He wandered off and Sam was immediately aware of the silence. It wasn’t soundless, but filled with the threshing of the palms and the huffs of animals further away. But it was still a silence that wrapped around them like the emptiness of a great ocean. Edge was staring into the darkness, his sharp-cut profile gilded by the last glimmers of the campfire. Above them the stars were growing, multiplying, gathering into a lacy ribbon arced across the sky. Even in Qetara she had never seen so many or so clearly.
‘We are lucky there is no moon. It is rare to see such an abundance of stars,’ Edge said in reflection of her thoughts and she shivered. ‘Are you cold?’
‘No, not at all. It’s the...weight of them. I could never paint this in a million years.’
He nodded and stood and she felt a burst of pain, like a surprise blow to her chest. She didn’t want to retire yet.
‘Come. There is still too much light and noise here,’ he said, holding out his hand.
Come?
Without asking he helped her to her feet and led her past the well.
‘Edge. The house is over there.’
‘In a moment. You should see this. Even in the desert a night like this is rare.’
Within moments the remnants of sound and light from the encampment fell away. The ground was hard and pebbled and at first Sam stumbled a little on the uneven earth, but Edge held her arm firmly but without pressure. He seemed to know precisely where he was going though there was nothing to see but the faint milky surface of the ground.
The further they walked, the less her eyes strained to see. The ground became luminescent, a cream swathe of silk pockmarked by the indigo shadows cast by each pebble and rock. Above them the sky was everything, a massive dome hung with a myriad of silvery eyes, blinking or staring but strangely still. Sam didn’t even notice they’d stopped. She was reduced to nothing but an awareness of being both insignificant and part of everything. The fabric of space was breathing with her, in and out, shimmering and dancing through her.
‘I’m breathing stars...’ she whispered. ‘I’m swimming in them.’
‘Don’t swim away. I’ll never find you in this infinity.’ His voice was low and rough as the ground beneath them. ‘If you walk twenty yards in the wrong direction, you will be lost and might never find your way back.’
Sam turned. Very faint in the distance behind them was the pale glow of what could be the village, but other than that there was no sign of life, of anything. She looked up at the darkness that was Edge. Even this close he was nothing but a monolithic form with faint outlines of the same silky cream as the ground, as if he’d been transformed into a statue of obsidian and alabaster—hard and soft. Pared down to his truth.
She tried to push the thought away—it was nervousness brought on by the vastness of the desert, the memories of this old life of hers when she’d still felt so real, so alive, so absolutely unthinkingly herself.
It was deceptive, just like the sense of distance in the darkness was deceptive. Edge was right—if you allowed yourself to go too far into this strange dream, you might never find your way back.
‘That is why I depend on you, Edge,’ she said lightly. ‘I know you will never allow yourself to lose track of the real world. I dare say you know precisely how far we have come and when to stop so we do not lose our way.’
‘You think me a very unexciting fellow, don’t you, Sam?’
She flushed.
‘I think you do not allow yourself to be carried away. But there is nothing wrong with being sensible. There have been many, many times I’d wished I was more so.’
‘You’ve changed.’
‘Of course. Eight years is a long time. It would have been surprising had I not changed.’
‘It isn’t the years, Sam. What happened to you?’
‘What happened to me? Good God, Edge, you do nothing in half-measures, do you?’
She tried to laugh but a whole sky’s worth of pain was filling her, expanding like the inundation of the Nile—swift and unstoppable. ‘Let’s return.’
‘Not yet. Are you crying?’
‘Not yet, but I shall if you keep prodding. I’m tired, my legs ache and I’m terrified of returning to England and it is all too much. You may be made of stone, Mr God of the Earth, but I’m not. If you wish to stay here, I shall find my own way back.’
‘Perhaps it would do you good to cry out here where no one can hear you. I need to make amends for interrupting you on the Howling Cliffs.’
She didn’t know whether to laugh or kick him for his dispassionate practicality.
The truth was she didn’t want to return yet. She wanted to stay cocooned in the night, wrapped in the strange thoughts bubbling inside her, but somehow separated from them by his presence. In the dark she made out the shape of a large flat boulder and sat with a sigh.
‘I never really understood you, Edge.’
‘There isn’t much to understand about a lump of rock.’
His voice was flat, but suddenly she could hear the currents beneath, as if not seeing his face she could hear things his expression would never give away. There was bitterness and resentment and darker things.
She held out her hand without thinking.
‘Come sit with me.’
‘I had better not.’
‘Don’t play the prude, Edge. Just sit.’
He sat and she closed her eyes, soaking up the warmth of his body so close to hers. Above the silvery scents of the desert night air and the ochre of the earth there was his scent—it was out of character—warm and encompassing, like the sensations sparked by the deepest, darkest of wines. She wanted to lean into it and then sink.
She touched her palm to her chest. The pain inside her was gone. Strange—it had been so harsh and enormous just moments ago and it was gone. All she felt now was...heat, as if the desert still held the warmth of the noon sun and was sending it upwards through her, through him...
‘You are the least lump-like person I know,’ she said and he laughed, bending forward to lean his arms on his thighs as he picked something up from the desert floor. But he didn’t speak so she continued, working her way through her thoughts.
‘You are like watching the sea from a ship’s deck on a moonless night—you never know quite what is beneath the surface, but you are quite certain a great deal is going on there and that one is safer on solid ground.’
Where on earth had that come from?
‘I am not certain if being the dark abode of sea monsters is any better than a rock.’
‘No,’ she agreed, a little scared of the image she’d conjured. ‘Perhaps not. I meant it as a compliment, though. Clearly I am not very adept at them.’
‘You were always more honest than was comfortable, Sam.’
‘In other words I always spoke before I thought. Madcap Sam.’
‘Don’t make it into an insult. Your honesty was never cruel or cavalier. Sometimes you put too much thought into it, in fact. What will you do when you return to England?’
Sam wanted to stay on the topic of her honesty. Or rather on his strangely complimentary interpretation of her. But she accepted his change of subject.
‘I do not know. Now my brothers are married I shall have to find a solution.’
‘They don’t want you living with them?’
‘It is not that. They do, but soon