After an after­noon of march­ing, the air glows yellow-orange in the sun­set. The wind is flecked with sand. It’s espe­cially bad near the ground. Gil is glad that his robe is too big for him and so cov­ers his feet pretty well, but even so, they itch like mad.

The natives set up their camp behind the outer curve of a huge barchan. But even in the dune’s shel­ter, the wind is ter­ri­ble.

Hat­van and Kripa attempt to set up their prison-tent far away from the main camp. But the tent keeps on blow­ing away. They resign them­selves to putting the tent only a stone’s throw away from the rest of the natives’ tents.

Gil is eager to get into his tent and escape the painful wind. But then he spots Ayan walk­ing towards them, accom­pa­nied by what looks like a leper wrapped in ban­dages and rough brown cloth.

The two guards head off towards the main camp, pulling their head cov­er­ings close to their faces. Mean­while, Ayan ush­ers Gil and Kiddu inside.

While the ban­daged man stands at the tent entrance, Ayan sits down on the sand and uncov­ers a sun­stone from the folds of her robe. She also brings out two pieces of flat­bread and a small clay jar.

With­out hes­i­ta­tion, Kiddu uncov­ers the jar and digs in, smear­ing her flat­bread with the golden ooze.

Gil tries not to stare at the ban­daged man. But he won­ders who in the hell he is and what he’s doing in their tent.

Kiddu shrugs and shoves more honey-covered bread into her mouth. Dron­aja turns to Gil.

For a sec­ond, Gil is ter­ri­fied that Dron­aja is going to ask him what he’s talk­ing about. But the Azkazraj chief just gives a con­fused shrug.

He wraps his head­scarf tighter around his charred flesh. Ayan fol­lows him out of the tent, tak­ing her sunstone’s glow­ing light with her.

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