Jaruna helps Gil to his feet. They leave Kiddu behind and carefully make their way outside the tent.
In the dim, unearthly yellow light that emanates from Ayan’s stone, Gil makes out Kripa and Hatvan flanking the entrance to the tent.
Kripa silently steps back to his post.
Ahead, the desert stretches out endlessly, a sea of undulating blackness only a few shades darker than the star-sprinkled sky.
In Libri, there were always torchlights or litlamps somewhere that glowed in the night. But in the desert, the night is total, all-enveloping, a tangible, solid presence.
The cold wind washes over Gil, and for a moment he feels as though he is swimming in a black abyss. But Ayan’s ghostly yellow stone brings him back to the solid earth. It carves out an oval-shaped swath of light on the sloped ground, the sole color in the world.
They trudge up a sand dune, and behind him Gil can faintly see a tent city spread out in a valley.
Gil isn’t sure why, but he feels happy all of the sudden—wondrously happy, even.
Jaruna was right. The stars are beautiful. He had never seen them so clearly before. They etch lines and patterns in the sky, vague white shapes that seem to beckon to him, with spindly, glowing hands and tentacles.
He stops walking and just stares up at the sky, mouth agape.
