Seventy-nine days.

Seventy-nine days spent traveling beneath the blazing, unforgiving desert sun. Seventy-nine days squinting at featureless stretches of gleaming white desert, an ocean of sand too hot to touch until nightfall. Seventy-nine days of his tailbone aching as he sat perched on the hump of a camel. Kurt wasn't a weak man. Seventy-nine days traveling this dry land with very few civilizations in sight could drive even the strongest men to do desperate things.

Like go home.

Kurt didn't so much want to go home, but he felt it was time. He'd been away for longer than he thought he'd be. But he didn't intend on staying home. He never did for too long. The house where he was raised meant nothing to him; neither did the crowded city that harbored it. The moment Kurt left the house of his birth, home became wherever Kurt's heart led him. So the white, baked-clay house that he'd be returning to wasn't home because his heart wasn't taking him there.

His head was.

Kurt wanted to remain steadfast in that belief, carry it like a shield proclaiming his indifference to all, but it was a bit of a lie. As much as he hated that house and that city, he did have one reason to return, one that his heart and his head both missed. One that he longed for these many months.

His beloved sister, Rachel.

Kurt could leave that house behind him and carry a torch for his father's love all the rest of his days, but Kurt missed his little sister too much to bear.

And for love of her, Kurt had another reason for returning home. He had done exceptionally well these past few months, and he wanted to share that wealth with the one person he loved more than he loved himself. He wanted to shower her with gifts and books and music, and regale her with stories of the places he had been, the people he had met, the performances he had given.

In light of this, home should be a place he should want to be since he had already traveled enough to fill her head with stories till her dying day.

But he couldn't make himself stay.

Kurt could square the fault on his father, but truthfully, even if home were the loving, caring sanctuary it should have been, Kurt was a wanderer at heart, a nomad, and he didn't do well behind walls. That he got from his mother. His father simply gave him the impetus to climb on a camel's back and go.

Kurt ran a hand underneath his turban and through his sweaty hair. He sighed, the hot breath from his mouth still cooler than that of the air around him. But he'd better get used to it. Once they passed through the city gates, it would get worse. Everything about the city of his birth was oppressive – the heat, the air, the stench, the buildings constructed too closely together so that one foundation made use of the one beside it. When one house leaned beneath the summer heat, the whole city leaned with it. Kurt always felt it an unintentionally romantic notion.

Ridiculous, but romantic nonetheless.

People from the city had seen the caravan approaching, and a group of them gathered to watch Kurt and his troupe enter. Anything out of the ordinary was a welcome change, and the troupe's caravan – three large wagons painted in rainbow shades; camels adorned with brightly colored saddles, draping, buckles, and intricately shaved hides; not to mention their equally bedecked riders – were as far out of the ordinary as one might see at this time of year. The caravan entered the city to curious glances and shy smiles, and there they parted ways. Some had families there. Others were only visiting, and would look for a bath, a hot meal, and a place to bed down. Many in Kurt's troupe refused to pay out of pocket for such things. Water was worth more than gold in the desert, but gold was still highly sought after and worked hard for. So they would perform for their supper, and the small city would enjoy a few nights reprieve.

Kurt was among the last to depart, not looking forward to the greeting he would get if his father were the first to receive him. He sat at the rear of the entourage, watching as camels and wagons took separate paths, branching out through the narrow paths of the marketplace. Mike, Kurt's right hand man, brought up the last wagon. He was a jack of all trades in the performance business, almost as highly sought after as Kurt himself. He would act as keeper of the troupe's most precious assets – their instruments, costumes, rations, and water.

“All right, Kurt,” he said, holding tight to his fiancée, Tina, “enjoy yourself.”

“And you as well.” Kurt reached out an arm for Mike to clasp. “Don't spend too much, don't drink too much, and don't get yourselves arrested.” Mike laughed at his friend's odd yet practical list of concerns. He knew that Kurt had more on his mind than he let on, bothering his head like tarantula hawks plagued the ground-dwelling spiders. “I'll see you guys in a week.” Kurt thought again about his father at home, how the man would certainly watch Kurt ride up with a grimace of disgust. “Or maybe a day or two sooner.” Mike gave him a sympathetic smile, then turned his camel and wagon in the opposite direction and rode away, bathed in the golden light of the late afternoon sun.

