Now that they had been trekking across it for some time, Silus was beginning to appreciate the beauty of the desert. It wasn’t quite the arid, lifeless landscape that he had first thought. Instead, it seemed to be a living entity in itself, its moods changing with the hour of the day. Dawn would see it whisper into life, the wind finding its voice as it hissed across the dunes, gently rousing them from sleep. The pale sun would soon grow in intensity, however, and they would struggle against its glare, the heat mocking them by conjuring up mirages of cool, clear water that disappeared the moment they drew close. At the height of the day they would take sanctuary in tents and shelters, though even out of the sun the heat was incredible and they could do nothing but sit and watch the sand phantoms dance before them, too tired to even talk to one another. Once the sun began its slow trek down the sky, they would set off again, their journey becoming easier as the land gave up its heat and the soft wind cooled the sweat on their backs.

All this toil was worth it, Silus kept telling himself, for the sunsets.

He had never thought of sand as having any colour, but as the sun began to dip behind the dunes it revealed the full palette of the desert — from a fiery red to a deep midnight blue. Despite being drained from each day’s journey, he and Katya would sit and watch the display, apart from the rest of the camp, not talking but holding each other; and this, for now, was enough.

Lead by Illiun, the crew of the Llothriall and a selection of people from the settlement had set out several days earlier, having sufficiently provisioned themselves from the ship. Silus and his friends had got on peaceably enough with their new companions, though Kelos had a distrust of the three silver-eyed men who accompanied them. The silent servants talked to no one but Illiun, seemed to take no food or water and, at night, they didn’t sleep, but stood watch over the camp, unmoving as they stared into the desert. “I don’t like those things,” Kelos had confided in Silus. “They’re not natural.”