Chapter 1
Published 1 April 2025
The desert Rubaa lay bare for miles all around, glowing red-hot under the torrid heat of the merciless midday sun. The barren wastes were desolate and unforgiving to all but the tenacious creatures of the earth. And yet, Iesha ne-Kuduri trudged along the rolling red sands, seemingly unaffected by the sun. Still, she ran calloused fingers over her dried lips, her left hand probing at her side for a waterskin that was no longer there. She tried her best to ignore the ringing in her ears and the dryness of her tongue, now more like scratchy wool in her mouth.
The monk’s unshod footprints trailed behind her along the burning wastes, evaporating in the wind that whipped up her garments—a red shawl frayed along its trailing edge, a yellow-dyed breast-band, and loosely fitted trousers in shades of ocean and earth girdled by a silk rope. On her waist, a leather knife sheath hung. Sun-bronzed skin stretched over her lean, battle-hardened frame, covered in half-healed scars and other evidences of past traumas. Her long brown hair, rich like Nashti carob, was matted and tousled, falling just past her shoulders that it might protect her neck from the worst of the sun’s rays. Jade eyes, rimmed with fading kohl, stared out into the distance.
Something shimmered on the horizon, and Iesha paused to fix her gaze to it. Afar, she could make out pillars erect in the desert, jutting out at odd angles.
Let that be my journey’s end, she thought, or are you yet another mirage?
She closed her eyes and counted with her fingers, feet still pressing into the sand with practiced ease, half-expecting the pillars to vanish after opening her eyes. The pillars stood fixed upon the horizon, and a slight smile broached Iesha’s cracked lips as she continued her trek across the wastes.