Kurt sighed. On the bright end of things, for all of its unpleasantness, going home would finally get Kurt out of this blasted sun. Mike, Tina, and most of their troupe were blessed with tan skin, and dark hair and eyes that could defend against it. But Kurt was so naturally pale, he was as fair as the sand, his eyes the color of the mid-day sky. The only difference was the sand and the sky did not burn when touched by the sun; Kurt did, so he constantly slathered his skin in thick creams and lotions. They bled down his brow with his sweat and stung his eyes. It almost wasn't worth the trouble.

Almost.

Every evening, when he bedded down comfortably beneath his blankets and fell immediately to sleep - no raw, stinging skin keeping him from it - he couldn't be more grateful.

He considered stopping by a nearby bath house and sparing a coin for a long, cool soak, but he'd wasted enough time as was. If he avoided going home, he'd probably decide against it entirely.

If his sister found out, and should would as news traveled fast in their city, she'd be heartbroken.

Kurt turned his beast around, clicked his tongue, and ambled off on its back for home.

As a reward for putting his sister's feelings before his own comfort, the homecoming he had been dreading was not the one he received. Instead, as the clop-clop-clopping of his camel's hooves came to a stop on the hard-packed earth outside his house, he heard the gleeful trill of his sister's voice calling from within, as if she had been expecting him for hours … or months.

“Kurt! Kurt! Oh, you're home! Thank the Gods, you're home!” Rachel bolted out the door, pink veils fluttering about her like wings as she ran.

“Rachel! My darling!” Kurt cried. He commanded his camel to kneel with a few staccato clicks of his tongue. He swung down from the animal, then bent once his feet hit the ground to accept her as she leapt into his arms. “Oh, my love! I've missed you so much!”

“I've missed you, too,” she said, weeping against his shoulder.

He gave her a spin and a squeeze, then set the giggling girl on her feet. “Okay, okay, stop fidgeting. Let me get a good look at you.” Rachel tried her best to stand still while her brother appraised her, but she couldn't. For a girl of sixteen, she had the manners of a twelve-year-old - a beautiful, bare-footed wild child, part princess, part devil, but with the voice of an angel, a trait that she and he both shared.

“Now, now, what's different about you?” Kurt raised a hand to his chin, stroking thoughtfully. “New sari? No …” He lingered on the word while she shook her head “… for this is the one I gave you when I came home last.” He bit his tongue against mentioning the three inches of dust staining the hem. He didn't want to make her feel self-conscious. “Did you cut your hair? No, no, I don't believe so. Have you grown?” She nodded like mad, and he grinned. “No, I don't think so. I think you've stopped getting any taller.”

Rachel gasped. “You're awful, Kurt,” she pouted. “I thought you said you loved me.”

“I do,” Kurt said. “I do. It's because I love you that I am awful to you.” Rachel yelped and took a swing at him, but he stepped swiftly out of her reach. “No, but I'm only joking. You are the most beautiful young lady that I have ever seen in my life, in every place that I've traveled, and don't you ever forget it.”

Rachel took her brother back into her arms and held him, burying her head in his neck. He felt melancholy within her, one that she was not sharing. He only hoped that whatever it was, it wasn't anything serious.

“It would be easier to remember if you were here to tell me.”

“I'm sorry, my darling,” Kurt said, burdened with guilt and how sincerely he meant it. “I would stay if I could, but alas, I'm a performer …” Kurt twirled her around again, adding a dramatic flourish to his voice in the hopes that should would laugh. After a roll of her eyes, she did “… a storyteller, a singer, a …”

“A whore,” his father spat, making his way to the door at last to see to the state of his only son. The old man seemed miserable that Kurt did not look more poorly.

“Papa!” Rachel snapped her head around and glaring indignantly.

