The desert did not keep strangers. It swallowed them whole. Burned them beneath its ruthless sun, buried them in the cold hush of night, ground their bones into the sand until they were nothing more than another forgotten story.

Yet, they remained.

And Rhys Valen watched.

From the moment their boots touched the sands of his kingdom, he had known they would be different. Not in the way they carried themselves—light on their feet, sharp-eyed, practiced in the art of leaving before roots could take hold—but in the way the desert had not rejected them.

The winds whispered to them, the market streets curved to accommodate their steps. The people spoke their name in passing, and the golden sprawl of the kingdom did not turn them away. They were meant to stay.

And so, Rhys made sure that they did.

They did not know it, but the desert bent around them, sculpted by unseen hands. Their path never quite led them to the city gates. Their coin purse never ran dry, a well-placed trade securing them another night in the inn. Their belongings—things packed in haste, as if departure was inevitable—were always found displaced, a knife misplaced, a boot strap mysteriously undone, a horse that refused to be saddled at dawn.

And when they wandered, as they always did, it was not coincidence that led them back to him.

Rhys made himself unavoidable.

At the spice market, where they haggled for saffron and dates, he was the shadow leaning against a merchant’s stall, expression unreadable beneath his hood. At the temple ruins, where they traced the faded carvings with reverent fingers, he stood just beyond their reach, the wind carrying his presence like a warning.

He never spoke first. He didn’t have to.