Naihabi Ridge

Epilogue

My stomach growled and I tried to massage the headache out of my mind, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't stop smiling. It's weird, really, how giddy I was even when we were in the middle of a desert in the dead of day with some rickety wooden carts and half as much food and water as we'd expected. Yeah, as it turned out, the cart Pasha and Oriole took had no food. We'd figured it out after the first five or so hours.
    
Right now, almost everyone was asleep, myself included until about three minutes ago. The only people who stayed awake were those whose shift it was to work the crank and one or two lookouts; everyone else was too tired from their shift or hadn't really woken up from the first time they passed out.
    
For the most part, the desert was silent. The only noise was that of the hot wind and the occasional thump of the carts over a rock or something, and the landscape was as flat and desolate as though someone had plowed it. It was eerie, at times, when the wind would kick up dust and sound like a voice singing in the silence.
    
The other thing I noticed, as I laid on my back with my head propped on my arm, was how incredibly breathtaking the sky was during the sleepless nights. The stars were so bright and innumerable that they seemed endless, and sometimes, I could even see nebulas, bright clouds of color in the sky, like a divine being painting the vast expanses of the universe.
    
I had never been one for astronomy, but over the last few nights, I had really come to appreciate it. Last night, I'd recognized some constellations Hannah had taught me through her makeshift telescope, which was pretty much just a piece of warped window glass and a tube made of parchment. Nothing like the fancy telescopes in the capital, but good enough for our purposes. I laughed again at the thought of reuniting with her and Lillian. Mom and Dad would be happy to see me, too.
    
"Hey..." I turned my head to see Oriole focusing almost deliriously on the horizon. "Do you also see something that looks like a big stick up ahead?"
    
I squinted, following her gaze, and after a second, I spotted it. A small, black, cactus-looking thing sticking up over the expanse of sand. In a moment of hope, I peered over the side of the cart into the sand. I scanned the ground as we kept going, then I saw a broken, dried up piece of bark in the dust, meaning that some form of shrub or tree was near enough that a strong wind could blow it out into these sands. I shot her a look, unable to contain my joy, and I laughed. "Yes, I see it, Oriole! I see it!"
    
For we both knew the twig that we saw on the horizon was not in fact a twig, but a tower.

The Ethenbrook trade post.