“It's alright, my love. Don't you fret about anything he says,” Kurt whispered in his sister's hair, knowing that more insults would come.

“Look at him,” their father growled. “Look at this … this disgrace that pretends to be a man.” Their father stumbled forward, one leg limp, the other lame due to a sickness of his heart that the local doctor could find no cure for. Even in his travels, Kurt searched for one, if for no other reason than he felt it his duty, and for his sister, too young to leave their house just yet. But two more years would see her on the back of a camel, traveling the desert beside Kurt if he had anything to say about it. “You dress like a harlot. You paint your face. What do you think people say when they see you, hmm? Do you think the way you look commands any kind of respect from decent people?”

“Decent people?” Kurt huffed. “Oh, I know what decent people say …” Kurt tried to step from his sister's embrace, but she held fast to him - to avoid a fight, or to keep him from leaving. Either way, he chose to stay with her. “But if you think me a whore, then I must be a good one, for I have brought home gold. See there, on my camel.” Kurt motioned to the animal waiting behind him. “That leather satchel he carries has enough money to ensure that you and Rachel are properly provided for for half the year.”

“That's … that's wonderful!” Rachel gushed from her place in his arms. “I'm so proud of you, Kurt!”

If Kurt expected similar gratitude from his father, he needn't have.

“I don't want your money,” the man growled, waving the offer of the sack away with a heavy arm. “I don't need your filthy money.”

“It's not filthy money,” Kurt said. “And I give it to you for the good of the family – my family, whether you like it or not.”

His dad scoffed, unimpressed by his son's claims. “Did you at least have the decency to wash it before you tried to pawn it off on me? Or is it still covered in the sweat and semen of your customers?”

Kurt was struck dumb by that remark, not because he didn't have an answering one for it, but because it contained language unfit for the ears of his beloved sister. Kurt's father had insinuated for years that his son made his money lying on his back, but this was the first time that he'd said so plainly to his face, and in front of Rachel. In truth, Kurt had never been with anyone, man or woman, but that wasn't a secret he intended to impart on his father's bigoted ears.

Kurt wasn't so much insulted by his father's ignorant assumptions, but on his sister's behalf, that she should have to hear such words cross the lips of the father she still managed to love.

“You know what? I'm going to put my camel in the stable,” Kurt responded with a bitter smile.

“There's no need,” his father grumbled. “Why don't you just climb on the wretched creature's back and be gone? You are not welcome here.”

“Good luck with that.” Kurt watched his father hobble away and scoffed at the feeble man. His father could say what he wanted with all the venom he could produce, but he'd have no luck tossing Kurt out. Kurt's father could call upon security, police, even the royal guard. None would remove Kurt. Even if they thought it was worth their time (which they wouldn't, because the petty bickering of the common folk were rarely seen as important to the local authorities), money talked, and Kurt had plenty of it, along with charm, flattery, and other shallow assets that men in their city craved: Kurt smelled of fine perfumes, he dressed in lush silks, and had a feminine enough physique as to not be considered vile in the eyes of men who had a tendency to look sideways at young boys while drunk.

No, Kurt's father could not remove him from the house, but he could make Kurt's life miserable.

“Oh, Kurt,” Rachel whimpered. “I am so sorry he speaks to you that way.”

“It's alright,” Kurt said, shushing her gently. “He can't hurt me. And he can't keep me from you.”

“I'm glad,” Rachel said sadly. “And I want you to know that I don't believe it. Not a thing that he says about you. But it wouldn't matter to me what you did, for you are noble and kind and have always been my favorite person in all the world.”

“Oh, darling. And you have always been mine. That is all I need in this world.” Kurt moved her veil aside and dropped a kiss onto the shiny crown of her messy head. “Nothing else.”

“Rachel!” their father bellowed from within the house. “Come inside now!”

Rachel exhaled long, and with all the irritation of a true teenager. “I do not want to, Papa,” she called back petulantly. The stomp of her small foot made Kurt chuckle.

“That was not a request,” their father roared back.

“Ugh!” Rachel groaned. “Papa's trying to keep me away from you.”

