Markets Above The Dunes

The eastern bridge had split down the middle. One half hung from its wind-anchor, swinging above the dunes; the other rose at an angle toward the tea quarter. Merchants clung to ropes and one another. Crates slid past my boots, spilling blue glass, dried figs, and bolts of dyed silk into open air.

I caught the bridge rail and hauled myself onto the slanted planks.

“Nahla!”

I looked back.

A man stood on the central platform, one hand wrapped around a black iron post while the market bucked beneath him. Idris Serevan.

Even in the chaos, I knew him instantly. His coat was dark, cut close through the shoulders, and dust streaked one side of his face. He looked less like a merchant than a blade someone had forgotten to sheath. His gaze found mine with infuriating precision.

Of all the people who could have survived the first break, it had to be him.

“Get off the bridge,” he called.

“I’m going to my stall.”

“It won’t be there in a minute.”

“Then you’d better hope I’m fast.”

His mouth tightened. Not quite anger. Something more dangerous - recognition, perhaps, of the fact that I would rather leap into the desert than accept an order from him.

The bridge swung. My stomach rose into my throat. Idris released the post.

“Nahla, stop!”

He crossed the gap in three strides and caught my wrist just as the planks beneath me buckled.

His hand was hot, his grip hard enough to hurt. I twisted, trying to free myself, but the bridge dropped another arm’s length and dragged us both toward the open sky.

“Let go,” I said.

“Gladly.”

He pulled me against him instead.

The impact drove the breath from my lungs. His chest struck mine; the scent of cedar oil and hot metal cut through the dust. For one treacherous second, I felt the strength in his arms before I remembered whose arms they were.

“Serevan,” I said, my voice lower than I intended.

“Veyr.”

He said my name as if it had been lodged beneath his tongue for days.

Then the bridge gave way.

Idris shoved me toward the central platform. I landed hard on my palms, the ledger digging into my spine. He caught the railing with one hand as half the bridge tore free and plunged toward the dunes.

The wind swallowed the wreckage before it hit.

I looked at the empty space where my path had been. Our stall waited on the far side, its striped canopy snapping violently above the eastern rim.

Idris climbed onto the platform beside me. “You can’t reach it from here.”

“I can.”

“There’s no bridge.”

“There’s always another route.”

“That is exactly the kind of thing people say before they die.”

I rose, ignoring the burn in my hands. “You should try saying something useful.”

His eyes dropped to my mouth, then returned to mine. The glance was brief, but it landed with the force of a touch.

“Fine,” he said. “The western pulley line still connects to the spice quarter.”

“And you know that because?”

“Because I built the line.”

“You bought the line.”

“I designed it.”

“Your family paid someone to design it.”

A flicker crossed his face. The Serevans owned half the sky routes, three wind-ship fleets, and enough contracts to make a poor family disappear beneath ink. My father had spent years fighting their tariffs. Idris had inherited the empire and made it sharper.

He stepped closer. “Hate me after we’re on solid ground.”

“I’m perfectly capable of doing both.”

For the first time, something almost like amusement touched his mouth. It made him more dangerous than anger ever had.

A bell rang from the market’s center - three frantic strikes. Emergency release. The remaining platforms were being separated before the anchors dragged the entire market down.

Idris caught my elbow. “Move.”

I should have pulled away. Instead, I let him guide me through the crowd.

The western route ran beneath the market’s main canopy, where wind-ropes crossed overhead like veins. Every few steps, the floor shifted. Merchants shouted warnings. A boy clung to a cage of desert finches while his mother crawled after him; Idris stopped long enough to seize the cage and throw it across a widening gap. The mother reached it, sobbing, and dragged the child after her.

He did not wait for thanks.

That was the problem with Idris Serevan. He made it difficult to hate the parts of him that mattered.

We reached the pulley line. The platform had torn free from its moorings, leaving the line stretched over a gulf of air. A narrow maintenance beam ran beside it, no wider than my hand.

Idris looked at me. “I go first.”

“You’ll slow me down.”

“You’re welcome to test that theory after I secure the line.”

He swung onto the beam.

The wind caught his coat and pulled it toward the desert. He moved with brutal confidence, one hand sliding along the rope while his boots found each narrow brace. I followed, refusing to watch the drop below. Sand spiraled upward in enormous golden columns. Far beneath us, fragments of Kestrel Market fell like burning leaves.

Halfway across, the pulley shrieked.

The rope snapped taut. Idris turned just as the beam buckled under my feet.

I fell.

His hand closed around my waist.

The ledger slipped from beneath my belt and struck the beam, skidding toward the edge. I reached for it, but Idris hauled me against him, pinning my back to his chest.

“Leave it,” he said.

