Everythingshifted.He was staring at the sun.There was warmth on his face.There was afeeling of ice crawling through his chest.
“Hey,hey.”Zaria’s face, one eye wide.“Stay awake.”
Histhroat was dry.
“Lookat me!”
The skywas blue.There were veins of rock along the escarpment walls, entire geologiesof sediment.There was tugging somewhere below.He shifted again, and there wassand and broken metal.He saw a pile of black.There was blood.Limbs.A face.
Uncle.
“Isaac!”
Berith.
Wait.
No.
Uncle.
Had he?
“Isaac!”
Wait.
No.
Wait.
Wait.
Uncle....
He woketo the gentle flapping of cloth, straining against the wind.
For a moment,he thought he was back in the desert.The air was hot, and there was sand onhis skin, and sunlight was beating down on the roof of his tent.His musclesached.His lips were cracked and split.
On thisparticular day, his eyes had opened to the slanting fabric of his tent, and hehad known that he was soon to die of thirst.His thoughts had been muddy andscattered, his muscles uncompliant.He had crawled out into the belly of a dryriver gulch, fingers scrabbling through the cracked dirt, realizing his onlyhope was to head into the dunes and search for the oasis detailed on his map.Instead, he had clashed with a skimmer full of pirates, and he had met Zaria,and she had given him water.
Zaria.The tomb.
Hisfather....
Heblinked.He was in his tent again, lying on top of a bedroll.There was stonebeneath him, and sand blowing through the holes of the fabric.Beneath thewind, he began to hear voices.
“...can’t go together.Too big a target.”He recognized Zaria’s voice, low andrough.“They’ll be rousing the constabulary of every town worth mention.”
“Mysister’s still home,” a male voice said, one that Isaac did not recognize.“Myaunt.My grandfather.I have to warn them.”
“Wouldn’ttry it, personally,” Zaria replied.“Might be you get there before the newsspreads.Might just get stopped in the road.Next thing you know, you’rehauling irons for murder and treason.Your kin’llcatch the same charge, if they’re seen with you.”
Somewhere,a woman was sobbing.She sounded as if she had been doing so for quite a while.
Therewas a tingling sensation running down his arm.Isaac recognized it immediately.Soldier’s Rest.It was the same poultice he had given to Zaria in thenecropolis, and the same poultice he had always used for himself, whenever thelashes of the cane had left him too debilitated to study.
Who hadmade this?