“Well, I won't let him,” Kurt promised. “You run on ahead, and when I'm through here, I'll come in.”

“You swear?” she asked, looking at him with pleading eyes.

“Cross my heart. Now go, before he yells for you again and hurts something.”

Rachel giggled into her hand. She blew her brother a kiss, then skipped her way into their house. Kurt shook his head. It was so hard to believe that she was sixteen, a woman. Not the way she behaved. But mostly not because she was his little sister, younger than him by nearly five years, and so long as he lived, he would not see her grown. She would always be the same menace of a child who'd tug down his trousers trying to pull herself standing, climb into his lap when it was least convenient and ask for him to play, and fall asleep in his arms on blustery nights.

Kurt could see himself moving the sun, the moon, and the stars to keep her happy.

The only thing he couldn't make himself do was stay.

Kurt turned back to his camel, which had lain on the ground amidst the arguing, having grown tired of standing.

“Come on, you lazy lima bean,” Kurt teased, since the one thing this blessed animal had never been was lazy. “Let me get you squared away.”

Kurt commanded the animal to its feet and led it away to his father's old stable, where his father had kept his own camel when he had one, before it was sold to pay his debts … and to keep Rachel, then nine, from an untimely marriage. Thank the heavens the man had been sensible enough to head off that disaster. Arranged marriages might be common among the folks of their backward city, but Kurt absolutely loathed it. He would rather give himself up to debt collectors before he saw his sister sold.

Kurt was determined to see his sister comfortable and cared for until she decided to marry on her own to a man she loved, who was worthy of her, who courted her and treated her like a queen. And if that man did not pass Kurt's muster, there were ways of ensuring that he disappeared. Kurt smiled thinking of some stuck-up, bastard, piece of human garbage bound and gagged in the rear of one of his wagons, being pulled across the desert to be sold away himself.

Kurt wasn't a violent man, but he did enjoy a hand of well-played vengeance.

Besides, the troupe could always use the extra income. Maybe that was a service they could start offering – rescuing oppressed woman by dragging off their suitors against their will and selling them as slaves to distant tribes.

He'd have to look into it, see if there was a market for such a thing.

Kurt had been gone for barely twenty minutes, stripping his camel completely of its raiment and making sure it had plenty of fresh food and water, but when he returned, there was a member of the royal guard standing at the door. Kurt didn't break his stride. There was no reason for him to. One of them belonged there; the other did not. But his eyes opened wide in surprise.

The man was perhaps an inch taller than Kurt, with hair the color of coffee; skin kissed by the sun, but still keeping a cool pallor; and eyes green as Kurt imagined ocean water to be green. Kurt would need to remember this color should he ever, one day, have the chance to compare them.

Holy hell! He did it! Kurt almost laughed. He actually did it! His father got a member of the royal guard to try and kick him out. Was that what he called Rachel into the house for? Did he send her off to get him? There was no way that his father could walk all the way to the palace to do it for himself, especially not in that small space of time. That son of a …

“Blessings, kind Sir,” Kurt said, heading the man off and offering him his most humble salaam. “Your presence graces our home. May I be of some assistance?” Kurt looked up at the guard through long lashes, smiling a slightly suggestive smile.

“Well, well, well, I have to say, that's the most inviting greeting I've received in a long time,” the guard replied with a smirk and darker eyes.

“It's not every day that a member of the royal guard honors us,” Kurt returned. “Would you please come inside for a cup of tea? Take your ease on this sweltering hot day?”

The guard looked Kurt over from the toes of his traveling shoes to his powder blue turban, which had managed to remain relatively spotless despite exposure to the sand-filled breeze. “I thank you for your hospitality, but I am here on official business. I regret that I cannot take you up on your offer. Perhaps another time?”

Kurt smiled with a relief that he hid expertly. “Perhaps.”

The guard bowed to Kurt, then turned and left with no mention whatsoever as to why he had stopped by, which chilled Kurt to the bone. A member of the royal guard wouldn't just drop by their house for no reason. He had to have a reason. If that reason had to do with Kurt, why did the man not question him? Why did he not detain him? Why was he so cordial to him?

