the sun reached noon, they headed east toward the desert.

For several hours of riding, the land remained green. Around him lay the wheat crop that Imperial City so depended on. Patches of watermelon, wiry pomegranate trees, and green rows of chickpeas grew in abundance.

But eventually the greenness faded away, and the desert took over: a parched, baking-hot land of cracked red earth. A few hills appeared as a haze in the horizon. Little bits of scrub brush occasionally appeared, but for the most part it was a desolate land.

And so it went for the first day, and the second, and the third. By the fourth day—when their water pouches ran dry, and the thirst began—Claudio realized there were no oases to be found. He had been a foolblack-scaled but with yellow patterns along its back; and orange eyes with such an intense glare he would never forget them.

Water splashed Claudio awake. No longer was he in the salt pan filled with terrible lizards. A face hovered above him: a dark complexion and with long, unshorn black hair.

"Where am I? Who are you?" Claudio said. His throat was very dry.

The man yapped something in a foreign language, and then forced some more water down his throat. He left. Claudio realized he was in a tent of some kind.

A few minutes passed. The man from before returned with a woman of similar dark complexion. With a thick accent, she spoke the Eloesian tongue, in the Ten Cities dialect. Claudio could understand most of it: "I am translator,"