Violet

Bei woke the following morning looking better than she had in days which surprised me.

The tension was gone, and she didn’t have the stiffness or discomfort I had been watching for. Her eyes were alert too.

"I told you I was fine," she said, catching me staring. A small smile tugged at her lips. "You worry too much."

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. "Maybe."

I was relieved she was okay, but underneath, a part of me had almost hoped she would turn back.

I hoped there was nothing dangerous waiting for us here. I didn’t want her risking her life alongside my own.

’Maybe I should have just gone without asking her for advice on reading the maps.’

"Let’s move," I said, having our bags float.

We set off across the pink dunes. The sand was soft beneath our feet and the sky above us was a pale wash of coral and gold. With how deserted the place was, it was one of the most hauntingly beautiful places I had ever seen. The pull hummed steadily in my chest, guiding me forward, and I followed it without hesitation.

The landscape began to change as the day wore on.

The sand remained pink, but the air grew cooler, losing the dry heat that had pressed against us for weeks. And then I noticed the water.

Small lakes began to appear, scattered across the terrain like mirrors dropped carelessly onto the sand. They were shallow, barely more than large puddles in some places, and their surfaces were perfectly still. The water itself reflected the same soft rose colour as the sand surrounding them.

"What is that smell?" Bei muttered, wrinkling her nose.

The mineral scent had grown stronger here, sharper and more pungent than before. It seemed to be rising from the water itself, carried on the cool breeze that drifted across the lakes.

Bei pulled a cloth from her pack and wrapped it around her nose and mouth.

"Are you alright?" I asked her, worried.

"Somewhat." Her voice was muffled through the fabric. "It’s not painful, just... such a strong smell."

I nodded, but I didn’t feel the same discomfort. If anything, the air here felt cleaner to me, but I noticed the source of the smell days before was from here.

It made me sad. I wished the smell didn’t affect her so strongly.

We continued walking, picking our way between the scattered lakes. The further we went, the more of them appeared, until we were navigating a maze of pink water and pale sand.

And there was no life here.

In the desert before this pink one, we had seen small animals. Lizards basking on rocks, insects skittering across the sand, the occasional groups of birds circling overhead. But here, there was nothing. No movement, no sound, no sign that anything living had ever existed in this place.

The trees we passed were dead.

Their trunks were bleached and brittle, their branches bare and reaching toward the sky like grasping fingers. They had dried up long ago, leaving behind only husks that crumbled at the slightest touch.

"This is unsettling," Bei whispered, her eyes darting around.

I couldn’t disagree.

I stopped beside one of the larger lakes, crouching at its edge to examine the water more closely. The surface was so still it looked like glass, reflecting the pale sky above in perfect detail.

"Careful," Bei warned, hovering behind me.

I reached out and dipped my fingers into the water.

It was cool and my skin tingled like tiny pinpricks dancing across my fingertips.

"Violet?"

"It tingles," I said slowly, lifting my hand and watching the water drip from my fingers. "But it doesn’t hurt."

Bei crouched beside me, her brow furrowed beneath the cloth covering her face. She reached toward the water hesitantly.

When she dipped her fingers in, her reaction was immediate.

Bei snatched her hand back with a sharp hiss, cradling it against her chest. Her eyes were wide with shock and pain.

I grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand toward me so I could see. The skin where she had touched the water was red and angry, already beginning to blister.

Horror crashed through me.

"Bei! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know, I didn’t think—"

"It’s fine," she gasped, though her voice was tight with pain. "It’s fine, Violet. I should have been more careful."

"No, I should have—"

"Violet." Bei’s voice cut through my spiralling panic. "Please, help me tend to it."

I immediately sorted through her bag, helping her clean the wound with our water. The skin was raw and red, but already I could see the edges beginning to heal. It would be fine in a few minutes.

But it could have been so much worse.

How could the water have caused this much damage within a second?

"I’m sorry," I whispered again as I finished washing it.

Bei flexed her fingers carefully, wincing slightly. "It’s not your fault. The waters must be highly concentrated in the strange stinky mineral." She frowned, glaring at the water. "But this doesn’t smell like salt or any mineral I recognize."

She looked at my hand, the one I had dipped into the same water without consequence.

"It didn’t affect you at all," she said quietly.

I looked down at my fingers. The skin was unmarked, and perfectly fine. The tingling had already stopped.

"No," I admitted. "It didn’t."

Bei was silent for a moment, her expression thoughtful despite the pain still lingering in her eyes.

Bei shook her head. "Maybe being a Lycan is more than just the syzygy or life force," she said slowly. "Maybe your body itself is different, well evidently now."

She let out wry smile.

I hadn’t considered that before. I had always thought of my Lycan heritage in terms of my abilities, my syzygy, the things I could do. Not in terms of what I could withstand.

"Maybe," I murmured.

We rested for a while after that, but I insisted we move away from the lake first. Bei’s discomfort around the water had grown, and I couldn’t blame her. The pink pools that had seemed merely strange now felt threatening.