Great Wall. The cruelty of teaching or forcing four traumatized children to keep silent, even in sleep.
“And if you fail in that too, tell them stories.” Mona finished. “Stories to bring back with them to the hard times.”
“I will.” Cassandra rasped, the salt of dvesz heavy on her tongue. She was no stranger to sadness, but future-grief was a new taste — so rarely could she afford to think that far ahead.
She brought her hands to her chest and twisted her fingers into Kejje So, the form of oath-making. The form strained your wrists as you turned your palms upwards in supplication, so that the pain would sear the oath into your muscles. “Tell me their names, and they will be mine. Mine to teach, mine to protect, mine to grieve.”
Ganna’s face didn’t change, but her eyes crinkled with pride and approval — both of Cassandra’s choice and her oath.
“Mal of the Moors,” She intoned, one hand outstretched as if to deposit the names in Cassandra’s cupped palms. “Jay Al-Jafar. Carlos de Vil. Evie White. I give you these names not for you to own, but for you to cherish.”
Cassandra bowed her head and flattened her hands over her heart, pressing the names into her. She felt them sink through her skin, etch onto her breastbone, and knew she would carry them the rest of her days, even if it was only to mourn the loss of their young lives.
“Give them the tools they will need to survive,” Mona said, urging Cassandra to her feet.
“And teach them how to use them.” Ganna finished.
“I will,” Cassandra promised. She dropped a kiss to Ganna’s hair on her way to the door, and another to Mona’s cheek just before the beaded curtain.
Mona directed Cassandra to look her in the eyes with a knuckle under her chin. Mona was nearly as long-lived as Ganna, a fact that was easy to forget in the face of her shallow crow’s feet and young daughter. Yet once upon a time, Mona had spoken, and kings and genies had listened.
“They like death in Auradon, Qaszandra Kare’tirar.” Mona whispered, careful not to wake Leffa. “Ensure that yours is not among them.”
Cassandra didn’t stay until dawn, no matter how she wished to soak up Leffa’s happiness before she lost her wings. Those bare few hours of sleep under Ganna’s protection were more restful than a whole night in an inn, and Cassandra had an oath to uphold.
“There’s to be a storm tonight, Desert-Walker.” Old Husayn warned, sitting on his back stoop where Akasha gave way to open desert. “Best get somewhere safe before it strikes.”
“I am somewhere safe,” Cassandra murmured.
With its shifting dunes that made navigation nearly impossible and wafting sands that covered footsteps the moment the boot lifted, the red desert of Agrabah was Cassandra’s sanctuary. She had been Named Desert-Walker by Ganna Beast-Killer, first and only daughter of Morgan le Fay of the First Fairies. The desert was safe.
She paused at his side, adjusting her headscarf and activating the runes sewn into it to keep it from flying away. “You should heed your own advice, grandfather.”
“Ah! Grandfather!” Old Husayn cackled weakly. “No, this is to be my last storm, I think. The world is different, hm?” He tapped the side of his nose knowingly.
“My aunt says the tides are changing.” Cassandra acknowledged.
He harumphed. “I am a desert man. I have no desire to see waters, none at all.”
She looked off to the dark horizon and the lack of stars that heralded a storm, just as he said. “Change isn’t always good. What if the tides are falling?”
“What if they fall, the girl asks.” He chortled, shaking his head. “Kare’tirar, what if they rise?”
She jolted for a dagger. No one — no one — knew that Cassandra Desert-Walker had any other name, let alone one in the fairy language Ua. She whipped around, settling into a defensive stance, glaring narrow-eyed at Old Husayn. He didn’t look like a hunter of Evil or fairies, but looks could be deceiving; Queen Rapunzel was beautiful.
“Ehja, ehja.” Peace, peace. He raised sand-roughed hands with an amused smile on his leathery face. “I am but an old man. I have no quarrel with you, young one.”
She allowed her muscles to relax one at a time, heart still jumping through her mouth. “Ai yelha ahk, il-kogn.” I’m sorry, honoured grandfather.
“Nua negt.” Think nothing of it. He batted the apology aside like a buzzing fly and patted the stoop beside him. “Come sit with an old man in his final night?”
“I-” She glanced back at the invisible horizon. “I have- little time to delay.” The journey from Akasha to Auradon Central was long, even if one kept to the roads, and Cassandra rarely did.
“There’s to be a storm tonight,” He reminded. “Not so much to be done until after it passes.”
The choice could very well be either comfort a dying man or deny him and weather the storm fifty paces away; it was difficult to know exactly when a night sandstorm would hit. Cassandra sheathed her dagger and sat, hands dangling between her knees as she leaned forward.
“Did Ganna know you lived so near?” She asked.
He shrugged. “I knew Morqan’s daughter took sanctuary here. I do not know if she knew the same of me.”
“But you never sought her out?”
