The first crystal struck Balomo’s cheek hard enough to draw blood.
He caught it between two fingers before it fell into the black sand. For a moment he stood beneath the open sky, staring at the shard as it glittered in the stormlight. It was no larger than a tooth, clear at its center and blue-white along its edges, cold enough to smoke against his skin.
Behind him, the sea roared.
A wall of black water climbed the horizon, folding over itself beneath the twin moons. One moon burned yellow and black, its bright half veiled by drifting clouds. The other was red and black, a bruised globe hanging lower over the eastern dunes. Between them, the night sun shone like a dark pearl split by a thin white flame. Its light did not brighten Comoh so much as reveal it—the long dunes of black sand, the fields of ancient stone dust, the jagged cliffs, and the ocean pouring over the shore as if the planet itself had begun to bleed.
“Balomo,” Brelisa called.
Her voice cut through the wind.
He turned. She stood on the ridge above the palace causeway, her cloak snapping behind her. The garment had been woven from darkness by her own hands, a living black fabric that drank the night sun’s pale warmth. Silver shells lined its shoulders, and each shell chimed when the wind struck it. Her hair streamed across her face, but the storm could not hide her eyes—deep, bright, and watchful as wet obsidian.
Another crystal fell.
It struck the sand at Brelisa’s feet and sank halfway into the dust.
She looked down at it. The color left her face.
“Come inside,” she said.
Balomo closed his hand around the first shard. Its cold had already entered his bones. “You saw it.”
“I saw the sky change.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.” She lifted her gaze toward the sea. “It is a warning.”
The storm descended on them.
Wind slammed into the ridge with the strength of a charging beast. Black sand hissed across the stone, needling their exposed skin. Far below, the ocean hurled itself against the coast, and each impact sent a trembling boom through the cliffs. The waters of Comoh were never still, not even beneath the two moons. They churned in enormous dark spirals, rich with minerals and living shadows, and when the storms came, they climbed the land in thick black sheets.
But this rain was different.
It fell in silence.
The drops were dark at first, almost indistinguishable from ordinary water. They struck the dunes and vanished with tiny snaps. Then the frozen crystals began to descend among them, scattering across the desert like splinters from a shattered star.
Brelisa reached for Balomo’s hand.
His fingers closed around hers immediately.
The gesture was simple, almost private, but the guards gathered along the causeway saw it. So did the Prelesh Men emerging from the palace below. Balomo heard their armor clatter, their boots strike the wet stone, and their voices rise in Neriah as they called to one another.
“Lerah ven,” one shouted. The warning traveled from mouth to mouth. “The sky has teeth.”
Brelisa squeezed his hand. “They are frightened.”
“They should be.”
“You are their leader.”
“I know what I am.”
“Then show them what they need.”
Balomo looked at her. The wind pulled loose strands of her hair across his lips, and he brushed them away with his thumb. She did not flinch from the touch. In the middle of the storm, with the sea raging beneath them and ice falling from a foreign sky, they leaned toward each other as though the rest of the world had fallen quiet.
“Stay beside me,” he said.
“I have never done otherwise.”
They walked down toward the palace.
The oceanic palace of the Prelesh Men had been built between the desert and the sea, though no map could reveal its true location. Its outer walls rose from the cliffs in black terraces, each one carved from volcanic stone and polished until it reflected the night sun. Water moved through the structure in clear channels, running beneath bridges and through open halls. At high tide, the lower chambers disappeared beneath the ocean, and the palace seemed to float on the dark waves.
Ancient Trenesh, the first great Prelesh leader, had hidden it there after the Comaran conquest. He had shaped its doors with his blood and sealed its corridors with songs meant for the Sand Gods and the Dark Men. Generations later, the palace still recognized every member of the ruling line. When Balomo approached the main gate, the stone groaned and opened before he touched it.
Warm air breathed from within.
The smell of roasted Bom Bom meat filled the entrance hall—pepper, crushed red seed, butter, and smoke. A feast had been prepared for the night gathering, as tradition demanded before any great battle. Bowls of spiced meat sat beside stone cups brimming with water drawn from the cliffs. Black Flomesh Birds crowded the rafters, their wings folded tight against their bodies. In daylight they were graceful, long-necked creatures with blue-black feathers. At night, when the moons rose, their bodies changed. Their beaks lengthened. Their eyes became silver lamps. Their songs could kill.
Tonight they were silent.
The Prelesh Men gathered around the central fire pit. They were tall, beautiful, and unsettling to behold, their human faces framed by dark hair, curved horns, or the pointed ears inherited from sea-born ancestors. Some wore cloaks made from shadow. Others had woven their clothing from their own powers, pulling black fibers from the air and knotting them around their bodies. Along their arms, faint patterns glowed like underwater lightning.
When Balomo entered, every voice ceased.