Because, perhaps, the guard was not there to see Kurt. Perhaps he was there for their father. What could the man have done while Kurt was gone that would call the royal guard to their house? He could barely walk!

Kurt turned to look for the guard, but the man had already gone, and Kurt began to feel ill.

“Rachel?” Kurt called, stepping into the house in search of his sister. She didn't answer, and Kurt felt his stomach take a sharp turn. “Pa---Papa?”

Kurt didn't have far to go to find the pair of them. Their father, standing in a far corner where the light was brightest, seemed to be reading a scroll, while Rachel knelt on the floor, eyes staring blankly with shock.

“Wh-what … what happened here?” Kurt asked. “What did that guard want?”

“He chose me, Kurt,” Rachel said, her lower lip wobbling. “He ch-chose me to be his next bride.”

“Who!?” Kurt asked aghast. “Who chose you as his bride? That guard!?”

Kurt ran back to the door, half expecting the man to have returned, but he was long gone. And to think, he had been flirting with Kurt when he actually came to lay claim to Kurt's sister! Kurt knew that the royal guard took certain liberties in their city. He didn't know that this was one of them!

That two-faced jackal's ass!

Rachel looked up at Kurt, tears melting streaks through the dust on her face. She looked young, frightened – truly and sincerely frightened for her life.

“No,” she said, weakly shaking her head. “The King.”

Kurt's eyes popped. “The King?”

“Yes.” Rachel sniffled.

“H-how do you know the King?” Kurt asked, thoroughly confused.

“I don't. But it is custom for him to choose a spouse on a whim. He will marry me, have me, and then … he will kill me.”

From the corner of the room, Kurt heard his father snort. “Don't be dramatic, child.”

Kurt wasn't concerned with the mutterings of their father. Rachel was a headstrong and imaginative child, but she wasn't foolish. “And why would he do this?”

“No one knows.” Her voice trembled. “It is said that he was scorned by love in his youth and that he chooses a bride or a husband solely to exact revenge on that first love that spurned him.”

“But why would he choose to marry you for revenge? You had nothing to do with it! You're … you're just a child!”

Rachel straightened to object, but then remembered that her brother, with his unintentionally insulting remark, was on her side.

“That will not matter when …” Her thoughts rushing ahead of her words, she could speak no longer, and crumbled, weeping into her veil.

“Oh, Rachel!” Kurt cried, dropping to the floor beside her. “No! Don't cry, sister. This will not happen! I will not let it!”

“How does this concern you?” his father scolded, disgusted at the disgraceful display of two so-called adults. “This is a family matter.”

“Yes, it is a family matter, you pigheaded son of a …” Kurt's words skidded to a halt when his sister wailed louder over their fighting. “And whether you like it or not, I am a member of this family.”

“Not a member of my family.” His father turned his back on them. “I made peace with losing you long ago.”

“Be that as it may,” Kurt said between his teeth, “Rachel is my sister, and I will see that nothing bad happens to her.”

“It is not your place to intervene. She has been chosen to be the King's bride. This is not a time for weeping! It is a time for celebrating!”

“How can you say that!?” Kurt argued. “How can you sentence her to this!?”

“You listen here you shameless pervert! You Godless heathen! She may be your sister, but she is my daughter, and my word is final on the matter! The King has decreed that she will be his bride, and I have given my blessing.”

“A blessing to have me banished!” Rachel moaned. “Or killed!”

“Quiet yourself, girl. You know not of what you speak.”

“Then where is his last wife, Papa? Huh?” Rachel asked, hoping by the Gods that she was wrong, and maybe her father knew. Maybe the men of their city knew something that the women did not. “Or his last husband? There have been so many, taken away to the palace and then never seen or heard from again!”

“What!? No!” Kurt gasped, shaking his head. “This cannot happen! This … cannot … happen!”

Kurt saw his father move, crouching in on them with an agility Kurt did not believe possible in his father anymore.