“Morqan and I parted on…bloody terms.” Old Husayn said, subdued. He scrubbed a hand over his cheek, wiping away his glamour to reveal a burn so deep Cassandra saw glinting yellowed teeth. “She Named me Sijit, and so I have watched. It is not my place to seek.”
In the distance, the desert boiled and rose. The first dust of what promised to be an earth-shaking sandstorm curled around their ankles as it swept into Akasha. She covered her face with the tail of her headscarf, pressing the runes to keep it secure with a deft swipe of her thumb.
Old Husayn didn’t cover his face. Cassandra breathed in the cool dampness of Leffa’s carefully spun cotton and chose not to flinch from his decision to die.
“I don’t remember any stories about a fairy named Sijit.” She commented.
“What stories does a watcher have for himself? Only the watched have tales.” He didn’t sound upset, merely like he was relaying a fact.
Cassandra placed her back against the thick wall around his stoop to fully look at the old fairy in his long, layered robes. Not much was known of the First Fairies — not even how many were born from the dust, let alone how many survived the vicious territory wars. Those who survived weren’t eager to tell tales.
Morqan l’Fai was one of the First, and she didn’t bother with people who came after. Even King Arthur, who had her made Lost for her crimes against him, only caught her ire for his relationship to Merjin Gol’da. Yes, Old Husayn had stories. It was only that until now, there was no one to tell them to.
“N’an te llet ai e qeliye, il-kogn?” She asked respectfully. Will you tell me a story, honoured grandfather?
“I will tell you a liy-qeliye, Kare’tirar.” He decided. A life-story. “And you will think on it as you walk your path.”
“Te il-ai,” Cassandra murmured, bowing her head. You honour me.
“Honour? Bah. I burden you.” Strangely, his voice was still clear, unaffected by the hole in his cheek she could now see. A powerful invisible glamour deftly used that spoke to his ancient might. “But such is the cycle of life, that the old burden the young with mistakes long past, hm?”
Cassandra began to reply, but a sudden gust of wind pushed her scarf into her mouth, silencing her.
“I am Lusain Sijit, He Who Watches.” He said, ringing voice easily heard even as the wind whipped up around them. “I was one of the First; my mother was the wind and my father the dust. These are the people from whence I came.”
“I am Qaszandra Kare’tirar.” Cassandra responded in kind. She folded her hands once more into Vayensu, to centre her in the storm and in the story to come. “My mother is Amma Kiottel. Her mother is Kianna Sassiri’taltaar, and her mother is Morqan l’Fai. These are the people from whence I came.”
“This evening, Qaszandra, I am going to tell you a liy-qeliye. Will you listen?” Old Husayn asked.
“Yes, Lusain, I will listen.” She finished the opening of the qeliye telling ritual.
He hummed and nodded, satisfied to sit for a minute. In that time, the storm struck in full. He closed his eyes and turned his face up into it. Cassandra tugged the windward side of her headscarf to protect her face from the cutting sand before returning to Vayensu.
“Once upon a time,” Old Husayn began, spitting out sand. “There was a foolish old man. This old man sat in his hovel at the edge of the desert and thought himself above the petty conflicts of mortals and fairies alike. He was named Sijit, He Who Watches, and was proud of it. Proud to have evolved beyond territory and debts sealed by blood.”
“Old Sijit lived and watched for a long time in smug ignorance as beyond his hovel, the world turned. The sun rose and set, the dunes wriggled and writhed, and his neighbours were born and died. But Old Sijit, he never changed.” He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “No, foolish Old Sijit didn’t change.”
If he were anyone else, Cassandra wouldn’t have been able to hear the story Old Husayn told. But he was a fairy, and fairies were always heard when they told qeliye. The ritual telling had begun, and Cassandra would listen until it was done.
“So came a day like any other; the sun rose, the dunes were changed from the night winds, and down the street a woman who was born when Old Sijit was already ancient was found to have died on the cusp of her tenth decade. On this day, someone knocked on Old Sijit’s door for the first time.”
“This someone was a woman with flesh as white as the sun and a child on her hip. We are being hunted, she said. Please, can you hide us? Old Sijit looked at the woman and her babe and shook his head. I have no room for you, he claimed, and turned them away. The woman begged and pleaded, but Old Sijit only watched.”
“You have killed my daughter, the woman accused. In her blood, I curse you; you’ll never know my happiness. Old Sijit scoffed, thinking such a curse not a burden. For surely no happiness could be found in a life on the run with a child slated to die hanging from your belt. After they left, Old Sijit watched a huntsman stalk down the street and pull the woman from behind a clothesline by her hair. The huntsman killed the girl, clapped the woman in cold iron, and threw her into a prison wagon.”
“Upon seeing this, Old Sijit was consumed with guilt. What had he to lose from hiding a young mother and her babe? What had he gained from denying them but a blood-stained curse, no matter how little it affected him? Old Sijit sat on his stoop and resolved to help the next stranger to knock on his door.”
