For the next hour, the path grew cruel. The thorns reached for her eyes. The salt flats shimmered with false pools of water. Once, she saw her brother standing at the edge of the trail, pale and whole, holding out a cup. "Liyana, I'm thirsty," he said. She knew it was not him—her brother could not walk, not anymore—but her heart cracked anyway. She walked past him without stopping, and the mirage dissolved into a pile of salt-crusted bones. Dawn came, but it was not gold. It was the color of a bruise. Liyana had climbed into the foothills now, and Bilara Toro had narrowed to a ledge no wider than her shoulders. Below, a dry riverbed full of white stones that looked like teeth. Above, a sky that pressed down like a lid.
Liyana kept walking. "To mend what is broken." bilara toro
You tied the knot. Now wear it well.