“It will!” he said, baring his teeth so close to Kurt's face that it frightened his sister to see. “It will happen because I say it will! Not you! You do not dictate what happens in my house, under my roof! Not when you spend months at a time on the back of a camel, spreading your legs for God knows who!”

“My mother's house,” Kurt hissed, spitting the words into his father's face. “My mother's roof. And don't you forget it.”

Kurt's father flushed so deep a red, Kurt thought every drop of his blood had pooled in his face. He looked ready to slap Kurt, and Kurt would have welcomed it, if for no other reason than to have an excuse to slap the man back, but his father didn't dare with Rachel in Kurt's arms. Regardless of his edict, he couldn't fault her for being frightened. Like Kurt and Rachel, he didn't know what had happened to the women and men that the King married. He put his faith in Rachel's pretty face, sweet temperament, and pleasant demeanor to win the King over so that he might make her his permanent bride.

Kurt and Rachel's father wasn't a wholly wicked person. It didn't sit right with him to send his daughter off to a man who might take her head. But the King's decree wasn't a request. It wasn't his place to say no.

As much as he loved his daughter, what choice did he have?

***

“Tell me about something good that has happened to you since last I saw you.”

After their father's outburst, he retired early, leaving no instruction but knowing that whatever chores needed to be done would be completed before nightfall.

And they did get done because Kurt did them. He settled his distraught sister at the kitchen table and fed her a simple meal of cheese, fruit, and bread, of which she ate very little. Then he had her bathe and got her ready for bed. He anointed her with olive oil and brushed out the mats and knots in her long, brown hair until it gleamed.

“I … I've fallen in love,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Really?” Kurt felt his heart swell for her, and then sink for her. He wanted to be happy for her, but this was the worst possible time for her to fall in love. “And does the object of your affections return that love?”

“Yes,” Rachel said, blushing like the innocent girl she was. “I believe he does. But … that hardly matters now, does it?”

“You have to have faith, sister,” Kurt said, wrapping arms around her from behind and holding his sister close. “If the two of you are in love, then you have already won, for nothing can split apart two people in love, no matter how hard someone tries.”

“That's just a fairy tale.” Rachel sighed, looking down at her hands. “Just one of your stories.”

“Some stories are based on fact,” Kurt argued. “It is true what I say. I have seen it. I swear that by God and all his angels in the heavens above that the King will not harm a hair on your head.”

“But … but how can you be sure, Kurt?” Kurt could hear the fear in her voice. “The King … he's not a forgiving man. You don't know what he's like. You're never around long enough to find out.”

Kurt winced, but she was absolutely correct. He should be around more. He didn't need to be gone for quite so long this time. He should have been better at protecting her, instead of trying to rescue her after the fact.

He should have found a way to take his sister with him a dozen or more times.

“I know, my dearest,” he said, “and I'm sorry for that. But don't worry. I will take care of you.”

“Do you have a plan?” Rachel asked eagerly, knowing from Kurt's tales that there hasn't yet been a scrape that Kurt couldn't find a way out of.

“Yes, I do.” Kurt swallowed his grieving heart at the reality of lying to his beloved sister. He didn't have a plan. Not yet. But he'd find one. He had to. “So I don't want you to worry a thing about it.”

Rachel seemed relieved, which made Kurt's temporary deception that much worse.

Kurt led his sister to her sleeping mat. He tucked her in and lay down beside her. He wrapped them both up in a new blanket he'd brought her. He'd hoped it would cheer her when he first picked it out, that it would soothe the sting of him eventually having to leave.

Those problems seemed miniscule compared to her troubles now.

“Kurt?” she said, resting her head on her brother's shoulder.

“Yes, dearest?” Kurt smiled, knowing what she was going to ask.

“If you are not too sleepy, do you think you could tell me a story?”

“Of course.” Kurt buried his nose in his sister's hair. “Oh … but I don't think I know a story to tell you,” he teased.

“Yes, you do. You always have a new story to tell.”

“And you only ever ask for the same one.”

“That's because it's my favorite.”

