Chapter 2: The Advancing Sandstorm

The little ash-white Demon gleamed under the sun, like frost laid on steel.

Lilith rarely saw Abaddon so lively, joy rising off her like warm steam.

Back then, when the Little White Dragon slipped through Morris’s sewers into that pocket realm, Abaddon had been a mischievous child, a spark flicking ash.

Lilith had beaten her soundly, a thunderclap meant to tame a wildfire.

After that, whether it was Lilith’s spanking that worked or Litt arriving as a smaller companion, Abaddon grew less impish, like water settling after wind.

She turned almost solemn; at times her quiet grace made Lilith feel crude, like sand beside polished jade.

Yet with home finally in sight, the little girl couldn’t hold it in; like a child before candy, her smile burst bright, and the scarlet vortex on her cheek twisted with delight.

"Children should wear a child’s face," Lilith breathed, soft as shade.

She stepped to Abaddon and patted the gray-white head almost level with her own, a touch like dusting snow.

"So how do we get in?" Lilith asked, voice a pebble dropping into still water.

"When Bosaklie was on the ground, we could walk in. Now the whole city’s lifted. How do we get up? If we fly straight, will they swat us like invasive pests?"

"Nope," Abaddon shook her head, the motion a leaf flicking in wind.

"If you can fly, just fly up. I used to see flying visitors enter from the air harbor."

Nidhogg chimed in, words steady as drumbeats. "You can’t shoot down everything that flies. Odd as it sounds, the Demon Realm is mostly birds."

"Most birds nest on Bosaklie and migrate with the Eternal City, a flock riding a moving mountain."

"That’s wild. Don’t they get lost when the city moves?" The Little White Dragon blurted, wonder buzzing like bees.

"No," Abaddon lifted her chest and tilted her small chin, pride like a banner in wind.

"Bosaklie has people who announce migration times to the birds. I used to do it. Don’t know who Lord Satan appointed now; I hope they won’t tarnish my name."

"So you used to manage birds," Lilith deadpanned, her tone a flat blade.

Abaddon didn’t respond. She stood on the red cliff, a lone figure against flame-colored stone, watching Bosaklie drift away.

"We should hurry into the city," she said. "A sandstorm’s coming."

"Sandstorm?" Lilith’s nerves snapped taut, like a bow pulled to creak.

She hadn’t faced one on this land, but memory from another world pressed in like a cold hand.

She knew it blinds the eyes, fills the air with grit, and scours the throat like rough cloth.

At worst, it buries you, a brown sea swallowing travelers whole.

Most of all, it gets everywhere. With long hair like hers, her white mane would turn into a cat’s litter tray.

"Mm. Four auxiliary chimneys closing. Main chimney running at maximum. Upper port closed, lower passages open. Bosaklie will hit a sandstorm within two hours."

Abaddon squinted toward the city, her gaze a measuring blade, ticking off the Eternal City’s changes.

"The four side chimneys don’t have sand venting and may clog. The center chimney has tight sand processing; every grain becomes glass for Demons."

"So thrifty," the Little White Dragon muttered, her voice dry as stale bread.

Her focus was elsewhere. Anxiety rose like a hot tide; she tugged Nidhogg’s sleeve. "Nidhogg, think of a way to get us in. I don’t want to be buried. Washing hair’s a pain."

"Just fly in," Nidhogg said, calm as a dark lake. "Don’t rush. Our visibility’s still good, so the storm’s not here yet."

The Black Dragon grabbed Litt, who’d been watching like a small pebble at the road’s edge.

Abaddon spun open a violet vortex, a whirl like ink in water, and the Black Dragon tossed the little shard through.

She left a small door for the Black Dragon, then slipped in herself, a fish through a gate.

"Now it’s just us two," Nidhogg turned, Abaddon’s little door clenched in her palm like a captured flame.

"Will you fly yourself, or want me to carry you?"

"I’ll fly myself." Lilith sulked, a cloud heavy with rain.

That Black Dragon didn’t care about her urgency, moving slow as a cat, and Lilith refused to cling to her wing.

Besides, her wings had changed; the itch to test them fluttered like new feathers.

Whoosh! The Little White Dragon flapped her small wings and lifted, wind cradling her like a sling.

A new pair of permanent wings had unfurled behind her. Feathered and smaller than her old bone-wings, they carried better on thick plumage.

With less effort, she rose, riding the breeze like a kite.

Nidhogg followed behind. The Black Dragon shifted to a half-draconic form, wings spanning three and a half Liliths, a black cloud swallowing sky.

By contrast, Lilith’s wings looked like a chick’s, tiny and earnest, almost comically small.

She pushed the annoyance aside like sand from a sleeve. Better to find the Eternal City’s port.

She remembered Abaddon’s note: Bosaklie’s port was closed, and the lower passages were open.

So she should look downward for a way in…

"What’s that?"

She stared, stunned, at a vast shape at the edge of sight, dun-brown and ink-black braided together.

It took a few heartbeats to admit it: that giant blur was a storm.

A titan built of sand and soot, larger than Surtr of the world’s end, stepped toward the Eternal City, stride by stride.

The storm veiled the desert; the last sunlight drowned in flying grit, like gold swallowed by ash.

Around them, the world dimmed to iron-gray; only the giant, larger than the city, looked down on every living thing in the waste.

Lilith swallowed on reflex, fear a bitter seed.

Her voice trembled. "You call that a sandstorm?"