The moment the wind turned, Asahi’s arm shot out to the side.
"Get down!"
The sand hit before his warning reached them.
A tawny wall surged from beyond the horizon. It approached with a low, earth-crawling growl, as if the air itself had turned solid and was charging at them.
The three of them crouched low. Koyoi dropped to his knees, shielding his drawstring pouch beneath his stomach. Asahi threw open the hem of his cloak, draping it over Koyoi’s head to protect him. Kuon shoved his Index deep into his robes and curled his back against the gale.
Then, the sand struck.
Their skin prickled raw, and every exposed inch burned. The sheer force of the wind threatened to shove their bodies aside. Koyoi clung to the earth, feeling the sand stream through the gaps between his fingers.
Each grain felt unnaturally heavy.
He realized it wasn't just ordinary sand when a faint sound echoed in the depths of his ears. It wasn't a voice. It was more like the rustle of shifting characters—the ghostly friction of a finger tracing a sheet of paper. Within the sand, particles of dissolved names were swirling.
Sand began to pile upon Koyoi’s arms, coating his skin in a thin film. Strangely, the pain began to recede. It felt as though the sand, while scouring him, was simultaneously washing something away: the chill clinging to him since Shimosato and the weight of the records that had seeped into his skin at the Ice Well. All of it was being scraped away by the grit and carried off by the wind.
It’s a baptism, Koyoi thought.
The sand was stripping him bare, peeling away everything unnecessary.
The pouch felt warm. Through the fabric pressed against his stomach, he could feel the droplets trembling. It wasn't fear; they were leaping. Each time a grain of sand struck the cloth, the droplets within pulsed with a rhythmic, joyous leap.
They’re happy, he realized.
To the droplets, this sand was no enemy. These were fragments of things that had once existed in the same place—the traces of gods who had lost their names and taken to the wind as dust. The droplets seemed to welcome them, as if recognizing old friends.
The wind began to settle.
The growl faded into the distance, and the wall of sand thinned. Koyoi lifted his head. Grit had found its way into his eyes, blurring his vision with tears. He blinked repeatedly until the world finally came back into focus.
The landscape had transformed.
The path that had been there moments ago was gone. In its place stood a jagged rock formation he didn't recognize. Low ledges stretched to the left and right, fronted by a shallow trench. Every trace of the way they had come was buried under the sand, leaving neither shadow nor shape behind.
"The road is gone," Koyoi whispered.
Asahi stood up, brushing the dust from his clothes. "The storms here rewrite the very geography. The path changes every time they blow. Maps are useless."
He narrowed his eyes, scanning their surroundings. He was looking for something—a landmark within the terrain that the sand couldn't rewrite.
Kuon pulled the Index from his robes. Sand had embedded itself in the leather cover and wouldn’t brush off. As he flipped the book open, a pale blue light flickered from his prosthetic eye.
"The sand particles are saturated with the remnants of records. The concentration is incredibly high," Kuon noted. "The names in this region weren't frozen; they dissolved into the sand and scattered into the wind."
"And those scattered names fall back down whenever there's a storm," Asahi added.
"Exactly. That’s why there are no fixed records in this land. There are only fragments, carried by the breeze."
Koyoi looked down at his arms. The thin film of dust remaining on his skin shimmered faintly in the sunlight. Particles of names. Things that used to be someone.
He lifted his pouch and traced the surface of the fabric with his finger. It was coated in grit. As he went to brush it off, the pouch pulsed—almost as if telling him not to.
Koyoi stayed his hand.
Clad in its layer of sand, the pouch radiated a gentle warmth. Perhaps the droplets were touching the names within the dust, reading something from them.
Asahi began to walk. He seemed to have found a break in the rock ledges and headed toward it without hesitation.
"The storms will keep coming. We need to reach the rocky ground before the next one hits."
Koyoi stood and slapped the sand from his knees. The ground beneath his feet felt like an entirely different place than it had been minutes ago. The patterns in the sand were different; new ripples had been carved by the wind, and his old footprints were nowhere to be found.
A land where the storm redrafts the map. A place where nothing stays fixed.
Kuon tucked the Index back into his robes and started walking. "It’s the polar opposite of Shimosato, where the records are frozen. Here, they never stop flowing."
Koyoi nodded and returned the pouch to his waist. Each time the sand-covered cloth brushed against his hip, it gave a warm, rhythmic pulse.
The wind fell still. Amidst the scent of dry earth, there was the faintest, ghostly trace of distant flowers. Perhaps, among those names, there had once been someone who tended a garden.
Koyoi took one breath of that lingering scent, then hurried to follow Asahi’s back.