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Slewfoot

by Timothy Biggins
Chapter 1
I found him where the horizon folds,
where the earth thins to a line of salt,
and the wind rattles its teeth through the sage.

He was waiting in the ruin of a storm,
hat pulled low,
boots sunk in the ash,
eyes burning like lanterns buried too deep.

I thought he was a man.
Then the stars bent around him,
shifting like cattle that had caught a scent.
The dunes heaved as if the ocean hid beneath them,
and the sky leaned down to listen.

He spoke of paths I already walked,
though my tongue had never told them.
He named her,
and the sound was too clean,
like a blade dragged through water.
My knees buckled beneath it.

The deal was plain,
though nothing plain could hold it.
A map carved from dust and silence,
ink that shimmered like a wound.
It trembled between his hands
as if alive.

I knew what it cost.
Not gold,
not blood,
but something deeper,
something that cannot be bartered twice.
Still my hand lifted.
Still I reached.

The sky shrank to a circle,
black fire at its rim.
Every star was a nail,
every nail was struck into me.
I wanted to turn away.
I wanted to vanish.
But her name rang through the silence,
and the silence swallowed me whole.