Cassandra recognized the lilt of his story, even if the content was new to her, and knew her role in it.
“Did he help the next one?” She asked, shifting to sit pressed against his side, lending him her strength.
“No, child. Old Sijit did not.” He answered sadly. “The next stranger to knock at his door was a man as tall and thick as a baobab tree. They’re hunting me, he said. Please, can you spare any food? And without a thought, Old Sijit found his head shaking. Times are hard, he claimed*, and I have none to spare.* And he turned the man away.”
“You have condemned me, the man accused. On my flesh, I curse you; you’ll always feel my strength. He drew three nails across his arm, digging deep into his flesh, and flicked them at Old Sijit, splattering his feet with hot blood. Again, Old Sijit scoffed, thinking such a curse not a burden, for surely a man as tall and thick as a baobab tree was in possession of much strength.”
Old Husayn laughed bitterly, shaking his head at his past foolishness. “After the man left, Old Sijit was filled with guilt and shame. Had he not sworn to aid the next weary traveller? Such he swore again, thought he did not bind himself in Kejje So as he did.”
“Did he help the next one?” Cassandra asked because that was her role in the telling of the tale. The howling wind ate her words whole, but he shook his head all the same.
“No, child. Old Sijit did not.” Old Husayn answered. “The next stranger to knock at his door was a woman made of salt, whose skin was dark as blood-soaked sand. I have been chased far from my ocean home, she said. Please, have you any water? And Old Sijit, remembering his oaths, again found his head shaking and his tongue speaking. Times are dry, he claimed, I have none to spare.”
“You have sealed my fate, the woman accused. On my hair, I curse you; you’ll always have my power. She tore a braid from her head and flung it at his feet, red at the root. For a third time, Old Sijit scoffed, thinking such a curse not a burden, for what power could be anything but a blessing?”
“This woman left the way of the man before her, and Old Sijit felt familiar guilt and shame and regret fill him from the soles of his feet to the ends of his hair. No more oaths or resolutions did he make, for what use were they in the face of his Name? He was Sijit, He Who Watches, and he was no longer proud of it.”
“Thus did Old Sijit live the rest of his days. Without knowing the happiness of children, always with the strength of a starved man, and feeling the power of an ocean witch with no water.”
Old Husayn paused there and licked his lips. Cassandra offered him her water, and he sipped at it gratefully. He sagged against her, life flagging, and she wrapped an arm around his shoulders as she reclaimed her waterskin.
“I tell you this not because it is a story with a moral but a life with a lesson.” He rasped at last. “The lesson from this liy-qeliye is that of our Ua Nu: our fairy-given Names. They must be given with care, for once bestowed, they shape the course of a life.”
“Thank you for sharing the lesson of our Ua Nu with me, Lusain Sijit,” Cassandra said, and the ritual telling ended with a snap of magic that cleared the air around them for a bare second before the sand rushed back in.
The storm raged through the sleepless night, scoring her face and stinging her hands, but Cassandra remained with Old Husayn, who had once been Lusain Sijit. The sky began to lighten countless hours later as the sun rose and the storm trundled on. He took one huge shuddering breath as the tail dust of the storm raced to catch up with the body of it.
“I have told you the liy-qeliye of our Ua Nu.” He whispered, voice barely reaching her ear. “How does it apply to your life?”
“I suppose I am bound by my name, grandfather,” Cassandra answered after giving it due thought. “I will always walk. I will never have a permanent home that is mine and mine alone.”
“Hm,” He exhaled. “We are bound by our Names, Desert-Walker. Always you will walk, yes. Even hungry, even bone weary, even half-dead, you will walk. But there is comfort to be found in a binding; no matter how far your feet carry you, always will you return to the desert.”
Cassandra swallowed gritty spit and watched the sky grow pale over the desert with the sun’s approach. The desert that knew her feet well, that never allowed her to get lost in it, that tortured her with visions of water and youth, but never more than she could bear.
“Yes,” She agreed. “Always I will return.”
Old Husayn said nothing. She looked down at him, nestled in the crook of her arm with his head on her shoulder like a child. The sun broke the shell of the horizon, and Old Husayn crumbled, clothes and all, into the shimmering dust the wind had formed him from centuries ago.
Cassandra touched the middle two fingers on her right hand to her lips, then pressed them to the stoop he’d sat on for longer than she’d ever know. “N’en ten kashkhi erei twalun ii guluu ii ten rijoo,” She murmured, drawing a circle in his dust.
May your rest be twice as long as your journey.
Old Husayn, the fairy who had once been Lusain Sijit, He Who Watches, had had a long journey; he deserved a good, long rest. After a moment of respectful silence, Cassandra stood. She had her own journey to walk before she could rest.
Cassandra Desert-Walker, the fairy who had once been Qaszandra Kare’tirar turned her feet east and began earning her Ua Nu once more.