DEATH'S LINE

Part One: The Champion

The challenger lasted four seconds, which was three longer than yesterday's.

Ashka didn't remember yesterday's. Or today's. The woman at her feet had walked the desert for six days to get here, paid three guides who all claimed to know the safe paths (none did), carried charms against temporal corruption that were just painted rocks. She'd died believing her cause was pure enough to protect her.

The desert didn't care about purity. It cared about will.

Death continued walking. She followed three steps behind. The chain between them had worn a groove in her consciousness so deep that thought couldn't escape it.

The Spine rose around them—vertebrae the size of temples, ancient bone bleached past white into something that hurt to perceive directly. Tonight they walked between the forty-second and forty-third. Tomorrow would be the forty-third and forty-fourth. Or perhaps the forty-first and forty-second. The dragon's corpse did things to time here. Sometimes a step took an hour. Sometimes an hour passed in a breath.

Behind them, Oasis City glowed with desperate commerce. Even at this distance, she could hear the hawkers: "Guaranteed safe passage to Death! Only lose five years, ten maximum!" and "Pure intention crystals! The desert can't corrupt what's already blessed!" and her favorite: "I survived the walk! I'll guide you for only—"

Lies. All lies. But profitable ones.

She didn't respond. Responding required decision, and she'd stopped making those sometime around year fifty.

It didn't. Nothing did. Another challenger stepped forward—a man with axes who'd spent his fortune on "spiritual preparation." The branded monks had taken his gold, filled his head with mantras, convinced him his intentions were pure.

He lasted two seconds. His pure intentions didn't help when reality shifted and suddenly they were fighting in a space between spaces, where only the violence mattered.

The morning market was in full cry when the pretty boy began his walk.

The Shell crew watched from their permanent structure on the wall—what had started as rough benches was now a three-story viewing platform complete with kitchens and private boxes. They'd cornered the market on "authentic viewing experiences."

He did know. The desert recognized him now, or maybe recognized his intention—so pure and focused it cut through temporal distortion like a blade through silk. Most challengers got lost within hours, aged years in valleys where time pooled, emerged (if they emerged) broken and bewildered.

Cyrus walked for four days and arrived looking merely tired.

She recognized him the way you recognize furniture—present, familiar, irrelevant. Behind him, visible only because he'd survived the walk, the shadows of other challengers who'd entered the desert this week. Most were lost, wandering in circles, aging and de-aging as they passed between the vertebrae. One had already given up, was trying to walk back, not understanding that the desert didn't allow retreat.

This one—the pretty boy—had walked well. Four days, minimal aging. His intention had been clear enough to navigate.

She walked through it. Glass shattered. Wine mixed with sand that would never wash out.

She killed him in eight seconds. As reality shifted back and he died, she heard him whisper: "See you next year. My friends are taking bets on whether I'll age badly next time. Don't let them down."

His body vanished to Death's realm. Soon he'd wake wherever he'd started his walk—the old Temple grounds, probably, where most challengers made their camps. He'd be confused, disoriented, wondering if it had been real.

They always wondered, the first time.

The Years Pass

This year, half the city had turned out to watch him walk into the desert. The betting was vicious.

When Cyrus arrived and reality shifted for their fight, he lasted twenty-three seconds. Progress. After she killed him, she noticed something—a faint smell of tobacco and mint. He'd been smoking relaxation herbs, the kind the branded monks sold to keep your mind clear during the walk.

So he was struggling. The desert was testing him, and he was barely passing.

Good. Let him suffer what everyone suffered.

Fifth winter. The city had developed a festival around his attempts.

"Cyrus Days," they called it. Three days of watching him walk into the desert, betting on his path, on his aging, on whether this would be the year the temporal distortions finally broke his mind.

He walked for four days, same as always. But when he arrived, something was different. This challenger had arrived clear-minded despite the desert. No shaking hands, no temporal trauma.

The words came during their fight, reality shifted around them into that space where only violence existed. Strike, dodge, counter.

Strike, dodge, counter.

Strike, dodge—

Counter.

His head rolled. But for the first time in decades, she watched it come to rest. Something about those words. Not the content—the tone. Like someone reading a grocery list of tragedy.

The Breaking

The eleventh winter. First night.

Two days. He crossed the desert in two days, looking barely tired. Perfect walking—will so pure the desert couldn't touch him.

When he arrived, when reality shifted for their fight, he moved in seventeen directions at once. The desert had taught him something, or maybe losing himself in Death's realm had freed him from caring about temporal consistency.

Six minutes later, his blade touched her throat.

The world stopped.

She dropped her sword. The chain went slack. Then Cyrus did the unthinkable—he refused victory to save Tariq from becoming the next champion.

The rage came in stages. First, confusion at feeling anything. Her chest tightened—was this injury? Disease? No, this heat building behind her eyes, this tension in her fists—this was anger. The recognition came slowly, then all at once. Fury so pure it carved through three centuries of nothing.

Death opened a door. She looked at Cyrus with hatred that could have melted stone:

She stepped through the door.

Part Two: The World

The door opened onto chaos.

Oasis City at dawn, season ending, everyone desperate. The morning market screamed with last-minute commerce—fake blessed weapons, "guaranteed safe passage" (lies), maps to "Death's secret path" (more lies), and everywhere, everywhere, people who'd lost everything to the desert.

A man sat against a wall, aged fifty years in what should have been a four-day walk. A woman cradled hands that had de-aged to infant smoothness while her face remained old. Children who'd walked in as families but emerged alone, the desert having swallowed their siblings in temporal pockets.

She stumbled against a wall, overwhelmed. A merchant's cart nearly ran her over.

An inn: The Murdered Sleep. Someone had crossed out 'Murdered' and written 'Peaceful' above it. Someone else had crossed that out and written 'Murdered' again.

She pushed inside.

The room was wrong. The bed was wrong. The floor was wrong. Nothing fit a body that had forgotten how to exist outside of walking. She tried to eat but couldn't remember hunger. Tried to sit but couldn't remember comfort.

Then: violence in the street. Someone had sold fake desert protection, someone else wanted blood.

Her eyes opened.

Violence she understood.

She descended toward the sound, and for the first time in three hundred years, didn't know what would happen next.

The not-knowing felt like learning to breathe.