The following day, the entire group was traveling south, Rina and the remaining second-years included.
With their injuries treated and the prospect of finally leaving the desert ahead of them, they maintained a quicker pace than they had managed in quite some time.
The terrain gradually became more uneven as they retraced Elion's route. Long stretches of sand gave way to barren shelves of stone, their surfaces scoured smooth by the wind, while deep cracks spread through the earth beneath their feet.
Occasionally, they passed a lonely outcropping leaning at an unnatural angle, its base half buried beneath drifts of pale dust.
For a while now, they had been walking toward a rising wall of smoke, stretching for miles on end, and the closer they got to it, they quicker the group walked, curious to see what could possibly be the source.
There was little conversation by the time they reached the final rise.