“Alright,” he said. “Then I shall tell you that story.” He cleared his throat, but it didn't work. The lump that had lodged itself there would not be moved as long as sorrow strangled his heart. How many more moments like this one were they likely to have if the King had his way? “Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom …”

“A kingdom like ours?” she interrupted. Kurt knew she would. She knew this story backwards and forwards. He altered it very little. But she always interrupted, and always asked the same questions on cue.

“No, my darling. It was a kingdom of cool green grass, and skies filled with fluffy, white clouds; where rivers ran, and flowers of all colors bloomed. And in that magical kingdom of tall trees and sweet breezes, there lived a fairy so smart, so beautiful, and with such a lyrical voice, even the birds fell quiet to listen to her sing. She was gentle and kind, and loved by all. The flowers lent her their most perfect petals to fashion her clothes, and the vines offered themselves for her to tie back her silken hair. During the day, the creatures of the kingdom brought her offerings of food and drink, and she sat to break bread with them out of thanks for the meal. At night, the bees hovered close to keep her safe, and hummed her a lullaby.”

Kurt felt Rachel yawn, and he smiled a teary smile. She didn't deserve this anxiety. She didn't deserve to first be caught up in the war between him and his father, and now this turmoil. How Kurt hated that horrid decree, and the evilness of the King who declared it. That this man - who knew nothing of their family, nothing of their struggles and the heartache they've endured - could snap his fingers and take his sister away to an uncertain future was barbaric. If only they could run away, but there was nowhere Kurt could take her, nowhere they could go that the King wouldn't catch up with them eventually. It was said, in their small, ignorant city, that he owned the world, but Kurt knew that to be untrue. Kurt knew about the lands beyond their desert. He'd walked their sands, breathed their air. Kurt knew a thing or two about Kings, too, and about those who were loyal to them. Even the vacant desert had eyes and ears. He also knew of a King's vanity, and the lengths they would go to avenge a grudge.

Kurt couldn't risk putting his sister in danger, even if the alternative was losing her forever.

Besides, he would never be able to persuade their father to go with them if they ran. Regardless of how much Kurt despised the man's bigotry, he was still their father. Kurt didn't want to see the man tortured and killed on their behalf.

Kurt barely got halfway into his tale before his sister fell fast asleep, breathing evenly against his chest. Kurt felt pangs of remorse and sadness echo beneath his breast with every beat of his heart – remorse that he did not return sooner, and sadness that that decision may cost Rachel her life.

The story Kurt had been telling Rachel he wrote for his sister – of a head-strong fairy princess who goes against her father's wishes and, defying all odds, becomes a fierce warrior. He rewrote it as a play when he and his troupe found themselves caught in a rough patch without a coin in their pockets to split. Kurt considered it his good luck story since the character of the princess was inspired entirely by his sister, and she, to him, was the luckiest thing that had happened in his life thus far. The performance went over much better than he had ever dreamed. So popular was it that the audience were brought to their feet, and applauded and cheered for three curtain calls. It got to the point that Kurt wasn't sure they would let him and the troupe leave.

But that was the power of a truly fantastic story. Kurt had observed it many times during his travels. It didn't matter if people knew each other's language or not, subscribed to one another's beliefs, or shared their ancestry. Storytelling transcended all of that. It could build bridges, link gaps, made friends out of foes, brought moments of peace during times of strife.

Kurt had even seen a well-spun tale save a life. Stories held a magic like none other, and Kurt was a true believer, a devotee, and a practitioner, probably one of the best around.

A sudden spark of inspiration struck Kurt, so bright and enormous, he almost leapt from the bed.

That was it. He had it – a way to get his sister out of this mess. And it would work. If he played it just right, it had to work. It might require some sacrifice on his part, but he was willing to make it. He had to. 

There was none other alive he would make such a tremendous sacrifice for.

Kurt smiled and held his sister tight, apprehensive about the future, but almost impatient to see the dawn.

With the memory of that long ago night dancing through his head, the electricity that leapt from person to person during that performance, joining a group of strangers as one, Kurt came up with a plan to save his sister's life.