“It’s my family’s.”

“You’ll die for a book?”

“I’ve already lost enough.”

The words came out before I could stop them.

His grip changed. Not weaker. More careful.

“What did you lose?” he asked.

The question was quiet enough to hurt.

“My father,” I said. “My mother’s health. Every chance of keeping this family out of debt.” I looked at the ledger, one corner hanging over empty air. “I’m not losing the stall too.”

His breath touched my temple. “Then trust me for three seconds.”

“I would rather fall.”

“Those are not mutually exclusive.”

Despite myself, I almost laughed. The sound broke into a breath when the beam shifted again.

Idris reached past me, hooked the ledger with his boot, and kicked it toward the pulley housing. It landed against the metal casing.

“Now,” he said. “Climb.”

I did.

We reached the eastern platform seconds before the final anchor released. My stall groaned as its foundation lifted. The canopy tore free, and jars rolled across the boards. I ran toward it.

“Nahla!”

I ignored him.

The stall’s rear support had split. I threw myself through the hanging curtains and caught the ledger beneath a collapsing shelf. Glass burst beside my shoulder. Cinnamon and smoke filled my mouth. I shoved the book under my shirt and crawled toward the rear anchor housing.

The metal casing had cracked open.

Something black gleamed inside.

I pulled it free just as the platform lurched. Idris appeared in the doorway, reaching for me. I seized his hand, and he dragged me out as the stall tore away behind us.

Our home - my father’s shelves, my mother’s painted jars, the cedar counter worn smooth by decades of hands - slid toward the rim.

Idris wrapped both arms around me and turned my face into his chest as the stall dropped.

I heard the crash far below.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

His heartbeat struck against my cheek. Mine answered too quickly, too violently. His hand rested at the back of my neck, fingers spread beneath my hair. The touch was protective, but not possessive. That distinction should not have mattered. It did.

I pushed away.

He let me go at once.

The object in my fist had cut into my palm. I opened my fingers.

A broken anchor tooth lay there, black iron dusted with gold. Stamped into its side was a crest: a three-winged hawk encircled by a crown of thorns.

Serevan.

The mark was unmistakable.

Idris saw it.

The color drained from his face - not fear, exactly. Recognition sharpened into something raw.

“Where did you get that?”

“From my anchor.”

“That’s impossible.”

“My stall just fell out of the sky.”

His gaze fixed on the seal. “My family hasn’t used that mark in twenty years.”

“Then someone is using it now.”

“Nahla - ”

I closed my fist around the broken metal. “Did your house sabotage my family?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

I stepped closer. “You didn’t even ask what I found.”

“I know what you found.”

“Then you know this belongs to you.”

His jaw tightened. Wind tore through the ruined platform, lifting his hair from his forehead. Beneath the controlled surface, something fractured. Not guilt. Something worse.

“I know that seal,” he said. “My mother wore it on every contract before she died.”

I had expected denial, perhaps arrogance. Not grief.

It changed the shape of him for one breath. Made him look less like the heir of a ruthless trading house and more like a son who had never been allowed to mourn.

Then the walls came back.

“If the seal is on your anchor,” I said, “your family is involved.”

“Or someone wants you to believe it is.”

“Why warn me?”

His eyes lifted to mine. “Because if someone forged my family’s mark, they aren’t trying to destroy your stall.”

“What are they trying to destroy?”

He looked toward the empty stretch of sky where Kestrel Market had begun to break apart.

“Everything attached to it.”

The emergency bells continued ringing below us. The remaining platforms drifted apart, carried by unstable wind currents. My family’s stall was gone. The ledger was bruised but safe beneath my shirt. In my hand, the Serevan seal pressed a cold, accusing edge into my skin.

Idris held out his palm.

“Give it to me.”

I closed my fingers tighter. “So you can make it disappear?”

“So I can keep you alive.”

“I’ve managed that without you.”

“Barely.”

The word struck deeper than it should have. I hated the concern in his voice. Hated the way my body remembered his arms around me. Hated that, for the first time, I believed he might be afraid - not of what I would do to his family, but of what would happen to me if I kept digging.

I stepped backward, toward the surviving platform.

Idris’s hand fell.

“I’m taking this to the council,” I said.

His expression hardened. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

“No,” he said, gaze dropping once more to my closed fist. “But neither do you.”

The market groaned beneath us, and somewhere in the wreckage, another anchor broke.

I turned toward the council platform with the seal hidden in my palm and Idris Serevan at my back.

I had reached my family’s stall.

I had saved the ledger.

And now I possessed the first piece of evidence that could bring his house down - or mine with it.

End of chapter one. 39 more chapters and about 91,786 words in the full book.